"Alright, training starts now."

Kakashi's words had a great effect on his student, he could clearly see as much. Even Sasuke, who was quiet and closed off, showed a sign of excitement in some minute twitching of his hands. It took all of his ANBU experience to see it but Kakashi could see it clearly. Sakura was quivering with some fear but a great deal of anticipation. Rai was smiling from ear to ear, but there was an edge to it, doubt most likely...

Then there was Naruto, who was bubbling with so much excitement he reminded Kakashi of a Puppy. "RIGHT!" he barked out, making Kakashi smile inside.

"First we will begin with a review of chakra a ninjas basic source of power. Understanding chakra essential."

Sasuke, ever the sarcastic one, bit out. " We know that."

"OOH! I know about Chakra believe it!" Naruto barked out again, smiling happily. " Rai taught me about it, it's the mixture of physical and spiritual energy in the body. Physical energy from your DNA, Muscle mass, training and the food you eat where as Spiritual is from mental exercise and emotion like from Meditation, reading, study and personal growth!"

Stunned, Kaskashi turned to a smirking Rai. " I am as smart as he is, I just am more determined with reading so it wasn't hard to teach him. We are both considerably above average in terms of intelligence, he just needs a push at times and simpler terms at first."

" I see that... you taught him well." He smiled internally. 'I thought he was an idiot but it is clear that with different focus and medium Naruto's and thereby Rai's natural intelligence must be far higher then we realized. He may be more like his parents then he realized... which means we really did fail him if he is so behind... damn it.' Shrugging off his guilt as much as he could, Kakashi redirected his thoughts back to the lesson.

"Do you know about Handsigns Naruto?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah handsigns are used to focus energy and direct the flow of it as needed but not all acts of chakra need handsigns like with Surface clinging and water walking."

"You know about those? That's not genin level techniques."

Rai, who had been mostly quiet, smirked even deeper. "Wrong, they are genin level techniques just not taught to academy students. Lord Hokage recommended me a book on Chakra called the Basics of Chakra and it's uses. It told all sorts of tales on how to master chakra through training and mentioned Surface clinging and Water walking. I told Naruto about it because it seemed cool. I admit though, though we worked on using the Leaf sticking exercise some, we never tried the other exercises just in case we hurt ourselves. The book warns on learning them without a good teacher in cast of falls or drowning after or due to exhaustion.

But we focused on studying the theory since Naruto had more chakra then the Hokage due to being a Pure Uzumaki and I am literally made of Chakra so... we know that you have to use precise mixtures of each type of kind of chakra from spiritual and physical to elemental to get each jutsu down. That's why we practiced so hard with our water jutsu, we didn't want to screw up like Naruto's normal clone jutsu. We both had serious chakra related issues to work through, him too much and my existence relying on it. We know that there are many different ways to master our chakra including those skills... since we are in a forest with lots of trees I am assuming your teaching us Surface clinging?"

Blinking, Kakashi nodded. 'Definitely smarter then we realized... if Naruto calms down he might actually be a genius... which would make sense, he did master the Shadow Clone jutsu in a handful of hours. Even I took more time with that...I need to stop underestimating them. Rai has calmed down his brother so much, he is progressing at an astounding rate.'

"Okay... I guess I'll show you..." Walking over to the tree Kakashi put his hands into the sign of confrontation, though he didn't need too, and started to walk up the tree.

"Wow, without his hands!" Sakura's shrill voice echoed into his ears.

Rai hummed. "I can sense the chakra... I wonder if I can replicate that..."

"Wow!" That was Naruto.

"Focus the chakra towards the soles of your feet and use it to connect it to the tree."

Sakura looked outraged. "That's a nice trick but how does it help us to fight Zabuza!"

"By giving us greater mastery of our chakra." Rai, to no one's surprise, piped up. "I mean this is a guess, but it sort of makes sense that by training like this we will be able to use our jutsu with more accuracy and less chakra. I know that Naruto burns almost three times as much chakra making a clone then he needs too, and that is why he couldn't make regular clones since he had too much chakra to manage to make something so weak. Is that right, Kakashi?"

Sort of proud, Kakashi nodded. "Yes, that is the idea. You see if you master this you will learn to draw a precise amount of chakra to a precise point. This is difficult even for advanced Ninja. This type of climbing requires a subtle mixture of spiritual and physical energy. The soles of the feet are the hardest point to draw from and too. Are you getting the picture Sakura. If you master this you can master any jutsu… in theory anyway.

The second point is to maintain your chakra levels. When a ninja is focused in battle it is even harder to control and maintain his charka levels. A deadly mistake. To avoid this maintaining chakra must become second Nature. Effortless. Well I could talk about this all day, but that won't advance your skills will it. You need to apply chakra, through training."With blinding speeds, Kakashi threw four Kunai at the feet of his students. "Use the Kunai knife to mark the tree at the highest point you can climb without using your hands. Then try to get past that mark the next, then the next. First you need to run at the tree so the momentum can take you as high as possible. At first. Ready!"

To his shock, it was Rai who picked up the first Kunai, then Naruto both of whom looked determined but not obnoxious.

"Do what you can Naruto." Rai offered his brother a smile before running at a tree, going up... and up... and up... and up... and up... until he reached about half way, it was then that he cut the tree and threw himself back down.

"Huh you have above average control, probably since your not possessing Naruto's vast chakra levels." Smiling a little, Kakashi was pleased to see the boy's determined face.

"This is just like the Leaf exercise from the book! Only with way more chakra... Naruto, remember the leaves and put more energy into It but not too much... like maintaining a transformation, how you have to hold it. Try like that."

Naruto nodded. "Alright, I got this believe it!" Closing his eyes, Naruto focused his chakra creating a physical wave of energy before shooting across the clearing and making his way up the tree. He reached a height of ten feet about a fourth of the way up before a small dent appeared at his feet, blasting him off. Still he used the momentum to land in a backflip onto his feet. "Alright that wasn't so hard!"

'I expected it to be much harder, but if he's been doing the Leaf sticking exercise, even infrequently, then he has some help... and if he has been learning then his spiritual chakra is more advanced and thus his chakra is easier to control overall. Maybe he will finish this lesson earlier then I thought.'

Sasuke and Sakura both shot up their own trees, with Sasuke making it just under half way and Sakura...

"This is fun!" Sakura cheered from a spot all the way up her tree, a happy gloating grin on her face.

"Well it looks like the female of the team has the greatest chakra control."

"Good job Sakura." Rai and Naruto said as one, both smiling and looking genuinely happy though Naruto's smile was more excited then Rai's.

""""

It was easy to drown everyone else out, even his sensei, as he focused on his tree. He did hear him make some remarks about being Hokage and the Uchiha clan, but he knew that the man was trying to rile then up. It was pretty obvious he wanted to see some competition. Why, maybe to make Sasuke and Naruto train harder...

But Rai knew that wouldn't help Naruto... not really. Competiton wasn't key for Naruto, encouragement and actual instruction was. You couldn't just leave him and expect results, you needed direction and guidance.

Rai would give that to him gladly.

'Okay, I need to apply more Chakra... I can get up the tree but my issue is maintaining the amount.'

Grimacing, he shot back up the tree, sprinting up the side up and up and up... and up until finally he reached the top, just as Sakura had. He stopped for a moment, hating the feeling of being vertical in the air no matter how cool it was... and he just stayed there, feeling the strain of his chakra as it pulled him to the tree. It was an annoying itch in the back of his mind, but he endured it, letting the strain slowly drift away and become second nature.

"Alright, Rai, you did it!" Naruto's call distracted Rai for a moment, he almost slipped, but caught himself at the last moment. Turning around he saw his brother smiling at him from the ground, though a note of jealousy lay in his eyes.

Knowing he had to help before it got too bad, he slowly walked back down, realizing how much easier the technique felt the longer he did it. By the time he reached the ground he barely noticed the strain at all. It felt as easy as breathing.

"It's not so hard Naruto... " He focused on his brother. "Start up the tree, I'll read your chakra and tell you if your using too much or too little."

"Before that..." Kakashi said, suddenly appearing behind him. "We need to talk for a moment, don't worry I'll let you go in a minute but I have a few questions for you."

A feeling of guilt, for no real reason, appeared at the sight of Kakashi smiling down upon him. It was so annoying that Rai slammed it away focusing on smiling back at the idiot who called himself his sensei. " Alright."

And with that he was led away, into the forest just a little bit before Kakashi stopped and turned back. " Mainly I want to know why you and Naruto both know water jutsu. Far as I know, neither of you have anyone else teaching you."

"We learned it on our own, using library scrolls as is our right as Genin. Naruto has an insane amount of chakra so he learned the harder jutsu, and I have less so I learned the easier one. Simple really."

"You do know that dangerous, right?"

"Yes, but worth it. We need to defend ourselves and it worked... Naruto and I have no family jutsus to learn, no parents to teach us and you never bothered to do anything... " He actually saw Kakashi cringe. "I refuse to lay about and just expect power to drop in our laps... anyway if all goes well I will be joining the Hospital. I want to become a medical ninja personally so at least I will have someone teaching me something of value, safely."

That seemed to throw Kakashi. " Medical Ninja? Why?"

"I don't have my brother's healing factor...and to be honest I realized how screwed our team was after and during Zabuza's fight. If he had hurt you we would be six kinds of screwed. As it was if Naruto wasn't there I would have taken a week to heal at the least. No... I want to be able to patch up and heal my comrades so that this never happens again or at least is less likely to... just think of how safer we will all be if at least one of us could heal wounds or at least use Herbs to patch encourage healing?

I am not Naruto, I don't have the raw power of a Kage or the healing of an Uzumaki... so I have to find my own path to safety and protection. I want to be a healer but I still want to have my own combat style. Like Tsunade! She's sort of my idol to be honest, a healer and a powerful fighter that had a style unique to her, someone who changed the way the world worked... I want to be like that but my own kind of unique... I have never said it out loud or realized that's what I wanted until now...actually until now I never had a goal I just sort of... existed I guess... but after Zabuza nearly killed us all I guess I realized that I had to be more... I wanted to be more... "

Kakashi smiled. "That's a worthy goal... I'll see what I can do when we return."

"Thank you, Kakashi... now I should probably get back to my brother and Sasuke. I think with my new sensory powers I can help them master this quicker and we can move onto other subjects."

"You really are determined to help them with their goals, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am… I like them both. I love my brother and Sasuke is actually not that bad if you talk to him he just needs some help. I want to be that person for them." He smiled, turning away. " But I want to be my own person too...I am too young, too new... I don't want my short life to be at the service of others entirely. I have been reading up on other Ninjas and seeing the kind of Ninja I want to be. Naruto wants to be Hokage and that is well and good but I think I want to be a support Ninja the kind that brings out the best in others. I want to be remembered for helping others become better... but I still want to be remembered for my own achievements... is that strange?"

"No... I don't think it is."

"Thanks... anyway, If that's all... can I go?"

Kakashi nodded. "That's all. Go help them as much as your able."

"""

Watching Rai hurry off, Kakashi realized how nice it must feel to have a goal. To have a dream... Rai must have been so lost, having been created from Naruto only to exist as his shadow. Having a goal, weather he realized it or not, would drive the boy to greater success and make him even more amazing.

' To think, he gained a path for himself in his near death... in fighting Zabuza and being knocked out he has found a path to better himself... I wonder if he'll achieve it?'

Kakashi hoped the boy would...even if he was rude and had a habit of making Kakashi feel like garbage... even if he was right about what he said...

He was Minato's son, clone or not, and Kakashi wanted him to succeed.

"""

As he walked back to the others, Rai was left wondering... 'Where did all that from... that goal... those new dreams... I guess I was more shaken by Zabuza then I realized... it does sound nice too, Medical Ninja Rai! Naruto would never do that, never could... I would be unique, and not just his clone... people would see me entirely as me... Why did I tell it to Kakashi of all people, I don't even like him... maybe it was because he irritated me, brought it out of me with irritation? Who knows...

Still... I have my own dream now. I am a real boy, more now then ever. I am more then Naruto's brother, clone, Shadow! I am and will be remembered for so much more then that... I will matter all on my own even without him! I will matter!'

Happy with that thought he hurried back to the others, happy to finally have his own dreams and goal entirely his own. It was a wonderful goal to start with... even if he definitely had to figure out the finer details...

There was a lot to figure out if he was being honest but he was prepared to try!

Chapter end, tell me what you think in the reviews.

This was epic and yes he will be a Medical Ninja. I realized we rarely see a main character that focused on healing...

Love, your Ninja Overlord,

Mika.