-The Apartment-

-Same Day-

The clones had at last settled back down. As good as the news was, they still had a meeting to finish. The math-clone, being somewhat of a leader amongst the clones by now, took charge.

"Okay guys let's focus up. Right now, we're working on borrowed time. Unless y'all actually want to pop from running out of chakra, we still got work to do getting the chakra-thingy up and running for us. What was it called again?"

The Fuinjutsu clone answered, "It's called a Chakra Suppression Seal, and like I said, its not exactly what we want. We're gonna need to modify it, and that's supposed to be really difficult to do. I can somewhat picture how hard it's gonna be, but y'all done have a clue, right?"

Pausing for a moment, and hearing no response, the clone continued, "So remember how hard it was for us to learn the clone jutsu that makes us clones?"

The group nodded their heads, that didn't sound so bad.

"That's probably like," the Fuinjutsu clone thought for a moment, "a thousandth of the effort we're gonna need to put in."

The hope vanished from the eyes of the group, save for one individual, a hero who had a rough start in life, a hero who would surely go on to do great things. This hero was mighty, not to mention very handsome. The math-clone spoke, as if he were the messiah there to save all of clone-kind, "Then all we gotta do is have the original make a ton of clones dedicated to studying Fuinjutsu. Each one of us of the first twenty-five should still have something like two days left of chakra in us, right? We all ate a bunch of food when we were first made after all."

The group regained their hope, maybe they would be able to survive in the end.

It came crashing down around them, however, as the math clone continued, "However, each clone would only really be learning as fast as the original could by himself, that doesn't really utilize all of our advantages as clones."

The tone in the math-clone's voice was not good, nothing bad was said, but the group could feel a chill go down their spine as the math-clone continued talking. The Fuinjutsu clone, however, had caught onto what the math-clone was implying.

Picking up where the math clone had left off, the Fuinjutsu clone decided to be the bearer of bad news, "It's depressing, but we're gonna have to do it. Guys. We, as the second generation of Naruto clones after the Forest generation, will need to sacrifice ourselves for the future of clone-kind."

Fully understanding, but not accepting of the reality of the situation, Naruto, the original Naruto, hesitatingly questioned the clone, fearful of the answer he was going to receive. "What—what are you saying? Nobody needs to die, we can all live on together, right? Right?"

The clones could hear the desperation in his voice grow as he spoke on, and they knew why he was reacting so strongly. To be honest, deep inside their heart's, the same heart as Naruto's, they'd hoped to all be friends and live on together. Originally, the clones and Naruto had not thought this way, after all, they were clones, and he was a person, a clearly defined boundary.

But everything changed with one idea, that clones might be able to live on by means of absorbing chakra. Instantly, that boundary between the two sides seemed to disappear. Where there used to be clones, there was now people. People who could have lives, grow, and change as individuals. They would no longer just be clones of Naruto, they could be his friends, and his family, and their own person.

Everyone in the room knew what needed to happen. Heck, it wouldn't take knowing a lot to get what the Fuinjutsu clone was saying, 'The only way to learn enough about Fuinjutsu to alter the seal structure in a short amount of time would be for the clones to progressively sacrifice themselves as they learned more, thereby accumulating the necessary knowledge inside the original.'

It was a sacrifice no one wanted to make, no one would volunteer to be the first to die, because that's what it really was. The death of an individual. One life sacrificed now to give hope to countless down the line.

But someone had to take the first step, the Fuinjutsu clone saying, "It's okay Boss, you can just make more to replace us when we're done. We'll be heroes. Maybe not to the people of Konoha, like we'd always dreamed, but heroes nonetheless."

And with that, the Fuinjutsu clone forcibly disrupted his own chakra, dispelling himself and spreading his knowledge of Fuinjutsu to the group. His final thoughts being, 'Clones. No, ninja of Konoha! Live on, learn more, and sacrifice yourselves for the next generation. To you, I entrust the future.'

The clones wept, and Naruto lay on the ground defeated. That clone, so close, and yet so far from the dream they all shared, had laid down his life. A short, one-day life of nothing but reading about Fuinjutsu, and yet one that burned more brilliantly than the rest. His sacrifice, the first of many to come, would lay the groundwork for future clones' survival.

A moment of silence was had that day, in remembrance of the sacrifice of the unnamed Fuinjutsu clone.

Shortly after, the clones would head out once more to read in the libraries of Konoha. Only this time, they had a sense of purpose in their step, they would accomplish their goal, and ensure no more clones would have to be sacrificed in the future.

-Some Time Later-

The clones had forced him to promise to get out of the house and do something. Only, he wasn't even allowed to contribute to learning Fuinjutsu, as the clones had forbidden it. It stung, but deep down, he knew they were right. One measly him would not change much in the process of learning, and as the math-clone had put it, "It would not be efficient for you, the only one who can train up our body and Taijutsu, to work on Fuinjutsu."

Thus, Naruto was sent to do a D-rank mission. The group could always use more funds, and it could only improve his track record. Still though, he listlessly went through the motions, robotically receiving a mission from the weird lady at the mission center, robotically communicating with the client, robotically going through the work, and robotically turning in the completed mission.

Surely, he would have robotically returned home, to return to moping about, if not for a jovial voice that broke him from his stupor, "Ah! You're young Uzumaki Naruto, correct?!"

Nodding his head on reflex, Naruto turned to see who was asking about him. Finding himself face-to-face with an evolved form of Lee.

"The name's Might Guy, you might also know me as the Leaf's Noble Green Beast, I'm the sensei of your friend, Lee! I've heard a lot about you, Lee's been wondering where you've been. Says you haven't trained with him since the first time you trained together…"

The man spoke in a loud, upbeat voice, before sort of petering off towards the end as he got a good look at Naruto.

"Say, you don't look so good. You feeling alright?"

Mumbling a "Yes," Naruto attempted to walk past Lee's sensei, only to be cut off before he could get away.

"Look, I don't know what's got you down, but what I do know is what can help."

Naruto perked up at that, he did need something to take his mind off things. And the dude was a jonin after all, maybe he might have some good advice.

"All you gotta do is go train for a bit, and that'll turn your frown upside down!"

Never mind, Naruto changed his mind, vowing to never trust a jonin dressed in all-green ever again. Scowling, he made an even larger attempt to get around the man, not equipped to deal with him in his current state.

"Look kid. I know how it sounds. 'I'm in a bad mood, and this guy I don't even really know is telling me that exercising is gonna magically fix everything.' But it's got some truth to it. You see, exercising will get those endorphins flowing, and before you know it, all the unhappy juice inside you will be replaced with happy juice."

Stopping his attempts to get rid of the man, Naruto thought on what he'd said. It could certainly be possible, he didn't know what those 'endorphins' were, but what he did know was that he was usually in a pretty good mood after exercising. Not to mention, that was he agreed-upon job as the original. It couldn't hurt to try it out, could it?

Sensing the changes in the boy's emotions, Guy quickly said, "I'm sure Lee already told you, but he likes to train at Training Ground 8. We don't have anything scheduled as a team, so he should be there right now. Consider swinging by the exercise could do you some good, as well as being with a friend."

The man then flipped up on his hands and ran off. Naruto chuckled to himself; he could see where Lee had learnt that training method from.

Now, in a better mood than he'd been in prior, Naruto ran off in the direction of Training Ground 8, he was going to find Lee for some more training.

-The Next Day-

Naruto winced in pain, pausing mid-sentence. A clone had just popped itself, transferring over what it'd learned concerning Fuinjutsu, along with Ninjutsu. It still didn't feel right, but Naruto had gotten used to the 'deaths' of his clones, that had been the fifth since the Fuin-clone had sacrificed himself.

"Ah, that word can be a bit complicated, I see why you stuck Naruto. Here let's go over it on the board."

With that, Naruto snapped back into focus, ignoring the pain in his head. Iruka was already writing down the characters that made up the word he was 'stuck' on. In all honesty though, he actually didn't know the word, so regardless of the clone popping, he still would've needed help.

"This word is 'extraneous,' meaning irrelevant or unrelated to the subject being dealt with. Its not really used that often, most people would probably just use the word irrelevant instead."

Watching Naruto, Iruka noted that in just a single week, the boy had come far in his ability to read. It was like night and day in comparison to the lesson from the previous week. It seemed like dyslexia was not the major thing impacting Naruto's education all those years.

In truth, Naruto was breezing through everything Iruka had been teaching him that day, it was to the point where Iruka couldn't quite get how Naruto had had trouble during school, dyslexia or not. With the ability to learn that he was showing, it just didn't seem right

It felt off. Like, really off.

"Hey, Naruto? Has anybody ever tried to help you with your reading besides me?"

Iruka could see the gears turn in the boy's head, as he thought about the question.

"Uh, nobody really took an interest in me back then. Although, I guess technically it was Kozuki-sensei who taught me to read."

That made sense to Iruka, an orphan like Naruto would only really learn to read at the academy, after all. He, himself, had learnt to read at the academy as well. Nothing seemed too off about that, perhaps he had thought wrong? But he wouldn't be a good shinobi if he didn't dig at least a little deeper.

"What were those lessons like? What did they entail? Did Kozuki not notice your issues with reading?"

The boy went back to thinking again, before saying, "They were just the normal classes with the other kids…"

Iruka nodded his head, no 'individual' lessons that might allow for some form of sabotage.

"…we practiced kanji, went over words, kind of like what we are doing right now."

Still good, nothing weird there.

"And no, he didn't notice anything weird about my ability to read."

That seemed strange to Iruka, but then again, he hadn't noticed either until Naruto had already graduated. And even then, Naruto had pretty directly told him about it…

"I actually went to him on my own for help, didn't know it was dyslexia at the time, but I was having some issues."

White noise rang through Iruka's mind. Of course. It was Naruto. It couldn't be as simple as just the dyslexia.

Still though, calming himself, Iruka gave that Kozuki the benefit of the doubt, as he asked Naruto one final question, "And did he help you at all?"

"No, he said I was doing fine. Thinking back on it, there's no way that was the case, right Iruka-sensei?"

Nodding his head, Iruka sadly looked at the boy, Iruka had thought the academy failing him once in regard to his education was going to be it. Turns out it was actually the second time!

"Naruto never thought I'd have to do this twice. In one week, no less. I hereby formally apologize to you on behalf of the academy."

Naruto, unfazed, jokingly responded, "Surely you can't be serious Iruka-sensei. One time I can understand, but there's no way that what I think happened, happened, right?"

Seeing that Naruto was more than likely, fully aware of why Iruka was apologizing, he relented, confirming Naruto's 'suspicions.'

"Yeah, it's exactly what you think. Kozuki said that on purpose, probably to make sure you never learnt to properly read."

Having already had one of his teachers try to kill him in the past, Naruto still was not able to contain his anger, screaming, "Damn it Iruka-sensei, just how many teachers in academy have it out for me?!"

Matching Naruto's energy, Iruka shouted, "I don't know! I'm hoping he was the only other one besides Mizuki!"

Naruto, still screaming, yelled back, "You better be right, because you know what they say, third times the charm! You don't want to know what the charm is in this case!"

Iruka, adrenaline pumping from shouting, responded even louder than Naruto, "Well, let's ignore that for a moment! I'd say you really don't have many issues with reading anymore! Outside of a couple words you have to learn, you seem to be handling yourself just fine!"

Naruto, instantly calming down, spoke normally, "Yeah, I noticed that myself, once I got to reading more, it wasn't that bad. And with all the reading I've been doing the last couple days, I've gotten a lot of practice."

That caught Iruka's attention, sure, he had told Naruto to practice reading, but to think he'd actually go through with it. And did he read about so much anyways?

"Oh yeah, what sort of stuff have you been reading?"

Iruka already knew what he was going to hear, something about Ninjutsu or the like, but he wanted to hear it directly from his favorite student.

"I think you'll actually be pretty interested. So, the clones and I…"

Iruka cut him off, "The clones and you?"

"Oh right, you probably don't know. The jutsu I used to kick Mizuki's ass; those clones transfer their memories to me when they pop."

Iruka was shocked, sure, Naruto had learnt the jutsu from the Forbidden Scroll, but surely it couldn't be that powerful. Iruka was so shocked, because he had realized what it had taken Naruto days to, that clones could then be used to train.

Shaking it off for the moment, Iruka continued to listen to Naruto.

"Anyways, so one of the clones ended up eating some food and found out it could restore their chakra. Naturally, we were thinking that we could get an infinite supply of clones by just having them eat some food, and then make more clones. Didn't quite work out, so we decided to look into other methods to get clones the chakra they needed…"

Iruka was growing a bit frightened at what Naruto was saying, experiencing momentary relief when he said that the food plan wouldn't work, only for that to fall apart in the next sentence. At least Naruto hadn't figured out another method yet…

"…which led to us doing a bunch of reading. Originally, we thought it wasn't possible…"

Iruka's thought hung on the word 'originally,' he did not like the sound of that.

"…but then we discovered the potential that Fuinjutsu has…"

Shit. Shit. That was not good. What Naruto was saying was not heading in the right direction. Iruka could see it now, an endless supply of Narutos, covering the village, no, the world, and playing pranks. Iruka (jokingly) considered ending Naruto's life right there before he could unleash his scourge upon the planet. Alas, he did not have the will to end the life of his favorite student. Defeated, he listened on.

"…especially the Chakra Suppression Seal. All we'd have to do is modify the formula a bit, and blamo! We got our problem solved. So naturally, even right now, I got clones out there doing more research and trying to figure it out."

And all hope was lost, the world was doomed to be consumed by the Yellow Horde…

…Unless Iruka was willing to do something about it. Raising both his hands into the air, Iruka prepared his last resort, praying and begging for mercy.

"Naruto, I need you to promise me something."

In a joking tone, Naruto answered, "Okay Iruka-sensei, what?"

Iruka, putting even more strength into his voice, grabbed Naruto by the shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes.

"I'm being serious here."

Sensing the gravity in his teacher's voice, Naruto straightened up, and replied, seriously this time, "Okay Iruka-sensei. I'm paying attention. What do you need me to promise you?"

"Limit the number of pranks you and your clones pull to one, at most, per month."

It sounded so much like a joke to Naruto, the serious look and tone of Iruka combined with the ludicrous request, it was almost too much. Still, Naruto controlled himself, he trusted that when Iruka told him he was being serious, that he actually was, and wasn't playing a fast one on him.

"Ok Iruka-sensei, I promise to limit the number of pranks my clones and I pull."

Almost weeping out of sheer joy for having saved the world, Iruka collapsed to the ground, "Letting out one final thank you."

Iruka would not get up from that position for the next several minutes.

Author's Note: Another short chapter, I swear, dialogue just makes me unable to write. I fear what I'm doing to myself, even I don't know how many more dialogue chapters I will have to write in the coming week. At least I can write in comedic moments to help ease my weary heart…Oh yeah, completely forgot about the sad tones from the beginning, hope that didn't ruins y'all's mood, I almost cried writing it. Truly I am a master of my craft, able to hit the highest highs, and the lowest lows.

In any case, hope y'all enjoy this chapter. I'd say we're almost in the clear to great things, like the Yellow Horde. :D

Also, might be dying, IDK, got a fever and stuff. (A great excuse to skip class)

Pa-atreon same name as this account. Blah, blah, blah. Money or something.