Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Thank you to all my reviewers!

"blah" speech
"blah" thoughts
"blah" Kyuubi's speech
"blah" Kyuubi's thoughts

Q: About making Naruto uber powerful?
A: Yes and no, it's hard to answer so early in the story. Actually I can't give a proper answer without spoilers.

Q: About Naruto going back to Konoha?
A: I have many 'wonderful' years of training planned.

Q: How long had Naruto been training?
A: I don't really keep track of real-time training. I have an overall schedule, so at certain points I'll make a refernce to how much time has gone by, but don't expect me to make weekly (story-time) comments.

Glorifying the Ancient and putting down Naruto? Well, I'll agree slightly with the first part, but the latter? I don't think I'm putting him down. In a way, I'm trying to show the level difference between him and Naruto...

Training, at least this part of it, is staring to bore me too... so it's gonna to be somewhat sped up in this chapter.

Now then, horribly sorry about not updating, but spring quarter was killer.

One last thing, this for all those people out there who threaten their readers with discontinuing the story if they don't review enough: You do realize that if you stop updating you're also gonna stop getting reviews... And if you really want more reviews, MAKE YOUR STORY BETTER!

As of 9/23/08: Grammatical changes.


Chapter 12 – Course of Doom

The Ancient opened his eyes, blinking several times as if he had just come out of a prolonged state of trance. He looked around and found Naruto punching and kicking a training dummy, which the young man had set up two days earlier.

'That thing looks beat to hell,' he thought with confusion. Yashka looked up and noticed that the sun was about an hour away from setting. 'Oh,' he realized somewhat dismayed. It turned out that he had been in trance for about a day and a half. 'Well that's not good,' he thought briefly. After all, he had 'woken up' about 300 years ago and wasn't scheduled to 'fall asleep' for another seven, or so, hundred more years. However, these trances were fairly accurate indicators of overall fatigue and the Ancient used them to determine when he would have to hibernate again and for how long.

That's right, the Ancient takes time off from his job to sleep for a prolonged period of time, like a millennia or two. This serves two purposes: first is that his body is able to rebuild itself with completely new tissue, thus allowing him to stay young and vigorous, and the second is that it is simply too boring to stay awake if nothing interesting is happening. Yashka is gifted with a narrow range of prophet abilities; constrained to only being able to predict events that will require his intervention. Thus he would set an advanced alarm clock that would get him up ten years before the prophesized time.

The last wake up call being the waning of the global war that would lead to the formation of the Hidden Villages and the isolation of the Shinobi World from the rest of the chaos happening around the globe; that is, once Yashka interfered. The solution had been simple: kill the reigning general of the Elites, thus stopping him from leading an assault on the eastern rebel province, which was evacuating into the far east beyond the Radiation Lands. With the general dead, all activity halted and the rebels were able to safely evacuate; flee, being a better description of it.

Yashka shook his head; memory lane was getting the better of him. He had much more pressing issues to deal with, like why Naruto wasn't practicing his blocks. The young man stood up and walked over to his student.

"Hey, glad to see you awake," greeted Naruto as he continued punching the dummy.

Yashka blinking, Naruto hadn't even needed to turn around to know that he was coming; that was unusual. Then he suddenly remembered that a trance lasting more that 24 hours would nullify his presence eraser, and a trance lasting more than 48 hours would nullify his chakra eraser. 'Good thing that didn't happen,' he though with a frown as he reset the presence eraser. 'I don't want Naruto to know just how much power I have yet.'

Naruto took a quick glance behind him and was surprised to find the Ancient still standing right there. "I thought you would have left," he commented.

"I'm too tired," said Yashka as he stretched.

Naruto's face fell into a frown, "Hey, you've been asleep for 37 hours now, you can't be tired."

"Sure you can," countered the Ancient. "What, never heard of too much sleep?" Naruto shook his head. "Well, then, you don't live a sloth enough lifestyle." Yashka's face split into a lazy, silly grin. "But that's not the point here. The point is why aren't you doing your blocks?"

"I already mastered those," replied the blonde.

"Show me," ordered Yashka falling into a loose stance. "I'll attack, slowly, and you block using only the blocks I taught you." Naruto nodded and Yashka attacked.

The Ancient did in fact go slowly, but only to start off. Once he figured out that Naruto had at least learned the blocks, he started speeding up and forcing the blonde to block almost on instinct. A few minutes later the Ancient stopped and nodded once. "Good, good," he mused. "You slipped up a couple times, using blocks taught to you in the academy, but overall you did very well."

"That's only because you attacked at breakneck speeds," yelled Naruto.

"Nah," replied the Ancient in a drawn out tone.

'He was only testing me, huh?' Naruto smirked, "So more advanced blocks now?" he wondered.

"Nope, those are all the blocks this style has," informed Yashka.

Naruto's mouth hung open, "No way."

"Yeah, this style is ninety percent attack and five percent blocks," explained Yashka.

"Then what's the other five percent?"

"Watching your opponent and waiting for them to give you an opening," the Ancient smirked. "As I told you before, this style is based on speed and agility. You're not supposed give your opponent time to attack, if you ever find yourself being pushed back while using this style that means you're doing something wrong."

"My speed, huh?" said Naruto as he looked at the third gate.

"Don't worry about the course for now. Come, let us spar a little," Yashka flipped back to a proper fighting distance. "I'll show you a few combinations from the style," his tone did not allow for any disagreement and Naruto stepped away from the training dummy and slipped into a loose version of the stance he had learned.

The two fighters watched each other for little bit before the older one lowered his presence eraser and attacked. Yashka rushed in with a seemingly straight punch, but just as Naruto went to block it, the Ancient disappeared. Naruto felt a presence behind him and ducked just fast enough that the kick only grazed his hair. However, when the blond was going to go for a counter he found that the Ancient was nowhere to be found. Just as he stood up, though, his legs were taken out from under him and he found himself down on the ground with a knife to his throat.

The look in Yashka's eyes was terrifying; it was completely devoid of emotions. It seemed as though he could have killed his student right there and not have felt the slightest bit of remorse. Naruto was awestruck as he watched those dead eyes change to cheerful ones in just one blink.

"Sorry, it seems I attacked at too high of a level," said the Ancient in a slightly nervous tone. Yashka stood up and pulled Naruto up with him, "I think it would be better if I showed you the moves on the training dummy." Naruto nodded slowly but didn't say anything. The rest of the time till nightfall was spent with Yashka showing Naruto some of the more advanced moves, and then correcting Naruto as he practiced them.

The better part of the next week was spent in the same way. Naruto would wake up early and either practice taijutsu or work out in the gym for the first part of the day, then have a light spar with Yashka. The Kyuubi had been quiet the entire week and, as unusual as that was, Naruto didn't notice it. The blond ninja in question had been progressing better than the Ancient had expected; a fact that left the immortal with a strangely happy grin on his face.

"Hey, Naruto," yelled the Ancient interrupting the blonde's training. "I think it's about time you tried the third course."

Naruto's face showed shock and worry, but he nodded nonetheless. The pair walked over to the third gate, at which point Yashka pressed a stone in the left support and six screens appeared on the gate. "I'm actually going to give you a demonstration of this course," said the young man. The Ancient then explained that the screens would allow Naruto to see him as he traversed the training course. With that Yashka walked through the gate, the screens immediately flickered to focus on him.

Naruto watched with amazement as his teacher did flips, twists, and twirls to avoid getting hit; some of the projectiles passing just a couple centimeters from Yashka. 'Wow,' and 'damn,' were the only things going through Naruto's head at this point. The Kyuubi chuckled lightly at what she was seeing. She had once seen the Ancient fight and the acrobatic aspect of avoiding these traps was directly used in his fighting style; this would be very good for her kit.

A little while later, the Ancient emerged from the gates and the screens faded. "Looks like I'm a little rusty," Yashka commented as he looked himself over and saw the tears on his pants and a few burn marks on his robe.

Naruto watched flabbergasted, 'And he expects me to be able to go through this course?' wonder Naruto in alarm. The blonde suddenly realized something important, "Wait, why did you demonstrate the course if it doesn't change?"

Yashka smirked slyly and he chuckled darkly, "This course does change. In fact, it is completely random each time through."

Naruto's face paled, "Completely random? You mean I have to be able to either sense the traps or be fast enough to get myself out of harm's way?" Yashka nodded. "That's insane!"

Yashka nodded once more, "And how many strong, sane people have you seen in your life? Uchiha Itachi, for example, completely off his gasket; same for Orochimaru. Hell, same for the leader of the Akatsuki who wants the power of all the tailed beasts. Plus, you've got to consider the frame of reference; from whose point of view are they crazy? From their enemy's, of course. If you look at it that way, everyone in the Akatsuki is crazy, but from the point of view of the organization they are completely sane people with a monstrosity of a goal." The Ancient took a deep breath, "I'm getting off course. So, chop, chop, in you go," he pushed Naruto towards the gate.

"Wait, wait, wait," protested Naruto.

"No waiting, you've been waiting and training for a week now," Yashka's face darkened suddenly. "You're going now," he said in non-questionable tone. Naruto took a deep breath and stepped through the gate.

Once inside the blonde found himself in a forest, 'Great, just like last time,' he thought. He took a step forward and noticed a red line appear ten yards in front of him, which he deduced to be the starting line. Naruto took another deep breath as he closed his eyes and expanded his senses as much as he could. The boy then opened his eyes and stepped up to the red line, 'Here we go,' he thought as he stepped over the line.

Almost instantly, Naruto felt something flying towards him. He jumped up to a near tree well in advance and a couple shuriken hit the stop where he had just been standing. 'According to Yashka-sensei's demonstration there are a lot more ninjutsu based traps than anything else.' Naruto suddenly realized another thing, 'The traps were all close together.'

With his advanced hearing Naruto heard two clicks go off consecutively, one to the right and another right behind Naruto. However, the blonde saw two fireballs coming at him from both left and right. Naturally he jumped up to avoid both, the problem lay in the fact that that move had been predicted and Naruto found himself just barely twisting out of the way of half a dozen throwing knives; not all of which he managed to escape.

Landing down on the ground, Naruto swore lightly as he quickly pulled out the projectile that had caught him in the leg. 'But there were only two clicks, I'm sure of it!'

"Two clicks going off at exactly the same time and one going off slightly later," said the Kyuubi, "thus making it sound like only two." Naruto grumbled, it made sense, but that didn't mean he liked it.

The rest of the course continued in a similar fashion. The terrain did change a couple times, first to a rocky area then to a swamp area. The swamp had some genjutsu traps built which by them selves weren't too hard to get out of, but with the combined needle traps Naruto came out looking like a porcupine. All in all, Naruto had several burns on his arms and legs, needles and shuriken sticking out all over his body, not to mention the Raiton jutsu that managed to him square in the back.

Naruto came out of the gate not even bothering to hide the anger in his eyes; too bad the Ancient was nowhere to be found or the blonde would have taken out his anger on a live target. Instead he was forced to completely obliterate the training dummy; at least that was his excuse for the pieces of training dummy scattered about in front of the cottage. Yashka didn't seem to mind too much, he just calmly applied a healing seal to Naruto's lower back, which he removed later that night after all the wounds had healed.

"It didn't go too bad, did it?" Yashka asked in an amused voice.

"Not too bad?" yelled Naruto. "I almost died!"

"But you didn't die," calmly said the Ancient. "In fact, you made it out with minimal injuries. I'd say you did quite well. Now, you've just got to improve your senses and you'll be set."

"More meditation?" asked the blond.

"A little of that, but mostly just going through the course many times," explained the Ancient. "I, actually, suggest you meditate right before starting each training course. Then when you feel your senses improving meditate less and less until it becomes inane." Naruto listened carefully and made a note to implement exactly that.

Naruto spent the next several weeks either in the third training course, meditating, in the gym, or practicing his taijutsu. The increase in agility from avoiding the traps directly carried over into being able to perform some of the more complicated attacks in Naruto's taijutsu training. And it also turned out that the Ancient had lied, there were more blocks in the taijutsu style that he was learning. As Yashka put it, he had conveniently forgotten about them since they were blocks using legs. The Ancient had told Naruto that he could go from virtually any kick into a block if the situation so demanded.

Naruto had also figured out how to start using his surroundings well in battle, like jumping off of trees to get behind his opponent or as a means of quick redirection to surprise your enemy. Though Naruto had already learned most of the attacks of taijutsu style, he was nowhere near mastery or proficiency.

"This style," asked Naruto during a short break, "did you make it up yourself?"

"There were styles similar to it in my home world," explained the Ancient. "I really just took what I liked from fast-paced styles and combined it all together. I never was able to come up with a good name for it," he frowned at the last part.

Naruto nodded in admiration and respect. "What about there other styles that you're going to teach me?"

"One is defense-intensive with all the attack being based on counters," the Ancient replied. "And the last one is similar to the one you're learning, it'll serve mostly as an add-on. This one actual has a name, Hidden Claw." Yashka quickly extended the fingers on his right hand showing off black inch-long claws. He slowly twisted his hand around letting Naruto see them from all sides.

"Why are they black?" wondered the blonde.

"It's based on a person's dark side; mine's pitch black," Yashka slowly retracted his claws. "I learned the style a couple worlds ago from a shape-shifting clan," A small wistful grazed the Ancient's face at which Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Fond memories," explained Yashka. "Well, break's over."

Naruto nodded and shifted into a meditating position, staying in it for a couple minutes before going into the obstacle course. Yashka sighed as he took out a dozen soul charms, which seemed to be colored coded into red, yellow, and a single black. He started going through them by pressing his thumb into one and staring into space for a moment, 'No,' he tossed it aside and it vanished after traveling a foot. The Ancient repeated this pattern for several more charms before stopping on one, 'Maybe,' he thought as he let it drop into his lap.

Once he had gone through all the charms Yashka held the remaining ones in his left palm. 'Only four, huh? Well less to eliminate then. Now which of these would be the most fitting and against which does Naruto have at least a chance of winning?' The Ancient smirked as he picked up the single black soul charm and tossed out the rest, 'Challenges are always good.' Once that was done Yashka pulled out a notebook with a pen and put on a serious face.

Meanwhile Naruto was quickly trying to run away from a series of explosions that were going off at his heels. "What the hell! Can't I get a break?" he yelled.

"I think it's meant to keep you on your toes," commented the Kyuubi at which Naruto grimaced. "Well, the traps are activated by proximity, so you could try sneaking by them."

"If I knew where they were, I would do exactly that," responded the blonde. "After all, it's not like the traps would give off chakra signatures, right?" The Kyuubi shrugged mumbling something about not putting it past the Ancient to do something like that.

It really boggled Naruto's mind how the third course not only had random traps each time, well many were the same they were just randomly placed, but also had a random terrain each time. The terrain seemed to mix of all the possible environments in the world, a desert oasis might turn out to be a swamp a couple dozen yards behind which sat a thick forest in the middle of which might be huge lake.

It was the forests and/or jungles that Naruto learned to hate the most. The traps could be planted on the smallest of twigs, which would then explode and toss the blonde into the middle of a clearing that was rigged with a Raiton jutsu and it would also just so happen that the clearing would have an anti-Doton seal on it, so Naruto couldn't even put up a barrier or sink into the ground. Thus leaving with two options: to dodge the attack, which is just a bit hard when the jutsu fills up the entire field, or to try and block with his kunai that was coated in chakra, of course. But try as he could, Naruto mostly just got fried.

The Ancient had already made a comment about Naruto becoming a deep-fried fox, at which the blonde snarled angrily. Naruto made a note to ask Yashka exactly how these traps worked. But that would be taken care of later; right now the blonde had to make it to the finish. Luckily just beyond the clearing Naruto found the lowly arched doorway that marked the staircase down to the underground arena. Naruto presumed that his final opponent would be at least his level or higher.

For being an underground facility the arena was well lit by several giant squares of artificial light sources, which were bright yet not blinding. The ceiling and walls were made out of cement blocks, while the floor was paved out of gray stone. The arena was about the same size as Konoha's stadium, maybe even a little bigger. A single staircase led down to the arena floor and there were no other entrances, as far as Naruto could see.

Upon descending to the arena floor Naruto was instantly teleported out of training course. The blonde blinked in surprise since he had always been teleported to the beginning of the course. Then Naruto noticed that the moon and stars were out and realized that he had been in the training course for longer than he had thought; his thoughts were reassured by the loud growling of his stomach.

Yashka had once again prepared a feast as if he were feeding a family of ten; though he and Naruto managed to eat it all.

"Yashka-sensei, how do the traps in the training course work?" wondered Naruto.

The Ancient smirked, "They're Proxy Seals." His smirk got bigger when he saw the confused look on his student's face, "It's a very convenient little thing into which a jutsu instruction is sealed."

Naruto blinked, "Jutsu instruction? You mean the necessary chakra and its sequence?"

"Precisely," Yashka nodded, "and the seal activates once the proxy condition has been fulfilled."

"So it activates when someone comes close enough to it," reasoned the blonde and his teacher nodded. "That's good," praised Naruto.

"Yup, and these seals get randomly scattered around the training course after the terrain has been constructed. That's really all that training course is, just a bunch of random things all randomly put together each time someone goes through it."

"That's why there's the occasional odd-ball fire jutsu on a tree top?"

Yashka nodded, "I tried to make the randomizer autonomous in terms of logical placement of traps, but it glitches occasionally."

"About these Proxy Seals, so any jutsu can be sealed into them?" inquired Naruto.

"Technically, yes, but the chakra signature each seal gives off increased with the amount of chakra sealed into it," explained the Ancient. "That's the biggest reason you aren't subject to Karyuu Endan no Jutsu."

"For which I'm thankful," muttered Naruto. "But if they have a chakra signature then that means I should be able to sense them, right?"

Yashka nodded, "Yes, but I'm sure you also understand that since the necessary chakra is sealed that the signature is a lot smaller than what it would be if a real person were to use the technique." Naruto nodded in understanding. "Of course, you must still be wondering how come you haven't been able to sense them," Naruto nodded again. "That's because if the seals are farther away from the surface, for instance if a Doton Explosion Proxy Seal is buried deep in the ground you may not sense the signature at all."

Naruto tilted his head to the side with a thoughtful look on his face, "Am I correct to assume that the jutsu originates from the seal?"

The Ancient laughed, "Correct, and you're wondering that if it's buried really deep then you won't feel the effects?"

"Exactly, even a mid-powered explosion won't have any effect past a certain depth."

"Yes, a balance must always be kept between how you hide it and the result you want to attain."

Naruto processed all this information, "Then how do I sense them if they could be hidden?"

"The same way you would sense enemies," Yashka winked at Naruto, "those also try to hide themselves. Oh and I forgot to tell you, I don't expect you to get through this course without tripping any traps. That test will simply be omitted this time; you'll simply have to get through it unscratched and then fight that thing."

Naruto raised an eyebrow; it wasn't like the Ancient to even hint at who he would have to fight. The glint in Yashka's eye only served to confirm Naruto's suspicions that his opponent was going to be hard.

A month went by before Naruto even attempted to pass the test. The blonde almost made it through when a very well hidden trap nicked him on the ankle when he was only a couple yards away from the finish. To say that Naruto was mad would have been an understatement; especially since Yashka had said that there would be only one test per day and that the remainder of the day Naruto would have to work to perfect his taijutsu. When Naruto came out of the training course he was ready to decimate everything in sight. Yashka managed to hit his student on the back of the neck and knock him out before Naruto could destroy the house they were living in. When Naruto woke up a couple hours later, the Ancient told him to convert any anger he still felt into productive training energy.

Naruto snarled, "Destruction is productive training."

"On the contrary, destruction – by nature – is not productive," was the calm response. After carefully studying his enraged student Yashka proposed that they spar and Naruto was quick to agree. Since Naruto let his emotions go it wasn't as good as the usual spar, but Naruto still managed to hold his own; at least to the level that the Ancient was fighting him at.

The two fighters quickly narrowed the distance between each other. The Ancient went in for a straight punch to the gut, but was blocked by Naruto left leg as the blonde jumped up to deliver a horizontal kick. Yashka ducked under the kick and rolled away as Naruto twisted his body, such that it was in a position parallel to the ground, and punched downwards.

Naruto landed in on his arms and legs in a crouched animalistic position and instantly raised his head to see what his opponent was doing. "You're looking too late and/or not using your senses well enough," was the critique that came from much too close on Naruto's left; the blonde was instantly forced on the defensive as Yashka attacked. The Ancient had been right, this wasn't a defensive style, either you controlled the tempo or your opponent would destroy you. It was even harder for Naruto to make a successful counter-attack when Yashka was doing such a marvelous job at pushing hit own tempo.

Naruto's anger at not being able to regain control was not helped out with how frustrated he had been when he came into the spar. Finally, after almost half a minute of simply blocking Yashka's attacks Naruto decided he had had enough and attempted to counter. However, this was just the opportunity his opponent had been waiting for. As Naruto threw a punch, the Ancient dodged and grabbed his outstretched arm, then using it as a support Yashka quickly swung his legs up and savagely kneed Naruto in the face; at the same time letting go of the blonde's arm.

Naruto was thrown back across the field and flipped on the ground several times before friction finally stopped him. After lying on the ground for several moments, Naruto pushed himself up into a crouch and spit some blood from his mouth. He then eyed his teacher with narrowed eyes.

"You got too hasty; patience, my dear student, patience," the young man said in that ever-mocking superior tone that he loved to use in battle. It served so well to enrage his opponents, and the young Uzumaki was not an exception. Emotions, aside from lack of skill, are the reason people lose battles. Confusion, desperation, anger, fear; these were all merely examples of what even the most battle hardened warrior could feel. Yashka sought to teach Naruto to suppress these emotions or, if that were not possible, to teach him how to fight with them.

This was a prime example of the latter. Anger, if controlled properly, could become such a powerful tool in battle; and with Naruto's future revenge agenda it was definitely one he needed to learn to control and reap the benefits of. For now, his student was using it blindly and hence it blinded him, but Yashka would make sure – oh yes, he would definitely make sure – that Naruto had immaculate control of at least this one emotion before their training was complete.

Since the Ancient hadn't directly specified that this was a taijutsu-only spar, Naruto decided to get creative and after forming several hand seals slammed his palms into the ground.

"You're not supposed to use jutsus," said Yashka as he expertly avoided the mesh of spikes that came out of the ground.

Naruto smirked defiantly, "No, you didn't deliberately state that this time."

Yashka laughed, "You don't want to have an open spar with me because I could do something…" he disappeared from across the field and the next thing Naruto knew he was skidding back along the ground again, this time with his wind knocked out, "like that."

Naruto knew his teacher was fast, really fast, but he simply couldn't comprehend how Yashka had just done that. 'It's like he teleported in less than a quarter of a second and still had time to gain enough momentum to punch me that hard.'

The Kyuubi inside Naruto grumbled, "I think I know what he did…"

Naruto's eyes shown with glee, 'Really? Could you teach me?'

"No, sorry kit, but he's really the only one that can teach you something like that."

"Sorry about that, Naruto," Yashka's voice cut through Naruto and Kyuubi's chat. "I used that technique even though you had no chance to block or counter. It was unfair of me, and for that I'm sorry."

"It's alright, I did kind of deserve it since I broke the rules," replied Naruto.

"No, it's fine, since I did not explicitly state that the match was to be taijutsu-only."

Naruto shook his head, "No, we always fight with that rule, so it is practically assumed now."

The Ancient nodded, "Then we both a made a mistake." Naruto nodded in agreement, thus signifying that no one was to be blamed. "Though you do need to learn to gain control over your emotions," added the young man.

"I know, but it's just that so much raw chakra pools together when I'm angry," explained Naruto. "I just don't know what to do with it besides spending it on some huge jutsu."

Yashka shrugged, "It's pretty easy, just use it to power your punches or kicks, increase your speed, enhance your senses," he shrugged again, "distributing chakra isn't really the hard part. Keeping your mind clear is what's hard."

"Yeah, I just get the urge to destroy, maim, and kill," replied Naruto. "I don't know if that's just because of the Kyuubi or not."

"So you think this is my fault?" yelled the fox. "How dare you blame me for your own problems?" Naruto's face soured as the Kyuubi kept yelling at him, he was so preoccupied try to get a word in he didn't even notice that the Ancient was laughing at his predicament.

As funny as he found this, Yashka finally got tired and shook Naruto until he regained his senses. "Now that you've stopped trying to argue with your woman," he managed to hold back an amused smirk, "I can answer your question. While the Kyuubi certainly can influence your thinking, every human has his own dark side, and taping into that is what makes you want to destroy, maim, and kill."

"So how do I keep my mind clear?" asked Naruto. "How do I suppress this dark side?"

"Clear your mind in about the same way that you would if you were meditating," explained the Ancient. "Of course, unlike meditation you have to keep track of what is happening around you. However, we'll do that training later; right now you have two choices: either we continue this spar, but only if your mind is clear, or you go into the gym."

"Let's keep sparring," replied Naruto.

Yashka nodded, "Then get ready!" and then attacked his blonde student.

The next day Naruto once again tried his hand at passing the third course. This time, however, he got caught in a complex Doton, Katon, and Fuiton trap right at the very beginning.

"C'mon, that was a fluke," yelled the blonde. "And it was right at the beginning, it doesn't even give you a chance to evaluate me."

"I'll have that chance tomorrow," was the Ancient's calm reply.

Naruto was getting annoyed, "That was utter bullshit! Just give me another run at it right now. I'll definitely be able to get through it."

"You sure?"

"Yes," was the confident reply.

"In that case, how about a sort of compromise?" suggested the Ancient.

"What sort of compromise?" asked Naruto cautiously.

The young man grinned, "Well, I'll give your another chance today by borrowing from tomorrow."

"So if I fail I won't be able to try tomorrow, because it will have already been spent, is that it?"

"Exactly," he noticed that Naruto paused to think about it. "Of course, if you're not sure you should just wait until tomorrow."

"No, I'll take that risk," countered the blonde. "However, I have a question. If I make it through the course, but then fail to defeat my opponent will I be able to try and defeat him tomorrow?"

"No, passing the course and defeating him has to be done on the same try."

Naruto grimaced but didn't change his decision. He took a moment to clear his mind and then walked into the gate. Unluckily for Naruto, the first thing he saw was the thick foliage of a forest. 'Well, shit!' However, at this point Naruto couldn't go back; it was all or nothing. Since there was no time limit, Naruto slowly and carefully made his way through the forest, and then a swamp and a small desert.

Deserts, especially ones that were completely filled with sand, are incredibly dangerous. Since the ground (sand) wasn't solid the Proxy Seals could somehow move themselves, Naruto guessed that there must have been two seals right next to each other and the movement one would activate before the seal with the jutsu. But no matter how it was set up, the problem was that Naruto would think that he had managed to sneak past the trap when it was actually quite active and following him. The only upside was that the only seals in the deserts seemed to be moving ones, so if Naruto simply ran through as fast as he could then the traps would just go off behind him.

After several other close calls, Naruto finally made it to the temple not only in one piece but also unscratched. Just as the young shinobi was about to do a victory dance a black mist appeared on the other side of the arena.

'There's my opponent,' thought Naruto. 'The black mist can't be good.'

"No shit, stupid."

'Just commenting... Jeez.'

The fox grumbled but focused its attention on the mist, "This can't be good." Then a sudden realization hit the Kyuubi. "He couldn't have…"

"Couldn't have what…?" Naruto couldn't finish his question as his opponent stepped out of the mist and into the artificial light of the arena.

It was a dark blue creature standing several heads taller than Naruto, a long scaled tail hung loosely on its right, scales of an even darker shade of blue covered its torso, more scales were visible covering its shins and ankles. The creature had long claws on its feet and hands; it stood slightly hunched over with its obsidian wings folded behind its back. Its black eyes seemed to focus on Naruto and it snarled showing its very pointed, and probably very sharp, white teeth.

'It's a demon,' thought Naruto. 'And given the ceiling clearance, those wings could very easily be used for flight.'

"Yes," concurred the Kyuubi. "And probably not from this world since it doesn't seem to recognize me."

Before Naruto could make any more observations, the creature rushed at him at about the same speed that the Ancient used during their spars. Naruto jumped to the side in an effect to dodge the creature's claws. The demon let out a roar when it found that its prey had moved and quickly jumped after Naruto.

Meanwhile Naruto circled around the demon and tried to attack it from the back by throwing a kunai at the back of its neck. However, the kunai simply bounced off the scales, not harming the creature at all. Naruto's attack had of course alerted the demon to where the blonde was and it attacked at the same speed as before. This time Naruto waited for it to get closer before jumping at the creature using the arm that it had stretched out to claw him as a stepping stool to get up to the demon's eye level and knee it in the face, much like Yashka had done to him only a day earlier.

Since the creature didn't have any scales on its face Naruto's attack actually hurt it, but didn't send it flying. So before Naruto could get away, the demon grabbed him by his jacket and tossed him halfway across the arena. The blonde twisted his body around in midair and landed on his toes just in time to avoid another strike from the monster.

"Use your jutsus!" yelled Kyuubi.

Naruto blinked as he realized this wasn't a spar between him and the Ancient, so he quickly made several hand seals, "Doton: Tracking Spikes," he said as his palms touched the ground. The dozens of spikes that came up out of the ground didn't just go straight up but followed the movements of the creature, thus cutting him up in several places where the scales didn't cover. After the third or fourth cut the creature got tired of the spikes, spread its wings and rose up above them.

This didn't faze Naruto in the least as he started making new hand seals as soon as he saw the creature spread its wings. "Suiton: Teppo Dama," Naruto then shot out three bullets at the flying creature, but unlike that one time with Gamabunta this demon could maneuver in the air and the bullets simply missed him; the young shinobi mentally kicked himself for not realizing this. As he was consulting with the Kyuubi on what to do the demon swooped down and managed to rip the flesh on Naruto's left shoulder before he could properly block or dodge.

Naruto rolled away while holding his shoulder in pain, 'Damn it! I let my guard down and I paid for it.' The blond quickly looked around the arena for anything he could use, but saw nothing. Meanwhile, the demon had soared up once more and was planning its next attack. 'How the hell do I get up there? It's not like I can fly,' Naruto's mind raced to find some answers. The teenager was forced to dodge several more swooping attacks as well as one dive-bombing attack before he mentally slapped himself for his own stupidity.

He was a ninja after all and ninja could walk on walls, as well as ceilings. So he did what the Ancient had started teaching him to do: use his surroundings for as tools. The next time the creature swooped down to attack Naruto quickly ran straight at the nearest wall and then ran up it a little ways, then pushed off of the wall while twisting his body in midair. The creature, it turns out, had stopped its dive and soared up diagonally at the same vertical rate as the blonde had been climbing the wall, thus it was right opposite him when he pushed off.

Naruto couldn't have asked for a better set up, he quickly grew out his claws and slashed at the unarmored spots on the creature's body. The boy only managed to get two slashed in on its arms before the demon soared up and away, leaving the blonde to fall to the ground. Naruto expertly landed in a low crouch and swore as he looked up at the creature. Several of his strikes had grazed the scales and he found that he couldn't penetrate them at all. That didn't leave him with many options, he was sure that water wouldn't do much against the creature but that only left him with Doton and that was practically impossible while the creature was in the air.

'If only there was some way to bring him down.'

"Rip off its wings," she grinned slyly. "That'll bring it down quite quickly."

'And how do you propose I do that, almighty fox mistress?' he asked sarcastically.

"Run up the wall and along the ceiling towards it, and give me some control when I ask for it," demanded the fox.

Naruto did as she requested, of course when he started getting closer to the creature it shifted away him slightly. However that was long forgotten as he gave the fox partial control and watched as a tail of solid red chakra formed behind him. Then the tail snapped like a whip and flew off like an extra hand to attack the demon. Naruto instantly realized that the Kyuubi was directly controlling this chakra manifestation.

The creature didn't really understand what was going on, but figured that the large red paw that was coming towards him needed to be avoided. However, it wasn't going to be that easy as the Kyuubi directed her chakra-paw to follow the demon, meanwhile telling Naruto to attack again.

Naruto realized he would need a jutsu that he control and since he was pretty far from the ground he was forced to forget about Doton and activate his Suiton Supremacy while doing a couple hand seals, "Suiton: Suiryuudan no Jutsu." The water dragon that the blond managed to create out of the water he had previously used for the Teppo Dama, twisted around itself for a couple of seconds before Naruto gained full control over it and made it chase down his opponent.

While Naruto was gaining his bearing after being forced to control a high level jutsu while hanging upside down, the Kyuubi had managed to get several hits on the demon's body. If the first hit didn't get the creature's attention then the second hit that easily cut through a scale on its shin certainly did. Thus after that point the creature was completely concentrated on avoiding the red chakra. It noticed that the chakra paw couldn't extend beyond a certain point and tried to fly as far from source of the chakra as possible.

Just when the creature thought it was safe from the red chakra, it was slammed into by the water dragon. This, of course, gave Kyuubi just enough time to tell Naruto to move closer allowing the fox to attack and rip off the demon's right wing. Once the demon was rendered unable to fly, the Kyuubi released the manifestation. Naruto didn't waste any time and jumped off the ceiling to do a Doton jutsu before the creature could recover.

The teenager did the necessary seals in midair and slammed his palms into the ground as soon as he landed. Naruto had decided to trap the creature in quicksand, and then pull it down under the ground until it couldn't breathe any more. Without its wings the creature could do naught but struggle, thus sinking farther and farther down into the ground. Once the creature was down to its neck in the quicksand, Naruto used a technique similar to Gaara's and crushed the creature's body.

A couple moments later, Naruto watched as the demon's head burst into black mist and disappeared; after which Naruto was teleported out of the training course.

Yashka stood next to him holding the black soul charm with a sour look on his face. "I want to say that you cheated when the Kyuubi created that manifestation, but then again I never directly forbade the Kyuubi to help you."

Naruto rejoiced, "YES! I passed all the training courses!"

Yashka smiled, "Yes, yes, you did. Now you can concentrate completely on the taijutsu training. Also I will be teaching you some long range jutsus since you seem to be lacking."

"I think I did pretty well with what I had."

"Well, for some reason I was sure you knew Raiton jutsus," Yashka shrugged. "Raiton along with Fuiton are the best to use against flying creatures."

Naruto frowned slightly, "But don't I have enough with my Doton and Suiton Supremacies?" It's not that Naruto didn't want to learn more jutsus; he just didn't see other elements as being important.

"While it does seem that you pretty much set when it comes to ninjutsu, how are you going to devise counters and defenses against other elements when you don't even know how to use the other elements?" the Ancient looked at Naruto thoughtfully. "Plus, you never know when a certain skill might come in handy."

"Maybe, but I think I would always be able to improvise," bragged the teenager.

Yashka smirked, "When you need it and don't have it, you sing a different tune." Suddenly a look of realization crossed the Ancient's face and he lifted up his right hand with the index finger pointing, "Oh, that's what I forgot. Naruto, you'll be sparring with my clone today. I just realized I some important business to attend to."

"You expect me to fight after that battle?" asked the blonde incredulously.

Yashka looked at his student strangely, "Yeah, of course, that was but a little skirmish. You can have an hour of rest through meditation if you like, but just because you passed the test doesn't mean I'm going to give you a break." With that he opened a transparent doorway on the other side of which Naruto could see a busy market.

"Where are you going?" wondered Naruto.

"To Noril," replied the young man. "It's a free-trade city in the Karaba Mountains. I'll take you there sometime."

"Right, you do that," replied the teenager. "I, meanwhile, will be meditating and then getting the shit beat out of me by your clone." Yashka laughed before creating a clone and stepping through the doorway, which closed right behind him.

Later that night, Naruto wondered exactly how he had survived through the day. Sure the mediation session restored a lot of his energy, but Yashka-sensei's clone was a relentless attacker. Naruto barely had any room to breathe while being tossed around the battlefield like a rag doll. However, for all his brutality, the clone did often point out Naruto's faults along with suggestions about how to improve, he used more acrobatics in battle than the real Ancient, and he absolutely loved using feints, whether in blocking or attacking. This was a person that would put up his arm to block only to, at the last moment, duck under the attack and counter-attack, all in a mere second.

Naruto trudged into the house to find dinner ready as usual and the Ancient seated at the head of the table chewing on a toothpick. "What took you so long?" he asked. "I was getting ready to eat my toothpick while waiting for you."

The blonde teenager blinked and sweat-dropped, "I'm just a bit tired…" he said sarcastically. "So did you get done whatever it is that you rushed off for?"

"Yeah, I'll tell you all about it after dinner," he replied in an amused yet calm voice, to which Naruto tilted his head. Once dinner was done, Yashka led the way into the living room and gestured towards a medium-sized box that sat on the couch.

"What is it?" cautiously asked Naruto.

"Open it."

"It's for me?" incredulously asked the blonde. "What is it?"

Yashka sighed, "I told you, open it." He stood there with a smile on his face as his student carefully opened the gift box and pulled out a green jacket. "Try it on." Naruto was a little too shocked by the fact that someone had actually given him a gift to disobey.

It was a light jacket that stretched down just to Naruto's hips and had a high collar that covered Naruto's neck completely. Instead of a zipper on the front it had seven or eight button-loops that stuck out a little bit, such that when completely buttoned up one could see between the buttons to the layer underneath, and the sleeves were longer and wider than usual; though they had a draw-string to tighten them up. The jacket had to two standard side pockets and one chest pocket.

However, it wasn't the outside of the jacket that was to be admired, but the inside of the sleeves. The Ancient had sewn in many small pockets, hooks, and pouches all within easy reach if one were to bend their wrist back. This, he said, was where Naruto needed to keep all his weapons so that they were always within quick reach. No more of this bullshit of reaching all the way down to the thigh to get a kunai or shuriken. Not only was this faster and more convenient, but your opponent couldn't just reach into your sleeve and take out your weapon during a fight; and if they tried then they would be practically letting you grab their arm.

"Thank you," said Naruto sincerely.

The Ancient waved it off with a small smile, "You deserved it after passing all the courses. It was the least I could do."

Naruto nodded, "Still, thank you."

"You're very welcome," he responded in a soft tone with an approving nod.


A/Ns:

DrakoLanisah by SulaMoon (on devart) and the Demon Hunter from Warcraft 3 were used as references for the creature. Bel and Belzebulb by Wen-M (also devart) used as slight refernces for the jacket design.

If you notice any discreptancies in this fic please be so kind as to point them out, I would be quite grateful.

I haven't actually done an evil cliffhanger yet... and we're 12 chaps in... though there's not really anything to cliffhang over...

About the Ancient: There may be small hints into Yashka's past, but I won't do any full scale flashbacks or side stories. If I ever do decide to write about the Ancient's past it'll be an original story. And no, Yashka is not writing notes for a hentai book.
I wasn't planning on mentioning Proxy Seals until later (when Naruto used them), but it just turned out to be a good opportunity to introduce this jutsu that I created between my Logic Design class and my Physics class :) More info on this technique will come later when Naruto uses it.

Oh and for everyone out there that is afraid I'll drop the story, I can assure you that won't happen; I love this story way too much for that.