"You'd better hurry and finish calibrating those alarms Naruto, we're going to be running late as it is."

"I know sensei." Naruto calls back and promptly curses as the seals spark at him again for his momentary inattention. "These things are harder to tune than I thought they'd be. I've only got a couple signatures left."

"Yes, but you also have to move your treasure scrolls down into the vault before we leave." Kakashi reminds him patiently from the kitchen where he's handing bowls of breakfast out to the ninken.

"Craaap."

"I'll do it, Idiot." Sasuke calls, swallowing his own breakfast and hopping down off the counter where he'd been multitasking taking weapon inventory. "You finish programming."

~Remember kit, open negative space, place imprint, and close the space before you charge the circuit.~

"I got it, I got it."

~Just do the Nara's now, kid. He wanted to work on the Black Temple, right?. We can calibrate everyone else in when we get back.~

"Hinata and Ino wanted to look too. I have to add them in at least."

~Alright, alright, just do it quick or we really will be late.~

"I know okay?" Naruto grumbles.

He arches back a little more, curving from his perch on the wall above the doorway to get at the proper seal placements on the ceiling.

The last few months have been the definition of hectic, a rapid fire back and forth of training and missions as the three of them try to work through as much of Naruto's Uzushio scrolls and jutsu as possible and Kakashi-sensei squeezes in field experience and practical application wherever he can.

He and Sasuke have managed to get Ikari-sensei's basic stamp of approval for practicing medical ninjutsu in the field, while Sakura has already been pre-licensed as a medic-nin, which is as far as she can go without actually passing the chuunin exams.

Friday, which has been eternally dubbed Team 7 Curry Night forevermore according to Kiba and Choji, has become a communal sort of sparring day where teams 7, 8, and 10 all come together to laugh and fight and show off. Kakashi-sensei claims not to mind even though they always end up breaking something in the Dojo, and says that what they get out of it is worth a little property damage.

He doesn't think they've even remotely slowed down for over a month, and he's tired and aching most days.

He also kind of feels like he could take on the world most days, but he figures that's an acceptable side-effect.

He finishes the seals in record time thank you very much Kurama, and from there the whole house is a mess of running feet and shouting that tends to be normal when team 7 has early missions. Today they're heading out for the far end of Tea country, a trip to the very edge of the peninsula to pick up a delegation from one of the island nations for some kind of meeting with the Fire Daimyo.

Kakashi-sensei does an automatic headcount as they go through the front door, a kind of reflex Naruto finds both reassuring and a little embarrassing as he taps a hand on each of their heads as they exit the Hatake main house before sealing the door and locking the alarms and traps behind them.

They head for the Hokage tower with speed, and they don't bother taking the stairs– they bolt right through the upper window, landing one-two-three Naruto-Sakura-Sasuke in front of the mission desk with Kakashi perched on the window right behind them. If their reflexes were any less sharp they would have landed right on Shikamaru and company– as it is Sakura has to springboard back off Asuma's hip to avoid crashing into him headfirst. The Jounin-sensei just laughs.

"Running late again, I see." Jiji drawls from the head of the table, voice fondly exasperated around the rush of smoke and the end of the pipe held loosely between his teeth. "Just what are you teaching these children, Kakashi?"

"Too much, from where I'm standing. And let's be honest, pops, I don't see any children in here. Do you?" The words are Asuma's, heavily amused, and Jiji concedes with a chuckle.

"No, I suppose not. Now if only they could learn to stop breaking my village and traumatizing my Tokujou."

"You three on your way out, too?" Naruto asks Shikamaru, whose hand is still a steady weight on his shoulder from where he'd placed it when Naruto had tumbled in and nearly knocked him over. The only one of them who'd gotten out relatively unscathed had been Sasuke– who had broken his momentum with Naruto.

"Just got back, actually." Shika corrects. "Short border trip, we were only gone a day."

"Conserving energy for the Chunin exams?" Kakashi asks Asuma, who chuckles.

"That was the plan, Except for the fact that even the laziest of my kids seems unable to sit still these days."

Shikamaru snorts derisively like he's just been personally insulted, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. "It's just common sense." He defends. "There needs to be at least one reliable medic-nin in every unit and I have the best chakra control of the three of us."

Sakura shrieks happily and throws an arm around Shikamaru's shoulders, nearly knocking him off balance for the second time in ten minutes. "Awesome! Are you going to see Ikari-sensei, then?"

Shikamaru accepts the tackle-hug tolerantly, tucking an arm around her waist to give her a half-hug back. "He is the best, asshole or no. Besides, you softened him up for the rest of us."

"I'm going with him and Shino too." Ino adds, coming around to Shikamaru's other side and bumping his shoulder with hers. "I'm not going to take it as far as specializing though."

"Oh?" Sakura hums. "Then what are you specializing in?"

Ino grins, feral and catlike. "Hayate-san has offered to teach me nagamaki kenjutsu."

Naruto gets the mental image of Ino twirling a sword longer than she is tall, and is surprised by how much it suits her. He laughs, jackal-like. "That's awesome." he declares with feeling. "You're gonna be terrifying."

Choji laughs deep in his chest. "Right? And Genma-san is going to to teach me how to use his breathing techniques with my family jutsu."

"Yes." Asuma drawls. "So as you can see, Hatake, whatever brand of crazy it is that fuels your brats, it's contagious."

"I'd like to state in advance that I am only barely responsible for them." Kakashi disclaims happily.

There are a handful of ninja also stationed at the mission desk, and every one of them is staring at them with a wary sort of bemusement, as if unsure if they're supposed to break them up or not. They keep sending Jiji looks as if searching for answers, but Jiji only chuckles and pulls out a scroll to wave in Kakashi-sensei's direction. "Just take it and go before they damage my office." He demands, and Kakashi retrieves the scroll with a half-assed two-fingered salute.

"Naruto keyed you guys into the Black Temple on the complex in case you guys wanted to work on it." Sasuke informs Shikamaru before they turn to leave.

Naruto nods in affirmation. "Kiba's."

Shikamaru tilts his head and nods back. "I think I've figured out those Ido-senshi katas, so come find me when you three get back and we'll see if we can get them down before the exams."

"We will." Sasuke affirms.

"For sure!" Sakura reinforces, reaching forward to give Ino a side-armed hug and jostle Choji amicably with her shoulder.

Ino blushes a little and hugs her back, and Choji laughs and waves as they head off. Shikamaru bids them all goodbye with a fond; "Troublesome."

A few minutes later the door to the office is thrown open and Iruka-sensei enters bearing a stack of papers under one arm and a tripod of scrolls tucked into his elbow. He takes one look at the dumbstruck ninja flanking the Hokage and the weary smile on the man's face coupled with the grin on Asuma's.

"Aw, I just missed them, didn't I?"

"By a hair." Asuma confirms. "They were in a hurry though. Running late."

"Who's running late?" Grumbles Ryouta as he comes up behind Iruka. He's nearly a head taller than the Chunin, practically Kakashi's height, so he has no trouble peering over the Iruka's shoulder into the room, eyeing team 10 and their sensei. "You twerps just get in?"

"Day trip." Asuma explains. "Or night trip, I guess. 12 hour run.

"Then lessons can wait until afternoon." Ryouta informs team 10 in particular.

Shikamaru scowls. "Why?"

Ryouta huffs. "Because I know how you Nara get when sleep deprived. They can wait a few hours while you and your team take a cat nap."

"Grumpy has a point, kiddo." Asuma agrees. "Come on you three. Bed."

Team 10 takes off grumbling, and Sarutobi chuckles out a breath of smoke with a fond smile, reaching up to take the pipe from his mouth.

"So," he huffs. "Did you need something Ikari-san?"

"We both had something to discuss with you actually." Iruka states, his tone a tad too formal to be entirely friendly, and Sarutobi's smile drops away. He dismisses the two other ninja at the desk and waits until they've left before dropping his elbows on the table in front of him and lacing his fingers together.

"Is something the matter?"

"Yes" Ryouta growls, at the same time Iruka says; "No, not at all."

The Chunin elbows Ryouta hard in the ribs, up and under and right into the diaphragm so that he's forced to exhale all at once. "We've had this argument already, Ikari-san." Iruka growls behind a smile bared like a bite. "Do you honestly want someone else to have the position?"

"There is no one else." Ryouta returns harshly. "All the other surgeons have air for brains. And Shiki is still on active duty so it's not like he can do it."

"Would either of you care to inform me of what's going on?" Sarutobi asks with worn patience.

"We have some legal documents that need to be approved and that need your seal as well."

Hiruzen sits up straighter, wincing when his back cracks in several places it really shouldn't. He's too old for this. He was too old for this ten years ago. "Legal forms?"

"Guardianship." Iruka clarifies. "And designated physician."

"For Naruto, I presume?" Sarutobi guesses. "I assumed Kakashi would have been the one to approach me about this."

"Naruto and Sasuke both, actually. And technically these are Kakashi's forms." Iruka corrects.

"Then shouldn't he be the one bring them to my attention?"

Iruka snorts. "They already have all the necessary signatures, he's just being a coward about it. He also made the mistake of putting my name down as the secondary, so I have just as much right to bring them in as he does."

Sarutobi manages a laugh. "Hardly surprising. Though this is very unlike you, Ryouta."

"They grow on you." The surgeon growls. "Like parasitic fungus."

Iruka chuckles. "He's just mad because they're constantly ruining his reputation as a hardass."

Ryouta actually smirks at that. "Yeah sure, the new nurses stop taking me seriously when they realize I regularly teach a tiny pink-haired Genin and her brothers, and then they realize she can cave their skulls in without even channeling chakra and they generally shut up."

Hiruzen flips through the papers Iruka sets in front of him, him, flicking his eyes past the repetitive legal script to the places where the names need to be signed. The forms are filled out impeccably of course, and he stamps each form with his seal readily. "The physician forms are for the whole of team seven, I presume."

Ryouta nods and sets his own smart stack of files at the Hokage's elbow for him to sign off on. Sarutobi blinks at a set of papers out of place with the others.

"Jutsu non-disclosure agreements?" he wonders allowed.

Ryouta blinks. "Well yeah. Pretty standard, right?"

"For Tokujo and above maybe."

The surgeon just shrugs. "Consider it preemptive then."

"...Fair enough."

"So the blonde brat has his mother's chakra." Ryouta tells Iruka quite out of nowhere as they're walking back down the halls of the Hokage tower.

"Beg pardon?"

Ryouta sighs. "Uzumaki Naruto has inherited all the chakric qualities of Uzumaki Kushina." he repeats slowly. "His chakra is three and a half times denser than normal. And, just like the fourth Hokage, it possesses double the energy output."

"How do you know that?" Iruka questions.

At that Ryouta sighs again, and recounts a day three weeks prior.

"I don't get it." Ryouta mutters to himself as he stares down at the Uzumaki brat, flanked as always by his menacing little Uchiha shadow.

If Ryouta didn't know any better he would say the dark haired brat looked bored, sitting on one of the wide window sills in his office and glaring at his practice work, but by now he's learned that it's really just his face.

Uzumaki has a hard furrow in his brow from concentration, but he has yet to mend any of the pork bones they've been using for practice, and Uchiha is already halfway through.

"So you have no issues waterwalking or flash channeling chakra in your jutsu?"

Naruto shakes his head. "Not even a little."

"And no problems bending the chakra in those squiggly little seals of yours?"

"Nope." he replies unhesitant, cheekily popping the 'p' in the word.

Ryouta grumbles, leaning sideways and bending a little around a stack of binders on his office floor to get at the top drawer of his desk, skimming his fingers over the contents until he finds the jagged shape of the object he's looking for. He yanks from the drawer's depths a chunk of chakra laced quartz, as long as his palm and half as wide, and drops it into Naruto's palm.

"Charge that with chakra for me, kid. And just yours, none of your demon friend's."

The brat shrugs and does as he's told, pressing the hunk of crystal between his palms. The quartz changes from foggy and colorless to clear sapphire in seconds, a deep rich blue so potent that it seems to cast it's own light.

The Uchiha stops what he's doing, leaving a pig femur half cracked to lean over Uzumaki's shoulder and eye the crystal with interest. "Is chakra supposed to be that colour?"

"Plain unfiltered central chakra is typically light blue." Ryouta says in answer, reaching out for the crystal.

Naruto drops it back into his hand and Ryouta is surprised when the thing is several times heavier than it was when he first handed it over, like it's made of lead instead of crystal quartz.

"One sec." He tells his impromptu students, and then gets up to go yell down the hall.

"SHIKI."

"WHAT." his secretary shouts back, voice echoing from inside one of the Jounin grade patient rooms at the end of the wing.

"GET OVER HERE."

"I'M WORKING, IKARI. UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE."

"JUST GET OVER HERE I NEED A PROFESSIONAL OPINION."

Senri relents with a sigh Ryouta can hear clear down the hall and ventures from the room, tapping his clipboard crossly against his hip. "Get one of the other surgeons to help you then. Why are you bothering me?"

"I need a sensor-nin's opinion."

Shiki blinks, looking at him skeptically over the bridge of his glasses like some sort of cross librarian that's just caught him trying to smuggle old jutsu books into his bag, and Ryouta is reminded vividly of the first time they met. "What the hell for?" Shiki mutters.

Ryouta rolls his eyes. "Just get over here, will you? It'll only take a second."

Shiki just glares and taps his foot in agitation for another long second, but then he gives in and heads down the hall. Ryouta tosses him the crystal when he gets close. "What do you make of that?"

Shiki blinks down at the bright blue crystal as he walks, flicking his glasses up to sit atop his head as he turns the corner into Ryouta's office.

"Dense." is the first word out of his mouth as he turns the crystal back and forth in his long fingers. "Three fold and then some the density of regular chakra. High rate of energy enrichment, starburst patterned emission, high yang concentration, 2:1 ratio against yin." He looks up and catches sight of Naruto and Sasuke sitting together on the floor and raises an eyebrow. "Yours, I take it?"

Naruto nods. "What's wrong with it?"

Shiki turns back to Ryouta. "You're teaching him medical-ninjutsu?"

"Osteo repair, specifically." Ryouta affirms.

"There's nothing wrong with you, kiddo." Shiki tells the young Uzumaki. "You're having trouble because you're trying to channel a waterfall through a sink faucet."

"Um… what?"

Shiki cocks his hip against the wall and holds the chakra charged crystal up to the light. "Most medical-ninjutsu requires you to condense chakra down into a fine point before putting it to use. In your case, you're trying to press something dense into an already smaller form– like trying to force more water through a sink faucet already turned on full blast."

"So if he skips the condensing step, it'll work?" The question comes from Sasuke, who had up until that point been quiet.

"In theory." Shiki agrees. "Though you might still have to tune the density by smaller measures to get the consistency you want."

"Oh, well that's easy." Naruto exclaims, already flicking his fingers through the hand signs of the jutsu to try again. "I have to tune consistency all the time in seals."

Shiki grins. "Then you should have no problem then." He turns to Ryouta. "Can I go back to work now?"

"When have you ever asked my permission for anything?" Ryouta points out.

Shiki just rolls his eyes and turns to leave.

"Thanks, Senri." Ryouta adds quietly as he leaves.

"Yeah, yeah."

"I had no idea." Iruka mutters. "That's why he had so much trouble with genjutsu– his chakra is too heavy." He tilts his head, stops in the middle of the hallway to face Ryouta. "Why are you only telling me this now?"

The surgeon shrugs. "You're his secondary guardian now, officially, so you should know. It's also a health concern if he ever needs a chakra transfusion, as unlikely as that is given the presence of the Kyuubi. There's also another thing you should know– you and Kakashi both."

"Is something wrong?" Iruka has to ask– Naruto has always been family to him, and he and Sasuke have been through quite enough as it is…

"Not wrong, not necessarily, but something of possible future concern."

"What is it?" he insists, not liking Ryouta's change in body language from idle to serious.

"Well, after the issue with Uzumaki's chakra, I ordered chakra composition tests on all three of the brats. Naruto and Sasuke's chakra both share some… disturbingly similar traits."

"What kind of traits?"

Ryouta hums and rubs his fingers together as if searching for a place to start. "There are a handful of markers that… reflect one another. Naruto's Yang-Yin chakra ratio is 2-1. Sasuke's is 1-2. Naruto's chakra is high density, low emission; Sasuke's is low density high emission. Sasuke's outward flow tends to rotate clockwise, Naruto's counterclockwise. Little things like that."

Iruka blinks. "Is that a problem? Couldn't that just be a result of training in such close proximity all the time?"

Ryouta shakes his head. "Maybe if it were just a single, isolated set of traits, but this is too much to be a coincidence." Ryouta pauses and meets iruka's eyes firmly. "Now this is just a guess, mind you, but I think they might be Kindred Markers."

Iruka blinks a few times, then scoffs out a disbelieving laugh. "Kindred? As in Kindred Pair? That's a myth."

"Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina were a Kindred Pair." Ryouta informs him, completely serious, not even a hint of mirth in his eyes, no sign of teasing.

Iruka stops laughing. "You're joking."

Ryouta shakes his head. "It wasn't widely known, but those close to them knew. Kakashi knew; and the old man."

"But isn't a fully developed Kindred Pair a–"

"Yeah." Ikari interrupts him softly. "A Futari no Guntai. An Army of Two."

Iruka remembers suddenly the reports from the third war, the way a single man and woman struck absolute terror into the hearts of entire armies worth of hardened shinobi. "That… actually makes disturbing amounts of sense."

"Well, nothing is for certain yet." Ryouta reminds him. "I just thought you should know that it's a possibility. It's impossible to know for sure until they're older."

"I'll keep an eye out if you will." Iruka promises.

Ryouta manages a smile. "Deal."