"Well?" he cried out, turning to face the Hokage's balcony with bloody sword in hand, his fury bursting forth from every pore. "Isn't this what you wanted? Children killing each other for your amusement?"
For the briefest moment, everything was silent. The Kazekage turned his back and stormed off, the Hokage and his entourage quietly rushing after him. Then one boy started clapping. A few others followed, scattered applause growing around the spot before cascading across the stands like a wave, until finally the whole audience burst into devastating applause. That was when they started chanting.
"Uzumaki! Uzumaki! Uzumaki!"
Naruto wanted to yell and curse at them, to grab and shake them and scream that all this was their fault for craving such violence in the first place, but his voice was drowned out by the thunder. The whole arena shook with the stamping of their feet as more and more spectators rose in exultation, and Naruto's legs shook with them – not just from the tremors of the earth but from the adrenaline and the drugs that coursed through his system, and above all the burning rage that scorched his veins like fire.
Then one of them leaped from his seat into the arena grounds, and all that rage came into focus.
"You!" Naruto strode towards his bandaged opponent, who calmly walked up to greet him as though it was the most normal thing in the world. He had almost forgotten about having to face Sasuke in the finals, but if his teammate was about to insist on fighting with lethal force Naruto might actually have to murder him as well. "Why the hell did you start clapping? I was gonna-"
"Because annoying you is a national sport?" Sasuke smirked at him, but his smile disappeared as soon as he reached Naruto and whispered into his ear. "Calm down. I know you're angry, but this is not the time and place for it. You just killed the Kazekage's son: Every shinobi in the audience has their nerves on edge right now, so unless your plan is to start a war and get yourself killed in spectacular fashion, just shut up and wave."
The shock of hearing it put like that was like a splash of cold water to the face, which helped to quench Naruto's inner fire, though he still could not bring himself to wave at them. Behind him, Gaara's body was being carried off, an ancient-looking lady from the Sand fretting over him before sending a murderous glare in Naruto's direction and flickering away once more. As the rage in Naruto's body slowly ebbed away, more and more of the void was filled by a sinking anxiety that sickened him like poison.
What did I just do? What was I thinking? He had had every good reason to do what he did, but still…
"Don't worry," said Sasuke, seeing his expression. "You won't have to fight me, if that's what you're thinking. I'm forfeiting the match."
Naruto stared at him, dumbstruck. "What? Why?"
The boy shrugged. "Why wouldn't I? I only ever cared about gaining combat experience in the first place, and I can spar with you whenever I want. I'll probably be promoted to chūnin anyway, and it's not as if the proctors are actually interested in another match right now." He smirked again. "Besides, you're in no state to fight me, and it wouldn't be any fun to beat you up while you're weak."
Naruto watched numbly as Sasuke went over to the examiner, who nodded and raised his hands to gain the attention of the audience. "Everyone please listen! As Uchiha Sasuke just forfeited his match, I provisionally declare Uzumaki Naruto to be the winner of the chūnin exams, until we can deliberate-"
The rest of his words were cut off however, as the crowd exploded in an uproar that shook the arena with enough force to make the previous tempest look like a mild breeze. All across the arena people were rushing for the exit, knocking over seats and clambering over each other in their haste to demand refunds for their tickets or the money they had bet on Sasuke, or perhaps both at the same time.
Sasuke smirked at the sight, his grey eyes twinkling with amusement. "Look at them. Mere moments ago they were deriving their afternoon's excitement from watching our mortal struggles, but now our positions have reversed completely. Just like ants on an anthill, scrambling madly after getting poked by a mere stick..."
Perhaps it was only the exhaustion, or his previous resentment at the crowd that had left his well dry of empathy, but for once Naruto thought he could understand Sasuke's perspective. Somewhere in that crowd people were getting trampled, but from down in the arena it really did look like a peculiar sight.
"Come on," said Sasuke, placing a hand on his shoulder and tugging gently. "Let's get you home."
"Are you sure you'll be okay?"
Kakashi-sensei had appeared from out of nowhere to whisk Naruto out of the arena, helping him to disappear as only a jōnin could. The expression of his one eye seemed unusually serious – for once, he was not pretending to be unconcerned about the fate of his student. "That was your first kill, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," said Naruto, not quite sure which question he was giving answer to. It was a lie, either way: He had killed all those people back in the Land of Waves after all, whose deaths had felt the same for all that they were not ninjas, but Kakashi surely knew that already. "I'll make it from here. Thanks anyway."
"All right," said Kakashi. "We'll talk more, later." He gave a final nod before vanishing once more.
You could've been a little harder to convince, Naruto thought glumly, perhaps unfairly. He began to make his way towards his apartment: It was only another minute to get there, anyway.
Thirty seconds later there was a slight expulsion of air behind him, and Naruto froze. Turning around, he found a pair of shadows hidden beneath one of the many walkways that connected the upper levels of Konoha, blending in with the walls as though they were part of the structure. Their black cloaks and white masks left almost nothing to be identified, but Naruto thought he could make out the slightest strand of purple hair peeking out behind one of the cat masks, and there was something vaguely familiar about the second man – as though Naruto had met him once already, in some time long past.
"The Hokage wishes to have an audience with you," the man said.
Naruto sighed. He could almost see his apartment door from where he stood. "How nice of him to ask."
Naruto tried vainly to control the beating of his heart as he marched through the long halls of the administrative building. Crackling torches passed him by on either side, their flickering light casting shadows across the floor and obscuring the movement of the shades that were surely following behind. Only the faintest shifts in the air current served to convince him that he was not, in fact, alone.
After everything I've gone through, I should be able to handle this as well. Yet even as Naruto thought that, a part of him knew perfectly well that the Anbu presented a different level of threat entirely. Zabuza had been part of the Anbu, Kakashi had been one of their captains and so was Sasuke's murderous brother if the stories about him were even remotely true. He remembered Kakashi's speech about teamwork, about everything that made the Anbu so unbeatable, and he believed every word of it.
Kiba came back in the end; I will come back too, he told himself. Or someone who looks like me, anyway…
"Enter here," a voice said behind him. When Naruto turned around, there was only an empty hallway.
He sighed and, trying vainly to calm the beating of his heart, pushed open the massive wooden gates that had appeared before him. A wall of voices rose up to meet him – angry, loud and discordant.
"Lord and ladies of the council, please," the Hokage implored. The Third Hokage was sitting right there at the head of the oval table, calmly smoking his pipe amidst the turmoil. "Remember yourselves. What happened is in the past; what we must do now is find a way to forge ahead towards a brighter future."
"It's the future you wish us to be concerned about, is it?" The council member who spoke was an elderly man whose head was half wrapped in bandages, with only one narrowed eye and a crop of sharp black hair poking out. "I will tell you what would lead us to a brighter future: Heeding my advice! I warned you about this, Hiruzen. I told you this would happen, and what did you do? Nothing – you did nothing!"
"You did warn us," Morino Ibiki growled. The scarred Anbu commander and head of Torture and Interrogation loomed over the table in his massive black overcoat, casting a shadow over them all. "Of course, you also warned us about a great many other things – speaking of which, has the sky fallen down on us yet? No? We'll keep waiting then, and be sure to call on you for advice when it does."
"Be reasonable, Ibiki," said the man next to him. His pointed face, goatee and ponytail all made him recognizable as Shikamaru's father, and therefore the jōnin commander of Konoha's regular forces. "You have to admit that he was correct on this count – the Sand really did sneak in their daemon host beneath our very noses. We have to consider the strategic implications of that, especially if Lord Danzō is right to infer that the boy's transformation into a Tailed state was meant as a prelude to invasion."
It was all Naruto could do to stop himself from reeling at the mention of the name. He still remembered the ominous warning in his father's letter: "You must not, under any circumstances, trust the man called Shimura Danzō." The Fourth Hokage had considered him one of the primary suspects for the attack on Konoha. Jiraiya had told him afterwards, about the nightly activities of the disbanded Anbu forces that still operated under Danzō's command – answering and accountable to no one but himself. When Jiraiya said that Danzō considered Ibiki's methods to be too soft, it had sent shivers down Naruto's spine.
"Damn it Shikaku, you're supposed to be on our side!" Morino Ibiki slammed a gloved fist on the table, shaking the entire structure, and looked about to use those same gloved hands to strangle Shikamaru's father when the doors closed behind Naruto and they all finally took note of his entry.
"Ah, there he is right now," the Third Hokage remarked, as though he had only just noticed him. "The provisional winner of the chūnin exams. You caused quite a stir, my boy, winning the way you did."
"Don't you dare lay blame on him for that," Danzō spat. "This brave young shinobi saved the entire Village, by foiling the enemy plot that you refused to do anything about. He is a shining example to his entire generation – never mind chūnin; he should be promoted to special jōnin on the spot!"
"I'm afraid the rules are quite clear on that count," the old lady next to him said primly. She squinted at Naruto, examining him. "If a contestant kills his opponent for whatever reason, he must be disqualified. While I think we can all agree that the boy's actions were nothing short of heroic, we cannot be seen to make exception to the very rules and regulations that form the foundation of our society – a shinobi must be able to follow orders, after all."
The bland-looking old man by her side nodded firmly along, humming in agreement.
"I'll be the judge of that," Morino Ibiki snarled. The scarred monster of a man was baring his teeth, as though he were deliberating which of the people in the room he would gobble up first. Naruto shrank back as his murderous eyes bored into him. "No killing, I said. There will be no fighting without permission of the examiner or else you'll have to deal with me, I said. And what did you do? What did you do?" His black gloves creaked as he clenched his fists. "Damn it boy, you promised me you wouldn't cause any problems!"
Technically, Naruto did not remember promising anything of the sort, but the point seemed moot. "Gaara was trying to kill me," he protested instead. "He was gonna unleash a daemon, just like mister Shikaku the jōnin commander said. There wasn't any time to think about it – it just happened."
"About that." An austere looking man with a blond ponytail leaned forward and gazed at him with piercing green eyes. There was something eerily familiar about those eyes, and just looking at them made Naruto feel as though his souls was being laid bare before him. "As head of intelligence under Morino Ibiki, I'm very curious to hear how you knew about that."
Naruto looked uncertainly at the Third Hokage, who nodded in response.
"We're all friends and family here," the Hokage said amicably. "You may tell Inoichi-san your secret."
That still did not tell Naruto which of his secrets they already knew, frustratingly enough, but it was easy enough to guess. "It's because of the… the thing, in my stomach," he answered bashfully. "I could tell he was like me when we fought – I could feel it, I guess, like some kinda connection between us. And then when I saw his eyes change like that, I knew I had to stop him right away, or else it'd be too late."
"So that's how you did it." They all turned to look at the person seated at the far end of the table: A pale man dressed in white robes and brown haori who could only be the lord Hyūga himself. "You knew from your own experience that when a host loses his struggle with the daemon within, he becomes vulnerable to targeted techniques such as genjutsu and sealing, the same as any other spirit. That is how you summoned him to your position and slew him despite the sheer difference in power. Ingenious."
Naruto blinked. He would not have expected the lord Hyūga to be the kind of person who also investigated the inner workings of techniques. His threat estimate for Hinata's father instantly doubled.
"A shinobi must be able to act on his own initiative," Shikamaru's father remarked. "That goes double for a member of Team Seven, and it seems fair to say that Uzumaki-san has exhibited this trait. I believe an argument can be made for his promotion after all of this. More importantly, we need to discuss-"
His words were interrupted by a banging of the gates as a truly massive mountain of a man barrelled into the room, breathing heavily. "Ahh… I'm sorry, I was, held up by, the old lady and then – the new meeting room. I was confused. I thought, with the Hokage building…" he trailed off.
"Ah, Chōza, I'm glad you could make it," The Third Hokage said congenially. "Please, take a seat."
The massive man, who could only be Chōji's father, stared at the one remaining seat and visibly paled. It was the one next to Shimura Danzō, who was staring at Chōza with not a flicker of emotion on his face.
"You can sit next to me, Chōza," the austere man offered, as he moved to sit next to Danzō. The giant man shuffled to the freed-up seat with tangible relief, and squeezed in between the blond man and Shikaku – who endured the sweaty elbow that was pressed against his face with only a slight grimace.
Naruto stared dazedly at the sight, his gaze traveling down the line of faces as he regarded each of the council members in turn. Morino Ibiki first of all, for the man enjoyed torture as a profession, but equally the bandaged elder called Shimura Danzō, who his father had mistrusted so much. That there was an enmity between them was clear, but could it be that his father had also become tangled up in it?
One of the people in this room is the Enemy, he thought, shakily. It has to be. Why else would anyone go to so much trouble to kill the Fourth, if they didn't expect to gain a position of power in return?
He looked at the massive Chōza, who seemed so out of place, and did not buy it for a second. He had seen first-hand how the Akimichi clan used their weight in battle – their mastery over their bodies was second to none – and even now the pills Chōji had given him were all that kept him upright. No, Naruto would not be fooled into thinking that you had to look like a ninja to act like one, not for one moment.
His eyes travelled further down the line, to the austere man with the red coat and the blond ponytail, and suddenly Naruto realized where he had seen that face before: It was the same person who had been there the night after Mizuki got captured, the one who had been trying to control his mind. Ino's father: The head of the Yamanaka clan and the Leaf's purifier of unsavoury thoughts. As head of intelligence the man was responsible for most of Ibiki's dirty work – much to the torturer's chagrin – yet could you ever be truly certain that a mind-reader was working for you and not the other way around?
And then there were the others: The jōnin commander, Shikamaru's father, who was suspect purely because of his supposed brilliance and his role as Leaf's strategist. If anyone could have engineered such a convoluted scheme to kill the Fourth, it was him. He turned to the elderly lady with the squinted eyes, whose traditional bun and hairpin made it quite clear where she stood politically, and the docile man next to her (Her brother, or her husband?). With two votes already, how much power did she truly have? And then of course there was the Lord Hyūga, whose milky white eyes saw all and knew all, and watched Naruto always. If he controlled the flow of so much vital information, then surely he could also control the actions of everybody in this room.
Naruto jumped slightly as the Third Hokage rose from his seat and advanced in his direction. "Come, let us take this conversation elsewhere," he said, beckoning. "I would like to talk to you in private."
Naruto blinked as he realized that the Third was still sitting in his seat at the head of the table, arguing with the rest of the council and calming their emotions as he had before. "Right," he said, still shaking. Of course the Leaf's 'Professor' can use shadow clones too – he knows every single technique!
The Third Hokage guided him out of the room, the doors closing behind them once more, and advanced into the darkness of the corridor. "I imagine you were quite eager to get out of that room," the Third said, chuckling. "I know I was. Those council members will talk your ears right off, if you let them."
"Right," Naruto said again, still in a daze. He followed after the Third, who led them to a much smaller office, where the ancient shinobi sat down behind a simple wooden desk. Decorating the wall next to the window, pictures of past Hokage stared down at them; all four of them including the Third himself.
Naruto gazed at the sight of his father's face, which looked so very much like his own. The rare image stirred up strange feelings within him. He had thought that Morino Ibiki was the one person who had gained more from his father's death than anyone else, but he realized now that it was not true. There was one other who had gained more: If the rumours were true, the Third Hokage had been forced to step down after the Third Great War because of the massive casualties they had sustained for only the most meagre peace terms in return. It was a young hero of that war, one who had contributed more to their victory than anyone else, who had been appointed to take up his mantle.
And then that young hero had died not three years later, and the Third had been forced to step up once more, solemnly continuing his rule for just as long as it took to find another suitable successor.
"Ah, I see you have spotted Minato's picture," the Third Hokage said wistfully. He took off his conical headdress and placed it beside him on the wooden desk. Though well-preserved but for a few liver spots, the expression on his face him look older than ever. "It is hard to believe that it has been fourteen years already, since he passed. I must apologize for failing to visit you since the early days of your youth – I kept meaning to, yet every time I cleared some time in my agenda, it seemed my assistants found something more pressing for me to do. I still remember, though, the sight of you in your mother's belly, as well as the warm glow on your father's face when he first beheld you."
Naruto hesitated, trying to make sense of the strange sight before him. While he had not believed Chōza's bumbling for a moment, the Hokage seemed to be shifting in and out of focus before his eyes: On the surface was the kindly grandfather and wise old ruler, but then there was the tiniest flicker of something else underneath – and Naruto had no idea which if any of those aspects he ought to believe.
"Speaking of more pressing matters," he said, ever so carefully, "shouldn't you be doing something about the whole situation with the Sand? I mean, I know it's kinda my fault and all, but the Kazekage looked really angry, so I thought..." he trailed off, helplessly.
"Oh, but I am," the Hokage said, chuckling lightly once more. "As we speak I am convening with the Kazekage and his advisors, just as I am meeting with the Council in the room next door, while at the same time resolving a sizable amount of paperwork which my assistants all assure me is of absolutely critical importance." His wrinkled eyes crinkled a little further. "I dare say that if I resolved every crucial problem in the world today, the morrow would look exactly the same, with new crises arriving with the dawn just in time to fill the void." The old man leaned forward, whispering as though conveying a secret. "Between you and me, I find that politics is mainly a matter of endurance: They come to you with questions and demanding answers, yet what they truly wish is to be heard and understood. And so you allow them to rage and vent and cry and curse, and in the end nothing has changed and yet their problems seem so much smaller, and your solutions so much more tolerable than they were before."
Naruto found himself staring again, an unbridgeable gap between him and the understanding he sought.
"Enough of such unpleasant matters," the Third said, gesturing with his pipe which had by now been snuffed. "Take a seat. Would you like some Hijiki?" He conjured forth a bowl of brown sea vegetables. "I always keep some close to hand for when Danzō is in one of his foul moods – that and some sardine balls works to resolve most of our political differences, I find." He lit up his pipe with a flick of his fingers, and a moment later he was breathing out short puffs of smoke. "Tell me, my boy: How have you been doing? Has Jiraiya been taking good care of you? You've not picked up any of his bad habits, I hope?"
"Yeah," Naruto said distractedly, still trying to digest the image of his father's adversary and the Hokage enjoying sea food together. "No actually," he corrected himself, remembering just a little of his buried anger. "He's not. I'm not. I mean, he's totally irresponsible and doesn't take raising me seriously at all." He gritted his teeth in memory. "He left me alone and didn't keep any of his promises, and then he allowed me to learn dangerous forbidden techniques without caring about the consequences just because he felt guilty about the whole thing." He paused, realizing that he might have been even angrier if he had not been allowed to learn those techniques in the first place, which would be unreasonable.
"I'm very sorry to hear that," the Third said, frowning and leaning closer, listening intently. "Go on."
Anger flared within Naruto at the condescension – he was hardly going to fall for the Hokage's tricks right after they had been explained to him. "No, stop." He took a deep breath, fumbling for the many things he had wanted to say but which now seemed beyond his grasp. "Things are not all right, and it's not about my feelings either," he said carefully. "This whole exam – you've got children fighting and killing each other, and for what? Because measuring our power is so important to the Village? But then you have us doing pointless missions like painting fences. It's totally inconsistent!"
He remembered complaining about it along with Sasuke only a year ago, though it felt far longer. The Uchiha heir's gripes about his family's stolen possessions seemed so much more reasonable now.
"Such is the nature of politics, I'm afraid." The Hokage took a long drag on his pipe, looking thoughtful. "We each have our will and we each get our say. If I had everything my way, certainly, the academy would finish at a later age and our youths would have more time to develop. But if lord Danzō were Hokage, the Village would look different also, and so we find a golden road in the middle to traverse."
"But the end result makes no sense!" Naruto forcibly calmed himself down again. "Okay, look. I get why you'd want to let someone be heard even if you disagree with them, but if what this Danzō wants is so much worse than what we have right now, then it sounds like he's just an evil person. Why listen to him instead of literally anybody else in the Village? Because his ruthlessness allowed him to amass power and so he gets to be a representative? That sounds like a completely arbitrary way to try and be fair."
"And now you start to sound like Ibiki," the Third laughed, before turning serious again. "Believe me, in my forty years as Hokage I have heard this argument once or twice before. Everyone always seems to think that the Hokage is all-powerful, that we can call any reality we wish into being. I suppose our overly embellished historical accounts are to blame for that." He frowned at Naruto, pushing aside the bowl of vegetables. "Do you imagine Lord Danzō is alone in his views? That all we need do is silence him, and our problems will be past?"
"No, but I bet it would help." How had Gaara put it, exactly? Killing is called justice when you have power and injustice when you have none. "We're ninjas – we're supposed to solve our problems through murder, so how come it's only ever the ones following orders who seem to die?" All of those innocent people who had died in the Land of Waves, and for what? Because the Eternal Mizukage had thought his ninjas ought to be without empathy – and it seemed the Mist was only doing better now that he was gone. A picture was starting to emerge in Naruto's mind, of a war fought not between nations but between those who meant to keep things the way they were and those who intended to fight back.
"I see," said the Third. "And if Ibiki seizes power then, after finding himself uncontested, should I silence him also? Where would it end, exactly?" The Hokage sighed, and turned in his chair, watching out the window to where the first stars could be seen twinkling in the evening sky. "All over the world, darkness is spreading; a continuous rolling tide of hatred that never seizes in its attempts to swallow us whole. For all the power we possess, how are we to fight an enemy that lives within each of us? That is the reason the First Hokage founded this Village in the first place: The whole concept behind the Will of Fire is to find a way for individuals of all stripes to do good together, so that not all of us need be angels."
For a while it was silent, as they both watched the stars together. Perhaps there was some special kind of wisdom to be found there, but if so Naruto could not see it. They just looked like stars to him.
"Maybe you're right," Naruto said at last, not trusting his shaking voice to speak unless he controlled its every word. "Or maybe, when you think about simple things for long enough, they start to look really complex and hard to solve, and you allow yourself to imagine that you're the only one wise enough to fix them. And maybe, if you've been in power for a very long time, you start worrying mostly about distant abstract things that just so happen to justify the current situation, and you tell yourself that the everyday problems of common people are really not so bad after all." He took a deep breath, and forced himself to look the most powerful man in the world in the eye. "You just had an exam where children fight and kill each other. That's wrong. The exam was organized by a man who tortures people and whose band of masked killers makes people disappear into the night. That's wrong. You took most of Sasuke's money just because you could, and you allowed Danzō to have his own personal army of assassins just to appease your political rival. That's wrong too."
He turned aside, for blood was pounding in his ears, and it reminded him of Kurama's voice – speaking for the first time of the hypocrisy of men who kept him enslaved for all those years, none of them imagining it their responsibility to free him, yet feeling at liberty to use his power all the same.
"Bad things are not gonna stop being bad just because you invent reasons for them," Naruto concluded. He remembered trying to convince Haku not to fight them in the Land of Waves, and how hopeless it had felt; the inevitability of everyone dying for no reason, and the sheer pointlessness of it all. "My teacher told me over and over again about the dangers of being clever, about how arguments are just an excuse for smart people to be dumb, and now I feel like I finally understand what he meant by that."
The Hokage was still sitting there, not having moved a muscle, appearing to have listened as intently as he had at the start. "I really should have visited you earlier," he mused. "You grew up – not the same as your father, but with Minato's intelligence and your mother's strong personality, perhaps..."
"I dunno about that," Naruto said with more than a touch of bitterness. "I never met either of them, so I suppose you would know better than me, Hokage-sama. But if my dad really was as great as they say, then I hope he wouldn't have accepted any of this either. I suppose they did kill him for that in the end, so maybe you're right and it's better to play it safe – but then the Enemy never felt the need to kill you."
The room fell deathly silent, and Naruto instantly regretted his words as he realized he had just insulted the most powerful man in the world in his own office, but it was too late to take it back. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I just fought and killed someone and I'm very tired right now, Lord Hokage. Please give me some time to rest, and we can talk more some other time – uh, I mean, if you still want to."
"Yes… yes, of course," the Third Hokage said, sounding as though he had not quite heard what Naruto said but was agreeing to it anyway. The fire in his pipe had gone out again, and he looked at it with a morose expression on his face. "You may leave, if you wish."
Naruto hastily got up, feeling as though he should apologize again but deciding against it, and headed for the door. Right as he was about to turn the knob, he heard the Third's voice again.
"Just one more question before you dispel your cloned body, Uzumaki Naruto. Tell me: Why did you really decide to murder the Fourth Kazekage's son?"
Naruto froze, his muscles halting mid-movement as his mind searched for an answer that was not there. As always, he fell back on honesty instead. "He threatened to kill my friends, Hokage-sama."
"I see," said the Hokage, sounding tired and yet vaguely satisfied. "That is the best reason there is. You will become a strong shinobi, I think."
Naruto dispelled himself, and when he opened his eyes again he was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to explain to Jiraiya what had happened that day and feeling twice as exhausted as he had before.
A/N: That's it for now! I've reached the end of my pre-written material, and although I have planned out the rest of the story long in advance, I now need to spend some time to write up the next act. Well, technically we reached the end of act 3 a while ago - probably when Naruto was being trained by Jiraiya - so maybe this is act 3b? I dunno, the act structure has gotten a little wonky.
The point is, there won't be any chapters for a while. In the meantime, please check out Scar's Samsara if you haven't already: It's a finished rational story set in the Lion King universe which features magical kung-fu animals, so it's basically the same as Naruto! I have the sequel to this story just about finished, and I'm planning to start posting that while I write up the next act so you guys have something to read while you wait. Needless to say it's incredibly hard to write two stories at the same time, but hopefully I can juggle it and it won't cause any further delays.
Aside from that, please feel free to leave a review to let me know what you think of the story so far, and I hope to see you guys again soon!