This is oddly hard, Naruto's personality is hard to write.

I am drawing some inspiration from Pulling my Weight, for the side scenes, as this needs those to work.


"NARUTO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING BACK IN THE VILLAGE!"

It was hard not to turn and smile, beaming back at Rock Lee as he barreled towards Naruto at high speeds. His joyful expression always left Naruto smiling and today was no exception. Turning fully, ignoring the wave of exhaustion that came with that act, he waited for his friend to approach.

"Hey Lee! I was really hurt during a mission, it damaged my chakra coils and my muscles so I am rehabing here in the village." He turned away, the kept his tone low. " My chakra is a lot lower then it used to be... so I am trying to catch back up to my old levels. Granny Tsunade is having me train hard for the next month. I have to build my muscles up too... I lost a lot of my power."

Lee blinked for a moment. "That's terrible news! At least you are alright, I too had to recover hard when I was hurt during my fight with Gaara. If you like I can show you what I did to get better as fast as I could?"

It was Naruto's turn to blink, shocked at the offer. Then he smiled, a wicked nasty smile imagining fighting as powerfully as Lee did. 'If I worked as hard as Lee does, I'd be Hokage in no time!' "Sure Lee! It's been really hard, we could train together."

"Yosh, you should join me before we go and train! The other Rookies and I are going to go eat barbeque. Today is the first day we have all been in the village since you left. We have been on missions constantly, so we were going to celebrate."

A rush of uncomfortable heat that he didn't understand washed through Naruto, his hands started to shake. "Sure." He said, walking side by side Lee in a comfortable silence as they hurried towards the restaurant. It took about ten minutes to reach it and when they did, Naruto saw that there was a table in the far corner filled with his friends and classmates. They looked excited and happy around each other, comfortably chatting with random people. Eventually Kiba, with his keen sense of smell, turned and smiled.

"Naruto, your back?" His smile was a mile wide and Naruto laughed at his earlier feeling. There was no need for it, he was safe here.

"Yeah, accident during a mission. I got pretty beat up, have to go to rehab while I'm here for the next month or more." he smiled at everyone as they all had finally turned to him with various expressions of happiness and confusion. Even Shino seemed pleased... though Naruto knew he was probably reading into it.

"RUFFF, RUFF!" Akamaru, sitting on Kiba's head, barked out, panting with a confused look on his face.

"Huh, what do you mean his chakra is weaker then before?" Kiba turned up, looking at Akamaru who barked more. "He smells dead, what sense does that make?"

The world started to shake, swirling around him, his breath hot and heavy.

It only centered itself when Lee put a hand on his shoulder, concrete and strong it anchored Naruto to the real world. "It's exciting, right! Let's eat!" With those strong hands, Lee guided Naruto to a seat and he plopped down beside him, next to a happy looking Ino and a very smiley Choji.

Across from them was Kiba and Akamaru, Shikamaru, Shino and a very flush faced Hinata.

"Hi everyone, miss me." He kept on a glassglow grin, even as that sense of discomfort returned seeing these faces look at him. Something felt wrong, inside, he just couldn't explain what.

"Yeah Man, why are you back and why do you smell so wrong?" Kiba leaned in, sniffing a few times across the table. "Akamaru's right, you smell weird. Sort of dead but I can't be sure."

"Kiba, perhaps it would be best to not be rude. Why you ask, because Naruto just returned and may not want to share the cause of the change to his sent." Shino's dull tone left Naruto at ease, he couldn't help the slight sigh of relief he felt rush through him. "How have you been Naruto?"

Finally an easy question. "I'm good, I'm going to be in the village for..." He froze, a realization passing him that stripped him of a lot of his happiness. "For a while." He landed on, realizing that he was home for good. Jiriaya had dumped him, like Kakashi had, like everyone else had... The spinning feeling returned. "I, uh... I had, I was attacked during a mission... my chakra coils were damaged pretty bad. Granny Tsunade had to remake them bit by bit... I lost most of my power, my chakra, my strength,... I am basically a new genin starting out, a fresh genin, so I have to restart making my body. That's why I am so much weaker and that's why I smell dead I think."

"At least you are alive, I heard from Sakura that you died." Ino's voice drew Naruto's attention where he saw that she and Neji was approaching them from the entrance. Neji seemed taller, and Ino's hair had grown out a lot. "Your chakra really is so much weaker now, it used to be stronger then our entire class combined but now... now your only a little stronger then Sasuke's chakra."

Naruto nodded, ignoring the sharp pain that crossed his heart at the mention of Sasuke. "My chakra is double Sasuke's, that's what Granny Tsunade said. It used to be fifty times greater and really dense." He recited Tsunade's words, trying to hold on as the dizziness turned into lightheadedness. 'I feel like a damn ghost.'

Hinata squeaked out suddenly, as Ino and Neji scooted onto the long benches, Neji on Naruto's side and Ino on Hinata's. "What accident did you have, Uh,,, Na..nanarnaruto." He looked at her, seeing her shaking with a deep red in her face.

That's when everything started to go blurry, his breath no longer staying in his chest.

"I, uh,... It... I..."

"I heard he died at one of Orochimaru's bases." Ino's barked out, not seeing Naruto struggle to breathe, to live. "Ran off and got bit by something that killed him. Tsunade Sensei had to revive him entirely, but his chakra network basically restarted so he has to start from scratch."

Darkness blossomed in waves and Naruto felt his muscles turn to jelly. He was about to collapse entirely, his chest frozen and no longer pumping air about, when the visions started.

"You bastard! This is for Sasuke!" Naruto and his clones charged his enemy, a massive sludgy looking guy with orange hair and grey skin. He reeked, filling the concrete halls with a horrible scent Naruto could almost taste. "I'm going to kill you, RASENGAN!" Naruto, hand stretched out with his clones, thrust the Rasengan out and into the belly of the beast.

Only to be slapped away, smashing painfully into the walls. The world spun as he struggled to stand, the familiar burn of healing washed through him but before he could recover the beast was on him, grasping his throat with cold claws. "REEEEEEEEEEECK!" It screeched, slamming him again and again into the wall, cracks and dust filling the air. After what felt like an eternity it dropped Naruto on his butt.

Then it bit him, and sheer agony exploded through him. Liquid fire washed through his veins, his skin burning cold, his muscles tensing.

Something clicked in his brain at that moment.

' I am going to die'

"INO!" Neji's voice, strong and cold, cut through her gossip and he reached over, grabbing Naruto with his cold hands. "Breath, you need to breathe."

Naruto looked at his face, slurring and blurring in the fading light. "I died... I died... I died..." Tears, hot and salty, fell down his face as finally he collapsed into Neji's chest, and everything went dark.

'''

Neji and the rest of the Rookies shot across the streets, Naruto on his back as they hurried towards the hospital. He kept focused, even as he heard the others chattering.

"What was that?" Kiba said, his voice filled with worry.

"A panic attack, I think." Shikamaru said, his voice oddly worried. "I've had a few of them, after the Sasuke retrieval mission. I can't believe I missed the signs, he looked like a ghost from the moment he came to the restaurant."

Ino finally chirped out. " Why though? It takes serious trauma to start getting panic attacks."

Neji, done with stupidity, turned to the girl. "He died, you said so and so did he. That is rather traumatic, don't you think?" The foolish girl flushed a deep pink and shut her mouth. "Whatever happened to Naruto, that weakened him as much as you said it did, has to have been a life or death event. Naruto held up for a while but even he cannot handle that kind of trauma without some kind of side effect. As a medic in training you'd think you'd get that."

The rest of them went quiet the entire way to the hospital, where they reached the receptionist as fast as they could. Neji, carrying Naruto on his back, was the first to approach her.

"Ma'am, Naruto Uzumaki has recently had what I presume to be a major panic attack and passed out. We were not entirely sure what to do, so we brought him here."

The women, a blonde like Naruto only with grey eyes, blinked at them for a moment before a gasp came to her lips. " That poor boy, I remember when Jiraiya came here with him... the condition he was in, no wonder he had a panic attack. Nurse Ida!" A nurse with red hair popped out of a room to the side of the desk. "This young man passed out from what may have been a panic attack, can you assist him please?"

Within moments Naruto was taken from them and carried on a cot into a new room, where the nurse named Ida examined him with various objects and jutsu. After a few minutes she returned and turned to the Receptionist. "Call Lady Tsunade."

"Is he alright?" Neji ignored Ino and Hinata's gasp when this was said, but he understood their panic. Tsunade wasn't called just for any case, on the most severe and heartbreaking like with Lee's previous injury or with Naruto's apparent death...

Ida turned to him with a warm smile. "Naruto has no family, so Tsunade is his emergency contact as she is the Hokage and his primary Doctor. You were right, it was a panic attack."

Neji felt ease wash through him at that, but he didn't buy the women's statement fully. Something felt off. The moment she was gone, he turned to Naruto's room and activated his Byakugan.

'His chakra is entirely different, it has none of the density it had before. The amount is far less as well, just as he told us... but that's not all. These coils, their far smaller and less developed then before. Even his chakra points seem smaller. Not only can he produce less chakra, his body cannot use any where near as much as it once could. Then there are his muscles, they seem to have been reduced in size, as if Atrophy has kicked in... but that makes no sense, how long could he have been in bed for... unless he loss his old healing factor... Ino said he lost a big source of chakra, could it be that red chakra that looked like a fox? The reason he beat me in battle... I will have to just ask him for answers, when it is safe too do so. Of course...'

He would have gone and sat down, but then Tsuande walked into the room, just as Naruto started to wake up... and Neji just couldn't pull himself away from the conversation. No matter how not his business it was.

'''

'What happened?' Naruto groaned inside as he slowly awoke, the familiar stink of the hospital air and it's horribly bright lights drawing him back to the real world. "Why do I feel so heavy?"

There was a grunt, making him turn to see a very, very sad looking Tsunade. "Panic attacks will do that to you. Your lucky your friends found you, who knows what would have happened if they hadn't been there."

Naruto frowned at her, confused. "Panic attack?"

"Your body went into Fight or Flight mode but instead of picking it got stuck and you couldn't breathe. You passed out at the restaurant." Tsunade frowned at him. "Has this happened before?"

"No... I saw things... before..."

Her eyes narrowed. "What things?"

"The beast attacking me... slamming me into the wall again and again... then it bit me." He shuddered, the memory of his death haunting him. "I... I never realized that I died. Even when you told me it just... wasn't... real? Like a clone, it looks real but it's not... then it hit me, all at once. I couldn't breath, I couldn't think or see... it was all... It was like being hit with a rasegan to the chest. Is that normal?"

"Normal as in it is something everyone gets, no... is it normal as it expected for what you went through... yes." Tsuande sighed. "What you went through, Naruto, was something I wouldn't wish on anyone. You died, literally died, you only came back due to sheer luck. The Kyuubi's chakra in some of your cells, those that had yet to die from the Sage chakra infusion, was something I was barely able to use to restart your heart and force your body to heal from the damage. It's the reason your Whiskers are fading, but more importantly it was our lucky break. I think you didn't understand just how close you were to being no more, and that is a lot for anyone... I imagine you might start seeing other things as well, things that you haven't dealt with so, to ensure you can come back to combat, I will be putting you in therapy with Inoichi Yamanka himself."

Naruto cringed at that, but didn't argue for once. " This was scary, scary then anything I have been through. Even when Sasuke put his hand in my chest, or when we fought Orochimaru... it was like my body was my enemy... but wait, I can't get therapy, I have to train or I can't become a Genin again!"

"Naruto, you need help. If you have a panic attack in battle you could get yourself and other's killed."

"But-"

"NO! Your going to therapy and that is the end of it." She growled out. "Now... as for your training... I have an idea. NEJI, I KNOW YOUR WATCHING! GET INTO THE ROOM NOW!" Naruto turned to the door and saw an embarrassed Neji all but crawl into the room. Tsunade, oddly amused, all but smirked at the poor Hyuuga. "The Byakugan has a very obvious chakra signature if you know to look for it. I am very familiar with it, so it wasn't hard to notice. Besides you ooze intent, which is easily sensed. Work on that."

"Yes, Lady Hokage."

"Now, onto my idea. I want you to give Naruto some tips on managing his chakra. You Hyuuga's are masters of chakra control, I am sure you could teach him over the next few days along side... Lee? Yes, Lee, to get him able to train his body and chakra so he can at least remaster then rasengan and taijutsu." She turned back to Naruto. " Chakra is made up of Physical energy and Spiritual. These two are masters of both, since Lee has the most powerful body of your generation and Neji is the most capable in chakra control and they both dominate Taijutsu. They may not be able to teach you their styles but they can give you tips to master your own and increase your control and reserves. If you better your control, learn exercises that help with that, you might be able to do the rasengan by the months end without a clone. Conditioning like Lee does and learning control exercises will also increase your chakra reserves which may allow you to make a clone one day, so there is that as well. Does this sound like a good idea, Naruto?"

Naruto could not help but beam a smile, but it quickly faded as he turned to Neji. " Is that okay with you?"

"You taught me that Fate has no power over my life. Death will have no power over yours. I know that you are no longer a genin any more. If Lee and I get a few days to work with you, to prepare you for returning to service, we will make sure you are more then ready. I am more then happy to help you Naruto. I assume we only have a few days?"

Tsunade nodded. " I can only spare you for three days before you will have to do patrolling the borders or being sent on a mission. Between the two of you, this should be enough to get him on track. Taijutsu, conditioning, throwing skills and chakra control... with your help he can get at least these factors to Genin level. Can you keep his status a secret? I know you read my lips about Kyuubi's chakra and Naruto's status as being no longer a genin."

"Of course, I know a thing or two about keeping a secret."

"Wonderful, then so be it. Starting tomorrow you and Lee will be teaching Naruto, giving tips to make him as skilled possible... and yes he is cleared medically for weights, but keep Lee from going out of control."

"Right."

And for the first time since he died, Naruto really felt alive... and more then grateful that at least some people cared about him even in others like Jiraiya and Kakashi didn't.

"Oh and beat some strategy into his head while you can, that is something he really needs help with. Tactically he is great but long term... he really needs help."

"I will do my best."


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

I actually planned out the Lee and Neji bit a while ago, they won't be teaching him for a full month but they will have enough time to set him on a good course...I wanted to showcase that in reality they are the best options for teachers as they have each what he lacks... Taijutsu skill, conditioning that is earned, strategy and great control."

Love, your Ninja Overlord,

Mika.