Definitely getting harder to keep the story properly glued together as it comes along, but hey, still less than 3 weeks since last chapter, not bad. Not satisfied with some parts, but no good alternatives for how to tell it, so better with an ok chapter now than a good one in a few months.

A little bonus to readers at the end, a simple and useful ninjutsu from our own reality.

Enjoy if you will, tolerate if you wont.

Diplomacy and Annoyances

In Kirigakure

Kakashi had found himself pleasantly impressed by the new Mizukage, Mei Terumi, stern and a bit harsh perhaps but she clearly cared for Kiri as much as his own kage cared for Konoha, and quite competent. Very nice to look at never hurt either.

"I do not like leaving debts unpaid, but in this case it will have to be limited to a statement of non-aggression outside of missions."

Kakashi gave a hint of a nod "Having even a partially nonhostile Kiri is a vast improvement, Konoha and the Hokage will be most happy about this regardless if anything more outspoken or formal comes from it."

"Good." she paused for a moment "Now then, I have some, -information- that you may find interesting..."

Kakashi gave a nod and wondered with increasing interest what it was he had been sent here to be told about.

"First of all then, while we were based in Konoha we had a few run-ins with your runaway, Orochimaru, and some of his flunkies,-"

Kakashi perked up visibly at this "-and we became fairly certain that he is based somewhere between the northeast of Konoha and the edge of Kumo, or most likely, in Oto."

"Mmm, using the turmoil as that country recreated itself, that sounds quite like him indeed..." she nodded in reply to his guess, it was the same as her own even if she had some suspicion that Orochimaru may actually have created the turmoil rather than just exploit it.

"Secondly, during the, -deposing- of Yagura, the yondaime mizukage, we found something quite worrying, you know he was a jinchuuriki? Well, we found, -evidence- of him having been controlled by someone else for a long time, and investigation showed that that someone was an Uchiha."

Kakashi startled at that, certainly not what he had been expecting "It couldn´t be...?"

"No, this clearly started while Uchiha Itachi was just a small child so it was not him, and I only know of one other Uchiha still around when Yagura died, still under someones control, and he was not even born at the time it began."

Kakashi had a long moment of inner turmoil, the hokage had given him complete freedom of choice for this mission, on the one hand he was certain that telling the woman in front of him what he wanted would not be a problem, on the other hand, telling the mizukage something that only a halfdozen in Konoha knew of, it felt oh so wrong.

Seeing Kakashi´s hesitation "Anbu, I have some matters to discuss with Kakashi-san that requires complete discretion, all of you will leave and secure these rooms from the outside."

A shadow in a corner morphed into a masked ANBU that quickly bowed "Yes Mizukage-sama. You know how to call on us."

Before he had moved she continued "This will take at least a few hours, anyone bothering me or listening in in the meantime, I will use for target practise with lava, that goes for you as well Ao." the latter bowed politely and left with the ANBU.

Kakashi was somewhat surprised but also relieved at how neatly she had handled it, it would now seem as if it was she who initiated some exchange "Well, that makes my choice a bit easier at least, but hours?"

Mei gave a slight lopsided smile as she visibly relaxed a bit "I could use a few hours of vacation, the place is still a mess even if things are at least back to working again most of the time. Now, what was it you were thinking about?"

"Ehm, actually I also have two things to add... The first should not be told to anyone-" he looked closely at her reaction and deemed that his earlier impression had been correct, she would not try to use it, if they were on opposing sides of a mission she would probably gleefully stab him in the back if he was dumb enough to present the opportunity, but her honor would not allow her to use this against him or his.

"-... We have recently found evidence claiming that Uchiha Itachi was under the impression that he was acting on the Hokages direct orders when he killed off the clan."

For the first time during their talk, he saw her eyebrows go up in obvious astonishment.

"And he was part of Anbu at the time... Infiltration or treachery at that level..." she shook her head with a wince.

"You know of the organisation he is now part of?"

"Yes, Yagura made frequent use of their services, since he got too many Kiri-nins killed to fulfill all contracts normally, and no I have not met Itachi. We are still considering if we can avoid using them again. It may take some time before we truly have a choice..."

"Well, if you ever get the chance to meet him, tell him... Tell him that ka-san says the old man gave no such order."

"Heh, will he even understand that? Your second item?"

"He should realise what it means. And secondly, an old story that in Konoha is almost an official secret, but never the less now seems far more relevant and important than it used to. You know of Uchiha Madara?"

"Of course, few shinobi does not."

"A man calling himself, and both looking and acting quite like Madara was the one that caused the Kyuubi to break loose 13 years ago, it seems he was trying to force it to become his fully controlled summon."

Kakashi got to see something few had ever seen, Mei Terumi, the Godaime mizukage with her mouth hanging open in shock "He tried to make it his -summon-?.!" she said disbelievingly "I mean I knew the Sharingan can let you control or at least affect tailed beasts, but to make it a controlled summon... Even the idea is outrageous. I assume the attack on the village was the result of this Madara failing rather than being successful?"

"As far as we know, yes."

"I see why you told me, this man almost have to be the one controlling Yagura..."

"And if he is active not just in Konoha, and with another tailed beast, it´s impossible to say where his ambitions end."

"Quite so... You have my gratitude for trusting me with these secrets, I assure they will remain unknown to others, but it will allow me to take precautions at least." she took a moment to shake off the surprises and then with a hint of cheer "Well then, now that we have the work done how about you join me for my very short vacation and the lazy dinner I was planning to spend an hour of it on?"

She motioned to the back room of the office and after a moment´s hesitation at her change of attitude, Kakashi gave a hint of a bow and motioned her to go first, she gave a hint of a crooked smile and proceeded.

"Ok, I think I´ve figured out most of another one." Tenten said "It´s a seal applied on a wound which somehow holds the wound from worsening or changing almost completely until the seal is removed or too much time passes. Part of it was much like one of the healing seals, so that helped a lot. It´s kind of a strange seal though, I think it may actually be warping time to work."

"Neat, but I guess that´s what we should expect from the wife of someone who got famous for his ability to teleport in combat. Any luck on learning the code itself?" Sakura asked, getting a slow headshake in reply.

"I think I know why it´s been so impossible to break though..." suddenly Tenten also had the attention of Naruto and Hinata who had been doing some of their own personal exercises on the other side of the room "we´re having trouble with it because it´s not really a code or shorthand..."

"What?" Sakura was obviously lost...

"I think Naruto´s mother started with her regular basic clan shorthand, but then more and more developed her own personalised notation system from it, that´s why your attempts at correlating the signs isn´t working like it should..."

Sakura groaned and cut Tenten off "Because I´m not looking at scrolls closely enough chronologically, we picked scrolls based on being similar in subject, not what their apparent time of writing or writing style is, if we even -can- figure that out -ever-..."

She put her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands while producing another, longer and louder groan "damn, damn, DAMN! I really really wanted to be able to read all of these, it´s great being able to work out what they´re for, even if dreadfully slowly, and the raw basics on how to perform them, but all these notes, there are huge amounts of additional information on every single technique! And we wont be able to even begin understanding them fully for years to come wont we?" she turned her head to Tenten who shook her head sadly in agreement.

Tenten made a few notes on a piece of paper, attached it to the scroll and then picked one of the technique scrolls after Kushina she had gone over shortly before...

"Take a look at this, especially those illustrations on the lower left, I remember what you said about how that chakra rope technique was so problematic..."

Sakura looked and "Are those chakra chains? Damned, this is one of all those scrolls we haven´t even been able to figure out the hand seals for. It even seems to have several variants, blasted I want to know how it works. And it´s just too dangerous to try and experiment with turning the rope technique into chains."

"Well, sooner or later." Tenten smiled and eventually got a smile back from Sakura.

"Anyway, I´ve gone through the scroll for the chakra reserves seals, and I´m just about certain it has no warnings on it, and I´ve gone over it with Kurenai and it seem´s to be all ok and safe. So, I´m going to see if I can apply it on myself tomorrow, maybe you could help, from the looks of it, it would be quite impossible to do it alone? Then I have training with Lee and Neji so I´ll be back here the day after, in time for your evening trainingsession, I´ll let you know how well it works then ok..."

"Oh, sure I´ll help!" Sakura was quite happy to offer, she had found the seals interesting and it felt like Tenten was becoming another friend. Sakura still recalled the time before Ino became her friend far too well to consider that as anything but important.

Neji had already started some light training with Byakuugan fully active so he noticed Tenten approaching long before she would arrive. 'hmm, she looks... -brighter- than normal?' he thought wonderingly, Tenten wasn´t quite a true powerhouse with chakra but she still already had enough to compete with some of the more powerful chuunins, even some jonins, but what he could see so far just looked, odd.

As she came closer however he got the impression of a few additional chakra connections that confused him, but above all else the thing that was now obvious was that she seemed to be... generating? a lump of chakra at one of her mid lower primary chakra points... Why would she be doing that? He knew he had seen something vaguely similar before but he couldn´t quite recall... what... It almost looked like...

"Tenten are you pregnant?" he blurted out with uncharacteristic bluntness as she got close.

"WHAT?! What kind of a question is that to ask a girl all of a sudden! I´m 14 and an active duty ninja, of course I´m not! What ever gave you such an idiotic idea! And we´re even on the same team, you should damn well know I´m not even dating anyone!"

"Sorry Tenten, it´s just that...eh, you have a... bunch of chakra in your lower torso and the closest thing to that that I´ve seen before was in a pregnant woman..."

That made things click in Tenten´s mind, making her grimace as she stopped "Oh it´s that visible, I´m trying out a chakra reserve seal. It draws a tiny amount of your chakra from all over your body and channels it into the central seal which stores it and lets you control it´s release."

"But the energy isn´t in the seal, it´s..."

She cut him off "Are you going to be as annoying about this as Naruto? Yes it´s a seal that only women can use, guess once why, and if you´re going to start looking at it too much with your peek-through vision I´ll clobber you! Damned I didn´t think it would be that obvious," adding the last in an annoyed but quiet tone while internally adding a note to herself to see if she could find a way to hide it better, or at least camouflage it a little.

Neji was instantly apologetic "My apologies for angering you Tenten, I was just surprised because I haven´t seen anything just like it before, how did you manage to learn it?"

"Sorry Neji, that will have to remain unsaid, I promised I would tell noone whose clan secrets it is."

'Clan secrets? Naruto was apparently been around when she was learning it, and she has been seeing him and the girls over at Kurenai´s house a lot lately, so who could it belong to?'

He knew or at least knew OF probably all Hyuuga clan secrets at least to some degree, and this didn´t seem like anything he had ever heard of. Obviously it wasn´t part of the knowledge Tenten had been given by her adoptive family, there would be no reason to suddenly keep that secret.

Naruto was an orphan and as far as Neji knew, with no living relatives in the village for many years, although might there have been some distant relative that had left something...?

'The Haruno girl?' The Haruno family was reasonably wellknown in the shinobi world, but they were not numerous enough to even be considered a small clan and neither really famous nor infamous, merely a reputation for often being good with genjutsu even if he vaguely recalled Sakura´s mother instead working as a codebreaker rather than a field shinobi, and also having a bit too much of a temperament at times... 'mmm something else as well, oh yes, highly resistant to mind influencing techniques was something he had heard mentioned about them as well...'

And of course their trademark pink hair that seemed to prevail through generations, but nothing ever hinted of them having such unusual clan scrolls.

'It couldn´t be that that Kurenai-woman was the source? She had developed exceptionally well yes, but anyone who had met her or knew about her also knew very well exactly how much she worked to reach this point of skill, and if she had developed it, why did Tenten use it first...'

Then he frowned and spoke up again "But what if..." he trailed off slightly embarassed even though he shouldn´t be. But having just annoyed his teammate by his own fault he felt a bit more cautious than usual.

Tenten rolled her eyes very theatrically "Then I guess I would have the joy of having an exceptionally healthy child."

"Huh, wha-" Neji froze for a moment as he realised what she meant "oh... you mean... OH! That is actually impressive, you get a double win from it then."

"Actually it´s more like a double double win, it helps improve both chakra generation and control as well, even if it´s just minimally."

Neji nodded thoughtfully while thinking about the potential clue she had unwittingly provided him with 'I bet it would also raise the probability of having a child with a lot of chakra even before training... Interesting. So perhaps someone does know who Naruto´s parents were then?'

He also showed a remarkable degree of sense of selfpreservation by not mentioning that even in an inactive state, Byakuugan eyes were already -peek-through- to some small extent, especially in regards to things with little mass or thickness, like a few layers of clothes. There was more than one good reason for a Hyuuga to learn not to be too easily excitable. And to be polite.

Arriving at Kurenai´s house next evening Tenten was still slightly annoyed at Neji´s question the previous day.

Joining the others out back, Kurenai welcomed her then with some mirth continued "So Tenten, what has your knickers in a twist today then?"

"Well, I found out one downside in using the chakra reserve seal around people with skilled chakra detection or with the Byakuugan..."

"Oh, why would that be?" Kurenai asked back, as she was also considering making use of the seal, it would probably be rather useful for just about anyone and no matter how she had looked there seemed to be no downsides at all to it.

"I had barely arrived to the training area, when Neji asked me if I was pregnant!" Tenten said with a good deal of not quite anger mixed in.

The responses were mixed, Kurenai got a good chuckle from it, Naruto basically went "Huh?" followed by an amused grin when he caught on, while Sakura first tried to restrain herself but soon laughed openly.

The unexpected reaction came from Hinata though, she stood almost looking dumbstruck for a moment before "Neji said that? Stuck up and etiquette proper -Neji- asked YOU that!" and then utterly bubbled with laughter for a long time.

Tenten went *hmph* with a sour face. 'Oh well if it got that much of a laughter out of the usually so introvert Hinata then I guess it was well worth it at least.'

Once Hinata wasn´t laughing incoherently Tenten went on "I also think I found an upside with the seal, I´m fairly sure it helps slightly with chakra control." that quickly got Naruto´s attention.

"How?"

"I think that´s what one of the notes for it is about, after having tried it... Mmm, well if you think about it as a flow, if you try to push too much at once you cause uneveness and whirls in the flow, and most people have slightly more chakra than their bodies handle easily, so with this you shave away the excess, getting a calmer flow, yet you don´t remove so much that the body stops developing it´s paths while the little you draw also stimulates chakra generation. If I´m right then it actually helps both generation and control. And those are just the sideeffects!"

"Aaww, sourface again?"

Kurenai raised her eyebrows at Naruto in reply.

"Oh alright she isn´t -that- bad, but does she have to look so angry all the time? And it´s not like we can´t handle being on our own for a few days."

Kurenai rolled her eyes "And the last time you were?"

Naruto thought for a moment to recall when that was and... 'Oh right, Mizuki...' "Ehehehm..."

"Did you ever even bother trying to talk with her, you know Hinata likes Yurika even though they´ve only met twice."

Naruto knew when he was loosing "Ah, not really no, I just kinda don´t know what to talk about with her, her angry face gets in the way you know." Kurenai chuckled slightly at the description.

"Well you could ask her to help you set up another shogi-tournament, she´s annoyingly good at it you know, might be able to defeat Shikamaru and should certainly give any others some serious competition."

"Huh, I would never have guessed..." while Shikamaru had got a few losses, it was too often an issue of being lazy, someone giving him a real challenge would be interesting to see. And while the last -tournament- Naruto had set up had been excessively messy, it had also been great fun...

"And then you could ask her to give you some tips on your wind element practise, she´s one of the relatively few in Konoha with it you know, which is somewhat ironic since she´s not a combat shinobi, which is where wind is most useful."

"She´s a wind user?" Naruto´s shriek was fortunately just mentally, otherwise it would likely have been deafening, any kind of help with the troublesome wind element practise would be invaluable, and here he had missed the opportunity for months just because of getting scared off by an angry face... *ack*

"Mm, she is indeed. I´ll be leaving early tomorrow and should be back in three or four days, ok?"

Naruto nodded while thinking.

Naruto was rather annoyed, he had gone through a whole list of things to train while using kagebunshin to help him improve faster... And the results were not as great as he had wished for. Sure he did get a little extra much of the time, but too often it was minimal.

Practising fighting against his own clones did work somewhat decently, the clones didn´t improve his skill directly, but by seeing what he did, what worked and what failed from additional viewpoints, that was still a very valuable addition.

His first attempt, trying to have a half dozen clones simply work out with the training itself, it had not been completely useless, but almost, it had however at least shown him that if he wanted to come up with a new or modified move, using kagebunshin like this would work -very- well, as long as he could make enough of them and keep them around for long enough.

His personality fortunately worked to his advantage here, while many clones would try the same things, as long as he used many, he usually got enough clones or groups of clones trying different things for it to be plenty worthwhile.

While he could create hundreds of clones without too much strain, if he wanted to keep them active for any real time, the limit suddenly dropped down drastically, half a dozen he could keep going for a whole day, a dozen he could keep around for a whole day if he pushed, but then the amount of Kyuubi chakra that would mix in would start getting dangerously prominent, and he found himself straining as much to keep himself under control as with keeping the clones active.

And then there was the training for his wind affinity, the clones would definitely cut down on how long it would take for him to reach an acceptable level when it came to figuring out how to do different things and interacting with the element, but unfortunately, achieving acceptable and actual -control- over his primary element, the clones gave almost no help with that part.

At the sound of voices getting increasingly loud and insistent, Kurenai went to check, she came to the window just in time to see Hinata apparently breaking up an argument between Naruto and Sakura. Unusually, Naruto was the one who looked most angry.

After making sure there was no continuing problem she went back to her own work for the moment, preparing for a short and most likely simple delivery mission. The only reason for a highend jonin to do it being a matter of formality.

Sakura was slowly but surely growing into the role of team leader that Kurenai was aiming for her, but finding that Hinata was actually taking on the role of an effective peacemaker was a very nice surprise, she knew the girl was the type to be such but lack of confidence had prevented it and Kurenai had hoped for it but not expected it for a long time, if ever.

.

Not long after she was surprised again when the three youngsters came back inside and after going over some academy assignment, saw Sakura off for the evening. The surprise came from the fact that Sakura and Naruto did not display even a hint of resentment at each other, it was as if whatever the argument had been about had never happened. In fact, all three seemed happier than usual rather than anything else.

Kurenai was puzzled, she had to have missed something but she couldn´t come up with any plausible explanation no matter how she tried. The normal way of events would have been some edginess, maybe some glaring or chill for perhaps an hour and then a gradual shift to normal. Naruto would always be much quicker to either forgive, forget or both depending on what the issue had been, he didn´t hold a grudge but even he could not completely ignore arguments.

Something that by itself she was happy about, he had been dangerously close to just suppressing any bad emotions, that had taken some time to realise since he was distressingly good at it, and while his generally positive view of things was genuine, simply rejecting the negatives was not healthy.

Kurenai made a mental note of finding out what the heck that had been about. And because it was a very busy day, promptly forgot about it minutes later when she had to divert a minor disaster in the making, Naruto experimenting in the kitchen. He was decent in the kitchen overall, but the times he let his creativity take over too much, odd and messy things tended to happen.

"Oh, hi again Sakura, I thought you went home with Tenten?"

"Not tonight Naruto. Did you come up with a good answer for what to use for ranged combat, I mean besides fuuton?"

Naruto frowned a bit "Well I do have the Uzumaki Bakuhatsu, although it´s rather wasteful on chakra, and I´m loading up bigtime on the number of kunai I carry, really wish I was as accurate at throwing as Tenten..."

Sakura smiled and shook her head a little "Baka, you know how much she has practised to get that good. Anyway, since you seemed to do so well with the Kagebunshin, I talked with Kurenai about the Kagebunshin shuriken jutsu-"

Naruto brightened up "That sounds cool! What is it, tell me!"

"I was about to tell you. It´s similar to the usual kagebunshin except it creates shuriken out of chakra that you can launch through the jutsu instead of having to throw them so that should let you be a lot more accurate, -however-" she emphasised strongly to be certain Naruto was really listening "-it has the same dangers except worse, because you´re not creating a copy of yourself you don´t notice how much chakra you use right away, so you have to promise to be careful with it ok?"

Naruto nodded slowly, he had seen how tired Hinata had been after testing how many and for how long she could sustain shadow clones "Ok, extra careful not to fire off too many in too short time, right?"

"Exactly, and be careful when you practise, don´t do it without someone nearby until you manage what the scroll considers proficiency." she ended by handing over said scroll.

"Great! Thanks Sakura. But where did you get it from? Wait, you already know it do you?"

She smiled as she replied "It´s from the restricted scroll, it´s one of the first I memorised because it looked so good, except even with how much my chakra level has improved, I still have to be too careful with it for it to be as good as it could be, for you it should do quite well since you´re much better with ninjutsu than with throwing and have, what, 4 times my chakra or something, even without drawing on fluffy."

Naruto doubleblinked "Fluffy? -FLUFFY-?" he asked incredulously.

"You´re always giving silly nicknames, thought I should beat you to it just for once at least."

"Heh... Actually I think I kinda like it. Wanna bet on wether fluffy likes it?" Naruto grinned.

"Hehe... Nope, but I also came up with it so it wont be obvious to anyone overhearing what we´re talking about, ok?"

Hearing a knock on the door, Naruto went and opened, cheerfully "Hi Kitsune-chan!" at the admonishing look he got in return "eheehe, sorry I mean hello Kaori-chan... ehm, Kurenai-sensei isn´t home right now but why don´t you come in while you wait?"

"Hello Naruto-kun and yes I know she´s not home she told me she would be back shortly, and what makes you think it was her I was going to meet? My main reason today is to meet you and the girls, Kurenai said you would all be here now, and that´s also why I brought one of my genin with me."

Standing aside slightly she not quite pulled with her the tall youth with a tiny and sharply cut moustache, eyebrows and beard and his black hair held back, making his sunglasses look very prominent on his face, the sharp contrasts making him look impressive. And possibly, very possibly, a bit like a thug of the more stylish sort.

Seemingly managing to be both very confident and at the same time a bit shy and nervous the youth stepped up to Naruto, bowed neatly "Pleased to meet you Naruto-san, my name is Meioh Kenji. Kaori-sensei tells me you needed to find out more about summoning contracts... well I´m probably as much of an expert as you can find in Konoha right now."

Naruto had been surprised by the politeness and the undertone of kindness in his voice when he connected the name "Oh! Great, you´re the guy Tenten mentioned with three active summon contracts! Hey, that´s really cool you know. Nice to meet you... uh you know this stuff is kinda secret?"

"That´s not a problem, I´m used to keeping secrets. My clan isn´t big but we tend to get rather good with certain skills that is probably better to keep out of general circulation."

Instantly interested "What kind of skills?"

"Space and time manipulation techniques. My skill with summoning is part of that, although that seems to be most of what I´ve inherited, my 3 year younger sister is already better at the other things the Meioh clan tends to specialise in."

"Ooh, that´s really cool. Oh right, Saeko is your little sister?" Naruto got a nod in reply.

With further small talk, Naruto very much interested and admiring (not to mention happy about a completely new aquintance not being the slightest negative at him) towards Kenji who mostly seemed somewhat embarassed at the attention, they moved on inside, Naruto being very simple and straightforward and just brought them directly to the room they used to go through his collection of scrolls, Kaori already more or less knew all or much of it and he had already decided that Kenji could be utterly relied upon.

Sakura´s reaction wasn´t unexpected considering how they had kept this away from nearly everyone else "Naruto! What are you... Oh, Kaori-san I didn´t see it was you at first..." she sighed when seeing someone else follow "I guess Naruto has suddenly decided to let more people in here."

"ehm, sorry for surprising you Sakura-chan, this is Kenji, Meioh Kenji, you know the genin Tenten mentioned who has three summoning contracts, he´s here to help with ours."

Introductions were made, Tenten already knew him, being something of a friend to his teammates but Hinata and Sakura were pretty much unknowns and vice versa.

After just a few minutes of mostly greetings and getting something to drink, Kurenai arrived.

Once they had settled down, Kenji asked "So, what is it you want to know about summons and summoning contracts?"

"Mm... Is there any limit to how many can use a single contract?" Sakura had tried to make a list of questions they needed answers for, but it was still of the somewhat hazy kind.

"No, but most are not used by several people because few will trust others than themselves to keep it. When you sign a contract you essentially create a permanent bloodseal, and if someone gets their hands on the contract and can figure out which is which, they can do all sorts of nasty stuff with it. So, most summoners keep the contracts hidden either in a safe location or on themself."

"Is there only a single contract for a single kind of summon?"

"There can be more than one but many is rare and several is not common, I´m not quite sure why but there seems to be some sort of limit, not on the number of contracts but rather on the process of creating new ones. Or at least that´s how I´ve interpreted what my own summons have said. They´re usually not entirely forthcoming with information." he thought for a moment then seemed to make a decision "Let me guess, it seems you´ve finally been given your inheritance Naruto-kun?"

"... You... know who I am already?" Naruto was dumbstruck, the others not all that far from it.

"Because I inherited two summoning scrolls, one each from my mother and father, one of the first things I asked my first summon was specifically if there would be any problem about using more than one contract. That´s when I got to hear about how this town had already once had someone with three contracts, who her husband was, who her son was and how the Hokage had hidden away their scrolls, including the contracts, after they died in the mess with the Kyuubi. Just remember that there is ONE limit on how many contracts you can use, and that is how much chakra you have."

With Naruto temporarily lacking ability for speech, Sakura instead asked "Why would the chakralevel matter, I thought it was only a matter of having enough for when you try to summon something?"

Kenji smiled "That would make it a rather onesided contract don´t you think? The deal is that you give a tiny draw of chakra through the contract seal, ALL the time, and in return you get the ability to try to summon them. Some summons are very nice and friendly, willing to help even far beyond what they need, others can be prickly and stingy about it and just barely do the absolute minimum required for them to keep the contract active. And, there´s never any guarantee that the summon´s will aknowledge a contract made onesidedly by you if they think you´re unsuitable."

"How do you know if you´re suitable, how much power does it take and does control make any difference?"

"Oh yeah, you´re studying for medic on the side aren´t you? Supergreat control?"

Sakura nodded to both questions "Sorry, it only matters very little as the draw isn´t consciously controlled. It does matter for the summoning itself though. As for how much it takes, well it´s not totally certain, but last time I was rated for chakra level the result was a 4, and for me that´s enough to have 3 summon contracts and not feel any strain at all once I got used to it, I could probably add at least one or two more and still not have any problems. Unless you´re a low chakra type who´s getting rated at 1.5 or less you should have no problem with at least a single contract."

He stopped for a moment to think "As for finding out if the summon thinks you´re suitable, well as you may know how if you just use the summoning technique without a contract, with a bit of luck you will summon yourself to the home of the summon most suitable for you... If you have unsigned contracts however, you can instead try a summon on the contract, that will summon one of their lesser and you can simply ask it if you´re suitable. So, the four of you, last time the academy did evaluations what rating did you get for chakra level?"

"3", "B-barely 2.5", "3.5", "4, still rising and I can go much higher if I push" Sakura, Hinata, Tenten and Naruto answered.

"Well, if you want to try to have access to multiple summons, you can probably manage it all of you, Tenten and Naruto can probably use all three if they like you."

"Why doesnt more shinobi use summoning, I mean it sounds like there´s almost no downsides?"

"Some don´t have the chakra needed, many don´t have access to a contract, and being able to summon isn´t the same as being able to do useful summoning, if your ability isn´t good enough you wont get the summon you want or it may be weak and tired, or as if it was not quite there, worst case you may have a constant chakra drain and not get anything for it, there´s also the issue of potential risk of someone you dont want using the the seal used on the contract against you. It´s a very good technique but as with most things it has plenty enough drawbacks to even it out. So, want to show me the scrolls?"

Sakura got the scrolls and handed over the first while placing the other two on the table so they wouldnt be in the way.

Kenji spent several minutes looking and reading "Ok, this scroll is definitely for cats. They´re one of the few summons that I know for sure has a bunch of contracts active. Dad thinks it´s something to do with how they tend to be individualistic and doesnt seem to have any kind of organised structure where they come from. If they like you they´re supposedly very nice, their lack of structure means they´re not the most knowledgeable but they´re also not as tight about telling things... And best of all, they´re said to not care much about formalities and things like that as long you´re nice back at them..."

"Huh... Never would have guessed all that."

"Dont forget though that I might not be completely right even if I think I am, as I dont personally know anyone with a cat contract. It´s said they´re good contracts to have as there´s nearly always at least one cat that likes you enough to act as your summon, downside being that only those you actually know will respond in a predictable manner. Others may respond if they´re curious enough but it´s not something you should expect."

"Right. It´s still infinitely more than we knew before. Ok so next scroll?"

Kenji looked, his eyebrows went up and he looked through it even more thoroughly again.

"So, big bro, what is it?" Naruto finally couldn´t wait more.

"Hmm, I don´t know... I´m used to animals, even magic ones, and this is definitely something with humanlike prints."

"But, summons can´t..."

"Oh sure summons can be anything that has the right ability in it, or is capable of performing it, you can even make a contract between humans no problem, but I dont think this is human, as I said, human-LIKE."

"Huh... Right, the last one then?"

Kenji barely rolled it open before speaking, as he smiled slightly "Seems your mom liked cats, both small and large... This contract is for tigers, said to be... I guess you can say that while cats are on one extreme of a scale over how structured they are, with toads on the other end, tigers are somewhere in the middle. And I´m afraid that´s about what I know for sure."

"Cool!" Sakura, Tenten and Hinata all smiled at the predictable almost shout from Naruto. They also agreed with him even if they didn´t shout it out loud.

Without noticing the girls smiles Naruto continued "Let´s try them out!"

"Ok, but do exactly as I tell you, and if I step in and interrupt you, step back and don´t interfere, we don´t want to annoy them if we can avoid it, right?"

"Uh, yeah, right."

"Let´s go with the cat contract first, we can probably all use that contract."

.

After several rounds of dry practise, Naruto caused a drop of blood on his thumb, did the hand seals correctly and then slammed his hands down on the summoning scroll "Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

There was a *poof* and then he was rewarded by a sight he had not been expecting "Aaahhh!" he shouted incoherently for a few seconds while the others in the room were looking on with shock obvious in their expressions, enough that they didn´t actually try to do anything, except of course, what were they supposed to do?

Next to the scroll, what had appeared was a very large cat, well over twice the size of a regular cat, it´s fur a mix of grey, black and orange, and rather disheveled. So far so good, mostly at least. The big problem was that the cat appeared on it´s back, with legs hanging limply to the sides, it´s eyes were closed and it´s tounge was hanging out on the side of it´s mouth.

It was not moving even the slightest. It looked quite dead.

Naruto changed to a panicked babbling, some of what could be heard during the next not quite half minute "My suitable cat summon is a DEAD one?" and much more nervously "I didn´t kill it did I?" ending with a very upset "Gaaah! You tricked me!" after which he pointed to the cat, who everyone now noticed was the source of a very soft "Hnh hnh hnh..." not quite snicker nor giggle nor laugh but somewhere in the general vicinity of all three.

Many facepalmings happened, mental or physical. "He´s a bit of a prankster it seems, just like you Naruto." Sakura quipped with amusement taking over.

"She, not he." Naruto said without thinking. Sakura looked at him with surprise. Hinata looked over at him "How can you know?"

"Uhm... How CAN I know?" a bewildered Naruto asked.

The cat rolled over and shook itself a bit, making the fur instantly look very nice "Because you did a trial summoning and got someone that you connect well with, namely me."

Naruto almost jumped, he wasn´t quite used to the idea of talking cats, no matter how he should have been, but quickly got himself back together again, trying to get back to at least some resemblance of manners "Eh, right... Uhm, well my name is Uzumaki Naruto, pleased to meet you and do you want to be my summon?"

The cat sniggered slightly at the odd little speech "My name is Kia, and I will accept a contract with you Naruto."

"Great! So Kia, what can you do?" meanwhile, Kurenai noted that the moment Kia had said she accepted the contract, Naruto´s handprint on the scroll, which except for the drop of blood was barely visible, changed to a clear and firm print.

"Well I can eat, sleep, chase mice, go fish and have fun playing pranks on people summoning me."

Naruto blinked a few times while those nearby more or less laughed. "No I mean what can you do to help me when I summon you?"

"Oh I guess I could have some fun helping you play pranks on someone?" -everyone- else in the room was laughing now, although mostly trying to keep it down. After a long moment, Naruto´s reply was roughly *aaargghh*.

Kia´s demeanor somehow changed imperceptibly but still obviously "If you meant -serious- stuff, I can help you in a fight, just remember that my size when I appear depends on how much chakra you used, and aside from that, I know or can find out lots of things that might someday be useful for you, never forget that you can always ask, I might not always tell you something even if I know it, but I wont be angry at you for asking. Got it?"

Naruto nodded slowly "Wait, you can change size?"

"Unlike most contract you can only summon -your- specific cat summon, you can ask another to appear but the connection is with one cat, so not to be outdone in simple power, we figured out how to base our size on how much chakra is used for the summoning."

"Hmm... Right, you try next Sakura." Kurenai had realised that if she let Kia and Naruto keep talking, it could quite possibly go on forever. At Kurenai´s suggestion to move on, Naruto stepped back from the scroll while Kia jumped up on the couch by the wall and made herself comfortable. Apparently wanting to enjoy the show for a while.

Sakura stepped up and quickly readied herself "Ok then here goes... Kuchiyose no jutsu!" unusually for Sakura she said the phrase loud and clear. An almost normalsized cat, black with some white markings appeared, sitting neatly in front of her.

"I am Shoni. And you are?"

"Haruno Sakura, I ask you to be my summon Shoni."

"Come here." Sakura sat down in front of Shoni, who put his paws on her shoulders, sniffed, then stretched forward and rubbed his nose against Sakura´s. "I accept a contract with you Sakura." he ended with what was resembling a slight bow, which Sakura quickly mimicked.

Looking around for a moment, giving a polite nod to Kia, Shoni then moved gracefully over to the couch, jumped up and after stopping a moment until Kia gave a tiny nod he lay down next to her.

Sakura smiled brightly, stepped back and motioned Hinata forward. Hinata hesitated a short moment then performed the hand seals perfectly and firmly stated "Kuchiyose no jutsu."

A light grey with a hint of blue cat appeared "I´m Maia, you desire to contract with me?" Hinata nodded a bit uncertain at the soft but firm tone, Maia walked up to her, then slowly walked around her with a carefully critical appraising look.

When she was back in front of Hinata she looked up at her for a moment then jumped, a startled Hinata just barely catching Maia in her arms "Done. It´s a long time since I had a contract with someone powerful. What´s your name?"

"H-hyuuga Hinata." she said with a slight blush. Being called powerful was something that had never happened to her.

After looking over to the other two cats and giving them a nod, Maia yawned big then settled more snugly into Hinatas embrace, when Hinata made several of the others cringe by cuddling the cat, summons were definitely not pets, Maia surprised them by starting to purr loudly.

Kurenai looked with surprise at Hinata´s happy face "I guess that went, well..."

A while later, all present had contracted with a cat summon, Kenji had been somewhat sceptic due to the question on where the summoning scroll would be kept, but Naruto had quickly agreed that it would be fine to let Kia keep it safe for him, and that was fine by Kenji as well.

All cats had chosen to remain, they clearly were interested in what was happening.

After some additional practise and some quick advise, Naruto tried with the second scroll, since it was his scrolls everyone thought it was he that should be trying first "Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

After a long moment a slighty tall and rather lithe woman appeared with a small *poof*, with long darkblonde hair and eyes the same colour as her hair, a dark yellow not quite brown. And causing Kenji to utter a strangled cough since the amount of cloth on her, most people would think it not enough to make clothes for a newborn baby. Or for a pair of gloves. That she was stunningly beautiful didn´t hurt the impression either. Though her expression was rather lacking in showing anything.

When she calmly just stood there, having looked over the people in the room once and then back at Naruto, with some difficulty he finally spoke up "*Ahem* Right... I´m Uzumaki Naruto, who are you pretty lady and would you like to be my summon?" then he remembered the rest "Oh and uhm is anyone else here suitable to contract with you?"

There was a minimal hint of a twitch at the -pretty lady- but Naruto wasn´t sure if he had really seen it.

"I am yousei Iyana." the voice alone would probably be enough to get most males, and quite a few females as well, to go gooey over her presence "And I am never to be summoned lightly. Of those present, you is the only one currently suitable. If anyone else want´s to know if such change, they may summon me in no less than a year from now, or I may be, somewhat annoyed." the tone was ever nice, but the message was beyond obvious -bother me too much and you will regret it-. She continued after a moment "Do you wish to complete the contract?"

"Ehm, what can you do, I mean if I summon you sometime important how can you help?"

Iyana leaned her head to the side "You´re an Uzumaki, you should know that I´m not for common summons." she said it as if it was all the explanation needed, leaving Naruto more than a little confused "Do you wish to complete the contract?"

Naruto thought about it, the pretty lady with even less clothes than Anko taking a swim clearly implied that she had something to offer, even though it didn´t seem to be like the summons he had heard of before. 'Meh, I have lots of chakra, if it´s something useless it wont be a big problem anyway.'

"Yes I wish to complete the contract!"

That brought the first smile to the woman, causing another strained groan, this time not just from Kenji. Then she walked up to Naruto, leaned down while embracing him and kissed Naruto. Long.

After about half a minute she broke the kiss and straightened up, gave Naruto´s hair a kind ruffling "Contract sealed and completed, you will understand soon." after which she disappeared with a loud *pop* that made at least half those present startle.

Not Naruto however, he was mostly just standing frozen in place looking silly. After a moment he blinked, then "Hey, what the..." the others looked at him as he seemed to move randomly a while "Now that is -cool-!"

"W-w-what?" Hinata squeaked out.

"It´s like... *ehm* Like I can feel my chakra much clearer now..."

'Right... The Uzumaki´s were known for high chakra levels, and that makes it harder to learn control, so they actually managed to go and find a summon that could assist...' Kurenai smiled at the thought, wondering how much effort that had probably taken.

Kurenai then noted that Naruto had gone back to being dazed again once he had the chance to think about what happened, she had a hard time not laughing, clearly not the only one either. Naruto had certainly not expected -that- to be how a summon might finalise a contract. Hinata also still looked slightly shocked.

"Kenji, would you do the honor of trying the last contract, I don´t think Naruto will be up to doing any more summonings today?"

Kenji was about to say that it was Naruto´s scroll and shouldn´t he do it anyway, then he looked at the boy in question "Ah, yes I guess that might be better after all." he switched to the last scroll "Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

A normalsized tiger instantly appeared.

"I am Torakii of the greatest tiger clan, speak your message to the mighty lord of tigers, Toragin."

"Still as pretentious as ever." came from one end of the couch.

The tiger looked "Kia... I should have known." and then sighed very theatrically as it sat down "Can´t ever let me have some fun can she..." it grumbled then looked up at Kenji "Sorry little boy, I like the way you feel already but your chakra does not suit us."

Kenji faltered for a moment, it was the first time ever an animal had rejected him in -any- way, but quickly got back to business "Well, you´re welcome to visit me if you wish, how about the others here, would any of them be suitable?"

Torakii looked around slowly, focusing on each person for a long moment "Those three are acceptable." he said as he pointed at Sakura, Hinata and Tenten, adressing them "If you wish to contract, sign and I will accept you here and now."

Sasuke was slightly annoyed, when Kurenai´s study group had moved over to learning and practising more specific things longterm, Kurenai had been quite firm on drafting the best students in different areas to help her teach those in each smaller group, or like with Sasuke, simply letting him handle the group all by himself after the first couple of sessions. Since no group included more than at most a third of the students in total it allowed far better use of all their time.

Sakura was helping Kurenai teach genjutsu and teaching chakra control and chakra boosting on her own, Nana had been almost literally dragged into teaching henge, with what sometimes could be called assistance from Naruto, as well as chakra stealth, Tenten had one group learning throwing and another with Sakura and Kurenai for improving seals.

The small Saeko was quickly adding skill to the small group practising kawarimi. Akiko taught chakrasensing and after her rapid gain of proficiency also helped Sasuke teaching wire use, which Sasuke considered lucky because the group he was currently trying to teach how to use fire ninjutsu was not easy and had already many times tried his patience, that it was one of the largest groups didn´t help.

That both Ino and Sakura was part of it had gone better than he had first feared, but they could still be quite annoying, Nana could be quite impossible if he managed to annoy her, at least Chouji, Kyouya, Gin and Tenten were decently good learners and also did not cause any big problems. The last in this group, Kiba, was not currently present, his affinity was minimal and unlike Sakura, he wasn´t really a quick learner, so he attended enough to allow him to learn it eventually, but for now instead focusing on his stronger water affinity.

But despite that Sasuke was also quite pleased at the situation, heading the group meant he got extra time to improve his own skill, and he had found that teaching also provided him with insights on the subject that he would never have thought of otherwise, just having to study less commonly used knowledge to answer questions had shown him quite a few very interesting facts and given many more ideas, but of course, he also had less time to actually try out those ideas.

Teaching by itself had also made him look at his own skills from a different perspective, something he had found quite useful. And Gai had even commented that he had visibly matured since he had started acting as a teacher.

AN:

Yousei btw roughly means fairy. Essentially, Iyana is a nymph.

New semi-OC, Kenji is based surprisingly closely on Kenji Harima from School Rumble, and if you haven´t seen that series already, do so. It is quite amusing.

Real world ninjutsu of the day, a simple way to estimate how long until sunset. If you hold out your arm straight, with the hand angled inwards, you place the upper edge of the hand to the lower edge of the sun, from there you can measure how many hands/fingers you can fit between the edge of the sun and the horizon. You will need to calibrate depending on your own size, exactly where on the hand you use (I use the end of the thumb for easy precision) what latitude you´re at and to a much smaller degree what time of year it is.

When you get it right, each finger will represent about 15 minutes, so a full hand (excluding the thumb) means 1 hour. Just don´t look directly at the sun now.

Next chapter should at least not take longer than this one and will be the first where action is the main part.