Hello everyone!

I am not even going to apologize for not uploading because its probably going to happen a lot and that way we can we can avoid repetition. I would like to to say thank you to all those who review and follow. It helps me to get inspired to write.

Anyway who wants to listen to me when there is a story right below. Happy reading.

-Two months go by with Naruto training physically with Gai and Lee, training his nin-jutsu in secret, and training with his new knives. He also gets Kurama to help him use the demon chakra just like any other container (this will manifest differently). Kakashi finally thinks that the other two are ready for a C-Rank mission.-

Team seven stood in front of the Hokage. Kakashi stepped forward and lowered his book away from his face, "Hokage-sama, I believe my team is ready for a C-Rank mission." Sasuke smirked triumphantly and Sakura jumped up and down and squealed like a school girl. Naruto just stood at attention with his arms crossed behind his trench coat.

"Very well, I believe I have just the mission for you." He handed Kakashi a file, "Your first C-Rank mission will be a bodyguard mission."

On cue a drunk man stumbled through the door, "Whaaat! Iss thiiis it!? Guess'tll halve to do."

Sasuke and Sakura protested loudly at having to protect the man, while Naruto still stood at attention. Eventually Kakashi got the other two under control and the group was on their way out the door.

The Hokage watched as Naruto walked out of his office. 'Every day he reminds me more and more of Minato.'

Kakashi told everyone to meet at the gate in three hours ready and packed for about a month long trip.

Sasuke and Sakura ran off to pack their stuff. Naruto walked away but before he left he made sure to accidentally spill all of the old man's sake. 'No need to have the man drunk when we are trying to walk from here to Wave country.'

Naruto then packed what he needed in a sealing scroll and headed to Ichiraku's for a meal before he left. Once he arrived Teuchi set a big bowl down in front of him.

"How are you today kid?" Teuchi said with a smile.

Naruto looked up with his mouth already full, "I got my first C-Rank mission."

Teuchi's smile got bigger, "Aw, I see. Moving up in the world, huh?"

Naruto nodded and then shed a tear, "That means no Ichiraku's for a whole month." The area around Naruto grew dark and depressing.

Teuchi just kept on smiling, "Well just hurry back and I will have a bowl with your name on it when you get back."

Naruto nodded and smiled, "After all, the future Hokage has to make sacrifices too."

Teuchi just shook his head at the boy's antics and gave him another bowl. Naruto soon finished that bowl too and waved good bye as he disappeared in a shunshin.

Naruto arrived second to last at the gate and sat down on the ground to wait for Kakashi. Kakashi arrived only thirty minutes late and after Sasuke and Sakura yelled at him they set off.

After walking for about five hours Naruto was getting very bored. He remembered his times traveling with Jiriaya where he would continuously be practicing something or trying to keep up with his sensei's murderous pace. Naruto was interrupted from his memories when he noticed a puddle in the middle of the road. 'That's strange; it hasn't rained for at least two weeks. This is the same trick that Jiraiya-sensei and I ran into while we were in the hidden mist. Must be an assassin.'

Naruto could still picture the perverted sage kneeling down to look Naruto in the eyes, "Listen kid, when you are a ninja you have to pay attention to the smallest details. It could cost you your life if you don't."

Naruto pulled out one of his wind chakra knives and acted like he was just twirling it to pass the time. As soon as he was over the puddle he stopped twirling the knife when it was face down and pumped wind chakra into it. Suddenly a lot of blood started to come from the puddle and another man popped out of it screaming in blind rage. Naruto ducked under the chain sword that the man wielded and did a back hand spring to get out of range.

"HOW DARE YOU DO THAT TO MY BROTHER!"

The man lunged again but found that Sasuke had come in from his blind spot and kicked the man in the head. Sasuke felt his instincts and practice take ahold of him. He gracefully took out a kuni and slit the man's throat just as he had practiced on the logs at the training field they practiced at.

Sakura stood in the same place she had been when the conflict started. She was looking down at her feet and shaking. She felt frozen and unable to move even after the men were dead.

Sasuke stood above the man he had just killed and couldn't seem to look away until he vomited next to the man. The look in the dead man's eyes was just too much to take. Kakashi ran in to do some damage control.

He first put a hand on Sakura's shoulder, "It's okay, a lot of Genin freeze up in their first fight. Next time just remember that you are fighting for your teammates."

Sakura looked like she had at least snapped out of it so Kakashi moved on to Sasuke

He then went over to Sasuke patted him on the back while he threw up again. "Remember this feeling, only kill when necessary and remember that if you had not killed him he would have killed you."

Kakashi looked around for Naruto who was over where the fight had begun. "Kakashi-sensei! This one is still alive do you want him for info?"

Kakashi just shook his head yes, "Yeah, why don't you drag him into the woods over there."

After a few minutes of screams being heard in the distance and the rest of the party wincing trying to imagine what was being done to the man, Naruto and Kakashi came out of the forest. Kakashi glared at the client, "Okay, as of right now this mission has been determined to be a high B-Rank or low A-Rank mission. Since our client only paid for a C-rank mission we have the right to refuse to continue the mission. What do you guys want to do?"

Sasuke sneered confidently, "An Uchiha never backs out of a mission!"

Sakura watched Sasuke with admiration, "I agree with Sasuke!"

Naruto shrugged, "This might be interesting."

After they managed to stop the old man from bowing to them repeatedly, they set of toward the land of Waves. After two days they arrived on the outskirts of the village. They got off of the boat that took them across the river they started for the client house. Before they had taken more than ten steps…

"GET DOWN!"

Naruto grabbed Sakura and the client and brought them down to the ground right as a huge sword flew over their heads. It smashed into a tree and stopped after it was more than half way through the trunk. A man that had bandages over his face and not wearing a shirt stood on top of the blade. The man had a scratch through his headband, which labeled him as a missing-nin.

Kakashi stood in front of the group, "That's Zabuza, he used to be a Jonin. He is out of your league let me handle him. Protect the client at any cost."

Kakashi wasted no time and rushed Zabuza and sparks flew from the blows being exchanged.

"Very good Kakashi, but I wonder how your students are doing against my water clones" the nin said through his bandages.

Kakashi didn't panic or hesitate at all, "I'm sure they will be fine. I would worry about yourself."

Naruto watched as five water clones close in around the target. "Sasuke you get that one." He then created four shadow clones, which drew their lightning chakra trench knives and blocked all of the swords. As soon as the swords came into contact with the knives the clones were electrocuted and dispersed. Sasuke managed to block the sword and use his fire ball jutsu to disperse the clone. Naruto gave him thumbs up and Sakura cheered for Sasuke.

Kakashi smiled as Zabuza scowled, "What did they beat your clones already? You must be losing your touch."

Zabuza saw Kakashi let his guard down long enough to punch him square in the chest. Kakashi went flying through the forest and landed on the water where the original fight had started. Kakashi looked around trying to locate Zabuza and realized to late that he was underneath him.

Zabuza smiled evilly under his bandages as he captured Kakashi in his water prison, "Ha! You must be losing your touch Kakashi."

Naruto saw Kakashi get caught in the prison and turned to Sasuke and Sakura, "Stay here and protect the client." And before Sasuke could protest he held up his hand and said, "If the client dies we fail the mission, I leave him in your hands."

Naruto dashed over to where Kakashi was being held and stopped, "Zabuza, I will have to ask you to unhand my sensei."

Zabuza let out a deep chuckle, "What can you do against me boy?"

Naruto pulled out his wind chakra blades, "This time I'm telling you, let my sensei go or else…"

Zabuza just held out his massive sword, "bring it on Genin."

Naruto pointed his wind chakra blade at the hand that Zabuza was using to keep the jutsu intact and pumped enough chakra though it to reach his arm. Zabuza's danger senses were going berserk. He immediately retracted his hand, losing control of the jutsu.

Zabuza was astonished to see that the water where his arm had just been was parted on either side by an invisible force. 'Wind chakra huh?'

Kakashi was now back on top of the water and ready for round two. He sprung at Zabuza pushing him further and further out onto the water. Zabuza saw that he was starting to get sluggish so he switched tactics and formed hand seals for the Water Dragon jutsu. Kakashi's sharingan eye copied his jutsu and sent an equally powerful water dragon at Zabuza. The two dragons collided and produced a huge splash that blocked the view of both ninja. Kakashi used this distraction in order to place several Genjutsu's around the area as well as make the hand signs for the Water Wall jutsu in order to block whatever Zabuza was going to send at him. Kakashi finished the signs just in time for a highly concentrated stream of water to impact with the wall of water. Zabuza sneered when he saw his attack had been blocked. Zabuza took off sideways to try to get behind Kakashi but was caught in a Genjutsu that made him think he had ten different legs. Zabuza slowed down for a second before he broke the Genjutsu. In a desperate effort he started going through the hand signs for his most chakra consuming technique, the Tidal Wave no-jutsu. He was halfway through the hand signs when he realized that Kakashi had just finished the hand signs for the same jutsu. There was nothing he could do but sit and wait for the inevitable. Kakashi released the wave and it smashed into Zabuza and pushed him all the way back to shore where he slammed into a tree. Somehow Zabuza managed to stay conscious and was groaning loudly when Kakashi threw two Kuni into each of his arm and legs to prevent any more jutsu. Kakashi was staring Zabuza down getting ready to finish the job when two senbon flew out of the trees and stuck into Zabuza's neck. Zabuza fell on the ground in a heap.

The hunter-nin that had thrown the senbon jumped out of the tree.

"Thank you for your assistance. This is now an internal affair."

With that the hunter-nin grabbed ahold of Zabuza and shunshined away.

Kakashi looked over at the Genin, "Good job everyone I am so proud of you that I am going to let you do the honor of carrying me the rest of the way to Tuzuna's house." He then passed out and fell face first on the ground.

Sasuke and Sakura yelled in protest, so Naruto made some shadow clones who picked up Kakashi. They marched on for about an hour before they reached the bridge builder house.

It was a two story house that looked as if it had many rooms and over all looked fairly rich.

The group entered and Tuzuna yelled, "I'm home!"

His daughter Tsunami stuck her head out of the kitchen and smiled, "I see we are going to need some more food. I will go to the market after lunch."

Naruto carried Kakashi up to the spare room on the second floor. He was vaguely aware of a pair of small eyes watch him as he tried his best to make the copy-nin comfortable.

"Why don't you come out instead of hiding in the shadows?"

The young boy stuck his head into the room, "Why do you even try? You know you can't beat Gato. You are just gunna die like he did."

Tears started to stream from the boy's eyes. Naruto crossed the room and put a hand on the boys shoulder. "Gato doesn't scare me. I fight only for what I believe in. I believe in my friends, teachers, and my nation. When I fight for what I believe in I will fight until I win or draw my last breath."

He put his other hand on the boys other shoulder, "You are stronger than you think. The only thing you need to figure out is what you believe is worth fighting for."

Naruto got up and pretended to be busy attending to Kakashi's wounds. The boy didn't move for a minute while he considered what the blond haired ninja said and then took off down the hall back to his room.

Kakashi opened his one visible eye, "When did you become so wise?"

Naruto rubbed the back of his head, "Well that wasn't really my words. Jiraiya-sensei told me that shortly after taking me from the village. I had to tell him what I would fight to protect before he would train me as a ninja."

Kakashi gave a slight nod, "I thought that sounded a little too smart for you to have made it up on your own."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

Kakashi just pretended to be asleep again. Naruto grumbled to himself as he left to find his teammates. He went back down stairs to find that the table that had previously been full of food was completely empty and Tsunami looked defeated. Sasuke finished the mouthful of food and smiled smugly at Naruto. Naruto glared back at him.

Sasuke leaned back in his chair, "Now that Kakashi is injured I am the new leader of this mission."

Saukra hurriedly agreed and glared at Naruto waiting him to challenge Sasuke.

Instead he continued down the stairs and walked up to Tsunami, "How low on food are you?"

Tsunami barely kept herself from breaking down, "As low as you can get. There is nothing left."

Naruto nodded and took off through the front door. Sasuke and Sakura yelled after him to listen to the new leader.

Naruto sprinted toward the town and arrived in a matter of minutes. He slowed down and walked into the town. Naruto looked around at the poor state of the town. On the Main Street there were more beggars than shoppers and shop keepers together. The streets were dirty and filled with trash and in all of the alleys there were makeshift shelters that the homeless people stayed in. There was one girl that he saw giving food and attempting to help those who were sick. Naruto felt his anger rise and wanted nothing more than to destroy the people who were responsible for the sorry state that the town was in. At that moment he saw a stand collapse.

Five mercenaries had toppled the stand when the owner would not give them free food and all of the money he had earned. The man was now in the middle of the mercenaries being pushed back and forth with the occasional fist to the stomach or face. Naruto did a substitution with the man and took one of the mercenary's fists to the stomach without budging an inch. The mercenary that punched him retracted his hand once he got over the shock of how much it hurt.

"Ahhhhh," the man cradled his hand that was already starting to bruise. "Who the hell are you!?

Naruto just punched top of the man's head which impacted with the ground with a sickening crack. He turned to the other four ho now were holding weapons.

"W...w...whoever you are, we are under the care of Gato. If you hurt us then he will kill you!"

Naruto looked up with a look of a demon, "bring it on!"

After killing another two of them he knocked out the other two and shunshined into the woods with them to get some information. He tied them both to a tree and woke them up.

Naruto pulled out a kuni and started to examine it, "So how about you tell me everything you know about Gato and we can do this the easy way."

One of the men started to laugh and Naruto instantly slit his throat him without hesitation. The man desperately tried to suck in air but just ended up suck blood into his lungs and eventually drowned in his own blood. "Opps, I must be rusty at interrogation. How about you? Do you feel like cooperating?"

Naruto left the area with all the information that he needed and more. He hurried to the hideout that the mercenary told him about and found the storage shed that stored all of the food that the compound had stored. Naruto took out the two guards in less than a second with two well placed kuni and broke into the shed. Naruto took out a storage scroll that Jiraiya had given him. Naruto sealed all of the food he could get his hands on. When he left he glanced behind him to see that only scraps had been left for the mercenaries.

He then sped into town and handed out food to all of the people in the street. Naruto then raced back to Tuzuna's house and walked past the screaming Sakura and shouting Sasuke to Tsunami.

"Umm, do you have a pantry?"

She looked at him oddly since it didn't look like he had any food, "Yes..."

She led him to the pantry and he pulled out his scroll and stuffed it with all the food he had collected.

Tsunami just smiled and jumped on him with a huge hug. Naruto blushed a little and rubbed the back of his head. A day later when Kakashi finally woke up, they all had a huge meal.

Naruto pulled the team aside, "I have some information. It seems that the Hunter-nin was not real and Zabuza is very much alive.

Sasuke scoffed, "like we would believe your information."

Kakashi rolled his eye at Sasuke's comment, "I knew that it wasn't a real hunter-nin when he took the whole body. Usually hunter-nins just cut off the head and destroy the body."

Sasuke crossed his arms, "So what if he comes back I'll just beat him."

Kakashi shifted his gaze to Sasuke, "I almost didn't beat him and you can't even touch me. I will be the one to face him. What worries me is that we have no idea what his accomplice is capable of; so we will be working on chakra control in order to make you more powerful."

Sasuke clenched his fist, "Finally, some real training."

Kakashi led them outside to a group of trees, "We will be learning to climb trees…"

Sasuke growled, "We already know how to climb trees."

"…without your hands."

Sasuke turned his head in annoyance, "Impossible."

Naruto looked at Sakura and Sasuke like they had a second head, "You don't even know how to climb trees?"

Sasuke glared at him, "And I suppose you do."

Naruto looked at him like he had grown another head, "Yeah, I've known since I was like five."

Sasuke pointed to the tree, "Then prove it!"

Naruto just turned without a word and walked up the tree with ease and looked down at Sasuke, "Good enough for you?"

Sasuke growled again, "I can do that too."

He ran at the tree and took two steps before the tree gave way beneath him and he fell on his butt in the dirt.

Naruto couldn't help but let an amused smile dance across his lips, "Kakashi-sensei, I'm going to the lake to work on a few things."

Naruto sped off in the direction of the lake he saw from his height in the tree. Once he arrived at the lake he stepped out onto the water and sat down in the middle. He concentrated and soon found himself in front of a very familiar Gate. He went through the bars and found the great Fox asleep in a clearing in the forest.

"Hey Kurama! I need some help with the move you have been teaching me!"

The beast let out a deep breath, "Why can't you just get a mate and bug her instead of me?"

Naruto rolled his eyes, "Come on, it's not like you're doing anything."

Kurama was silent for a moment and then got up and stretched as well as blinked the sleep from his eyes, "Fine, but in exchange you need to start looking for a mate. Twelve years of no sex is borderline maddening."

Naruto smiled, "Well you're already mad so it can't make that much of a difference."

Kurama hesitated, "… fair enough."

Kurama put his hands together and breathed out a torrent of fire that bent around his body and seemed to be completely under his control.

"The first part you need to learn for this move is the breath. Fire comes from the breath not the muscle you put into it. The fire you create will be by molding fire chakra in your stomach and giving breath to the fire. This is not like any of your other techniques, the fire you give breath to is given a part of you. This allows it to move around with your will as the medium for controlling it. Think of it as some of your consciousness is being transferred. II am fire incarnate so fire won't actually affect you anyway. Just remember that you are able to use it because of me.

Naruto sat at attention while the Fox explained and was now ready to try it. He gathered fire chakra in his stomach and took a breath and released it. The fire came out as more of a liquid and burned his throat.

"Ahhhh, that hurt. What did I do wrong?"

Kurama laughed at the boy's pain, "You didn't give the fire your will. You can't just breathe normally and expect the fire to suddenly jump to life! There needs to be a connection. It's almost as if you are giving the fire part of your soul."

Naruto prepare to try it once again. He gathered the fire chakra and searched for a way to connect with the fire. He realized that the fire chakra stored in his stomach seemed to be calling for air, to become alive. The light bulb went off in Naruto's head, 'a heartbeat; it needs a heartbeat to be alive." With this in mind he breathed in feeling his heart echo in his chest and add itself to the breath. Naruto spewed fire from his mouth and the fire jumped to life and moved back and forth to Naruto's will.

Kurama sat on its hunches and pouted, "I wanted to see you get burned again."

Naruto ignored the Fox and brought the fire closer. He could fell the heartbeat of the fire as well as his own were in sync. He reached out and experimentally touched the fire. It did not burn him like he thought it would, it just seemed to make him feel slightly warmer.

"Why doesn't it burn?"

"Weren't you listening? I am fire incarnate. You can't be burned with normal fire."

Naruto absently nodded "Okay Kurama, I'm gunna try it outside."

Kurama settled down to sleep again, "remember that to make it bigger you can just add more chakra to it. The bigger it gets the harder it is to control."

Naruto just raised his hand over his head and waved as he walked away.

Naruto woke up still sitting in the middle of the lake. He grinned and gathered the fire chakra and breathed deeply; fire shot out of his mouth and surrounded him. Naruto smiled inside the ball of fire. He opened up a small hole in the sphere and tossed a kuni strait up. When it came down it hit the shield and bounced off.

He smiled, "Finally got it."

How was it? Please R&R (Read and Review). we won't be at the main part of the story for a few chapters still.

Peace

-Konoha Civilian-