Disclaimer: I do not own any content from the manga or anime Naruto and I am merely using the content for entertainment and not for profit.

Warning: Slight OOC ahead! Purists beware! My reasoning below. Also, I referenced this off the manga, so anime watchers be warned.

Understanding a Seal

by mezzanine wolf

Prologue: The Question and The Stimulus

The streets of Konohagakure were empty in the fading orange light of the late evening sunshine. Most people had returned to their homes after daily work was over. However, the rooftops of Konoha were not clear yet, being the preferred medium of travel for a shinobi-in-a-hurry. At the moment, the Number One Loudest Ninja in Konoha, Uzumaki Naruto was coming in from the direction of the outside forest after finishing his personal training for the day. Damn Ero-sennin and that closet pervert, cutting into my training time! He sighed, I wonder what Ero-sennin did with my seal...? 'A pressure point that relaxes you.' HAH! He was messing with Kyuubi's seal!

Contrary to popular opinion, Naruto was not as stupid as he looked and acted. His actions were a throwback to his early childhood, when he was hated and ignored. The loud and stupid ninja facade was born out of a desire to be noticed and had worked to an extent; When he was a prankster he was regularly in trouble and generally well known in the village. As he got older, the mask just stuck and even now that he had made friends and was acknowledged it still persisted. Naruto had by now already realized that the 'special chakra' that Jiraiya was talking about was the Nine-tails'. Hah! Not likely I could miss it, especially with that demonstration against Haku.

Naruto was now nearing his favourite place in the village, Ichiraku ramen stand, which was normally his last stop before a relaxing night's sleep. But tonight he kept on leaping past the building opposite Ichiraku which he usually ricocheted off to land neatly in front of the stand. In fact, he increased his speed as he hit the rooftop of the building which housed Ichiraku. Dammit! Gotta hurry before the Library closes!

If anybody who knew Naruto was around to hear this thought - maybe Ino with one of the Yamanaka clan jutsus - they would have fainted from pure shock. Naruto??!? Going to the Library?!?? Understandable, as reading for knowledge had never been part of his make-up. Truthfully, he had looked down at knowledge of the written word, feeling that practical knowledge - training, improving and all involved - was more useful to a shinobi. However, this time a set of events had led him to seek information that he could not just ask anyone he knew.

As Naruto continued bounding across the rooftops, he became lost in the sensations of the wind blowing through his hair and against his face, the rhythmic creak of the roofing tiles as they gave beneath the increased weight and the sight of taller buildings flashing past. Naruto began to think about what had started this - for him - drastic course of action, during the first part of the Chuunin Exam...

"BEGIN!"

After hearing this shout from the head examiner, Morino Ibiki, Naruto tried to calm himself down, relax and focus his mind on the questions. Alright! I'll do my best and be one step closer to becoming Hokage! He grinned, turning the paper over...

...and felt his early confidence leave as easily as it had come. The questions were extremely difficult, making Naruto wish he had paid more attention in his academy classes and read more of the required textbooks. Yet again, he attempted to calm himself down and focus on the questions. Calmly look over each question, find one you can answer and focus your mind on it. First question is a cryptogram. Okay, let's do it!!

...Next!! Hmm.. Question Two was on shuriken throwing and attack options for enemies within range. Naruto skimmed over the rest of questions in a similar manner, either finding them to hard to answer or not having a clue about what the question was asking until a specific question caught his eye,

Question 6: Give the significance of a spiral formation in advanced sealing jutsus.

Drawn next to the question and the space for an answer was the exact spiral symbol he had seen many times on his seal and had used in place of clan markings on his trademark orange jumpsuit. Panic gave way to rational thought for a while in Naruto's mind. I wonder what the seal does exactly? Why is the spiral so important? And, why, dammit, did all my old clothes have one on them??!?? The moment ended and Naruto returned to his barely-controlled panic and waiting for the tenth question...

However, from that moment he felt a nagging urge in the back of his head to find out more about his seal. It had stayed throughout the rest of the Chuunin Exam. The incident with the snake-eyed man in the forest had brought all the questions to the forefront of his mind for a while until he had blacked out from the shock of the abrupt cut-off from Kyuubi's power. He had wondered if he knew more about the seal, would he have been able to prevent the abrupt cut-off of power? Later, in the chaos of finishing the exam in the Forest of Death and the preliminaries it had retreated to a corner of his mind until Jiraiya had inadvertently reminded him with his lecture and 'pressure-point relaxation'; He had impulsively decided, there and then, that today was the day that he would find out more about his seal.

Naruto knew that the old academy textbooks mentioned nothing about any sealing techniques, it obviously was not required information for Genin, as he had spent one of his nights just looking through the contents of all his textbooks for a single reference and not found any. Damn wasted night. Coulda been training. He couldn't just ask any of the Leaf Village ninjas as they would immediately report his questions to the old man Hokage and he didn't think he would be allowed to proceed further as the old man would probably prevent any more research into it. The Forbidden Scroll of Seals was also of no use to him as all it taught was the ways to perform jutsus and not the understanding of them. That makes me stumped for normal methods of finding out.

After exhausting the quick ways of finding out, Naruto turned to the painfully slow - for him - method of reading. It was not that Naruto had a grudge against reading, he just found training and the immediate improvement, in the form of greater reflexes or a new jutsu mastered, much more rewarding than knowledge that came out gradually in situations like battle. Naruto had yet to realize that the benefits from a small grain of this gradual knowledge were many times greater than learning the greatest jutsu in the land.

Lost in his musing, Naruto had failed to notice the passing of time and distance. A roof tile which was weaker than the others gave an alarming creak and his leg automatically moved off it onto a nearby one to stabilize him and prevent him from falling off the roof. However, his reverie was already broken and he noticed the building he wanted coming up soon, only two or three more jumps to make.

Noticing the building rapidly approaching, Naruto pumped some chakra into his legs to increase his speed. After completing the jump to the rooftop he wanted, Naruto paused to take a deep breath, ran to the edge of the ten-story building and jumped off. The jump was angled so he would hit the opposite building at the fifth floor against the wall. The wall loomed closer and closer at an alarming rate, until Naruto could see the individual bricks making the wall up. Quickly, he turned in mid-air so his legs hit the wall first, absorbing the impact and pushing off to put him on a direct course to the floor. Pulling the same trick again, he landed neatly in front of the building he had leaped off. Coulda just jumped straight off and landed down here... Nah! This was so much cooler!

The blonde shinobi was now standing in front of a short, squat building that gleamed in the light of the setting sun, the glossy paint reflecting the light and giving the building an unnatural shine. The sign above the entrance with white lettering on a green background stated that this was 'Konohagakure Shinobi Technique Library and Scroll Repository,' affectionately known to Leaf Village ninjas as the Library. This was where most of the shinobi knowledge accumulated by Konoha over the years was written and stored. The only scrolls not stored here were the extremely dangerous or forbidden technique scrolls which were kept by the current Hokage for protection and to be distributed to people able to wield the techniques best for the good of Konoha. Naruto considered abandoning his current mission and stealing The Forbidden Scroll of Seals again to learn more jutsus. The old man wouldn't let me take it as easily now that I have the ability to learn more of the techniques, plus security would have been increased because of the Chuunin Exam. I'm gonna need to plan it a bit more and catch them off guard, Naruto smiled contemplatively while he considered the best time for grabbing the scroll and how to go about it.

A voice called from inside one of the houses nearby, "Ichigo! Dinner time, come back inside. You can play tomorrow!"

Naruto jumped slightly, startled, and turned his head to look at the house. As he watched, a young woman left the house and looked up the street, obviously searching for whoever she had called earlier. As she caught sight of Naruto, a small boy appeared from around the corner and ran towards her. When he reached her, she scooped him up into a hug and glared hatefully at Naruto before promptly turning on her heel and retreating into the house, carrying the child. Naruto shook his head sadly as the front door slammed closed, Great, another one. Bah! I'll show you all when I become Hokage! He mentally recovered himself, banishing all doubts to the back of his mind, but could not push away the memory as easily.

Looking back at the library, he moved forward and up the steps, letting the green doors swing closed behind him as he entered.

UaS

Ariake looked up from her book as the doors opened to admit someone into the library, Hmm... unusual, people don't really come here at this time. But then, people don't come here at all, except for assigned research. Huh??!? What is he doing here?

She watched in silent shock as the boy entered and let the doors swing closed behind him before running over a quick mental checklist, Physical characteristics? Blonde hair and blue eyes. Whisker marks on cheeks? Check. Bright orange clothes? Definitely. It is him!

She continued staring as he stopped just in front of the doors and looked around to get his bearings; only regaining her senses when he started walking forward and came to within five paces of her desk. Ariake was on librarian duty today, all chuunins were assigned the chore at least once a month. All she had to do was record the ninja identification of everyone who came in and make sure nobody stole any books. As such, she had traps over all the entry points to the building and a chakra web over the main building itself to keep an eye on people inside it. She found it rather relaxing, Nobody steals from here anyway so its good practice and I'm one of the few people who come here regularly. Nobody understands the value of books anymore.

As Naruto reached her desk she spoke up, "ID Card."

"Wha-?," Naruto replied, suprised by the abrupt speech and loss of silence.

Ariake glared at Naruto and enunciated her words slowly and clearly, "Your ninja ID card, please."

"Oh! Sure," the boy put his left hand into a pocket in his jacket and took out a card that he handed to the acting librarian, "Here."

She snatched the card from his outstretched hand, raised her eyebrow at the picture and wrote down his registration number and full name alongside the date and time of entry in the scroll. Naruto reached over and retrieved his card from where she had slapped it down on the desk after finishing, smiled and said, "Thanks!"

He put his card back in his pocket and walked through the inner doors into the main part of the library.

Ariake sighed and looked around at her working area, to check that she had not missed anything in her suprise. Unfortunately for her, the entrance area was still the same, a rectangular box with the forest green entrance doors, dark brown exit doors and sterile white painted walls. Her desk was still the same utilitarian brown equidistant between the doors with the unfurled, new scroll and box. She settled back into her chair and forced her attention back to the book before thinking, Maybe I shouldn't have been so harsh- but he really surprised me by coming into the Library.

UaS

With a soft click, the doors shut behind Naruto after he stopped on entering the main area, narrowly missing being hit by their returning arc. Ehh! Never been in here before- Lots of books! Nobody else seemed to be in the library. The shinobi resumed his self-assigned mission and wandered along the shelves, before realizing that the books were organised alphabetically.

The library was set up with rows and rows of shelves stretching from the front to the back and along the sides as well. There were occasional gaps for tables and alcoves with comfortable seating for people to read in comfort. Occasional notices requesting silence where dispersed throughout the library, along the walls, shelves and above the desks. Tabs delegating alphabetical sections hung off the shelves, no other classifications were needed because the books were highly specialized towards ninja techniques.

Naruto walked along the aisles, Right! Where's the 'S' section? Ehh! All these books look the same. He finally found the correct tab near the back of the building. All the books looked similar, not much difference in their spines. Naruto put his hand out and took a book at random from halfway along on the fifth shelf. Hmm. 'The Art of Sealing.' And it's gotta spiral on the front- Perfect! Just what I need!

The books did not look particularly riveting, with a matt black cover and only the title and spiral image printed on the front and side in gold lettering. Naruto flipped through the book quickly, noticing the numerous pages of small printed writing, occasionally broken up by small diagrams or illustrations. Looks boring. Ahh! I'll read it and master the sealing jutsus! It'll be just like training! Alright!

Quickly flipping the book under his arm, Naruto started walking out, intent on getting home to start his 'training.' As he passed an open book on a desk, he noticed a familiar picture showing, Hey! Those are fully-developed Sharingan eyes. Wonder what the book's about? Indulging in his curiosity, he walked over to the book and closed it, reading the title out aloud, "'Ninja Bloodline Abilities: A Reference' Hmm..."

The cover was slightly more detailed than his other book, proclaiming that it 'now includes all Sunagakure bloodlines' and was 'the number one reference for shinobi going into battle.' Hmm... Good! I'll take this as well and then I can kick that bastard Sasuke's ass! Heheh! Naruto rubbed his hands together evilly, chuckled and left the library main area with both books under his arm.

UaS

The dark brown door opened to reveal Naruto emerging from the inner area. Ariake just kept her head down this time, but noted out of the corner of her eye that he was carrying two books to take out, consistent with the two stops she had detected with her chakra web. She kept her hearing focused on his footsteps and when he neared her desk, she held the box out in front of him and said, "Book cards, please."

"Huh-?"

Ariake looked up at his confused face and sighed before taking the books away from him, sliding the cards from inside the pockets on the inner front cover of each book before popping them into the box and handing the books back to him, "There you go."

"Okay! Thanks," smiled Naruto before taking his books and continuing out.

The doors swung shut behind him again leaving Ariake back in her comfortable silence. She settled back into her chair to continue reading. Wonder what books he took out? Maybe I should have paid attention when I took them? No, that would have been an invasion of privacy.

UaS

Naruto stood in front of the library before running down the street and jumping onto a shorter building to begin his roof-jumping path back home.

As he strode off, he missed the pair of eyes watching him from in the shadows of a street corner. When he had passed out of sight, Nara Shikamaru stepped out continued his walk down the street. Naruto just left the library?!

The usually stoic Shikamaru was shocked out of his normal apathy by Naruto's abnormal behaviour, but only for a moment, before he sighed while walking on. This is so troublesome.

End of Prologue: The Question and The Stimulus

A/N: Hmm...Right lets address the OOC (out-of-character) issue first then:

Some people may not like my portrayal of Naruto here. But personally, I don't think he's that stupid, I mean just look at that battle plan against Zabuza. That and well, if you really believed he was as stupid as potrayed, well, he's gotta be breaking some law of the universe somewhere. There has got to be an intelligence level you have to be, before being considered brain damaged or something. And, let's face it, if he was, they're not going to let him near a kunai.

That's all I'm going to say about it. My Naruto portrayal will be brash, but not stupid. Ah well, you don't like it? Don't read the fic. waves goodbye to thousands of potential readers

Right! Happier stuff! After a long, long time, I've finally finished the prologue of this. I'm so pathetic. I can't even write a prologue to a fic quickly. Anyway, I gotta say this is my first long-running attempt and also my first fan fiction attempt. So it will quite certainly suck. I didn't realize long-running stuff required so much planning! And that fan fiction required a lot of research to keep it in canon and timeline. Ah well.

Anyway, after this, to all of you who read and liked this (yes, both of you) be warned that it'll probably not be updated for a while as I stink at writing stuff (its like a permanent writers block) and I'm lazy and well, I've got an Eva fic (not up yet) that I really want to work on.

What else? Oh yeah, I plan on running this fic close to the Naruto storyline until I decide to suddenly branch it off and end it, but that doesn't look too close. Meaning important stuff will still happen just be affected in different ways. Oh and, Ariake will be a fairly important character from now on. Which reminds me... I need a last name for her. Any ideas? I have no idea where Ariake came from or what it means, anyway so anything that sounds alright works I guess.

Hmm that's it I guess. I'm gonna go read webcomics or something to relax my brain after forcing myself to finish this.

mezzanine wolf signing off