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KingRk - it was the first chapter

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Thank you for the feedback! Uploads likely will slow as time progresses, due to a facility known as school.

Also, anyone else feel me in how all the extracurricular music programs all have you turn in auditions at the same time? Ugh. Such a pain.

Notice : Next chapter will take a while. I have two stories, and I'm trying to make sure the plot is at least decently cohesive for both, so I'll have to write ahead, and publish the cemented chapters. Don't worry, it shouldn't take me months.

Just longer than the last few updates.

Disclaimer : I do not own any part of the Naruto franchise.


Chapter 2 : Team 7

Hinata wondered if Naruto was going to tell them what was troubling him.

Today, Naruto called a 'meeting' after school, saying that he needed to tell them something.

Naruto was already at Training Ground 7, and Hinata just got permission from her father to come here and 'train' with them.

Sasuke arrived last, huffing about how unfair it is that the Hyūga Clan compound was in front of the Uchiha clan's.

"What did you want to tell us, Naruto?"

Naruto stood up, and lifted his shirt, showing the Eight Trigrams Seal on his stomach.

"Is that a seal?" asked Sasuke. "What's it for?"

Naruto looked away, and decided to just get it over with quickly. "The academy lied to us. The Yondaime couldn't kill the Kyūbi, who was an entity of pure chakra. So he sealed it away. Inside a baby."

Realisation dawned on his friends' faces.

Hinata observed Naruto closely, and noted he looked nervous and scared.

Why would he look scared? She then remembered the looks he got on the streets the few times they walked together, and the whispering.

"Naruto, are you scared that we would think any differently of you?"

Naruto stiffened, then sighed.

Sasuke smiled a little, "Idiot. As if we would let this change anything."

Naruto looked up. Tears shone in his eyes.

Hinata smiled, genuine and caring, "We'll never leave you, Naruto."

Naruto jumped on her and embraced her, and then pulled a reluctant Sasuke into the group hug.

After he calmed Naruto smiled, "Thanks, guys. I kinda needed to get that out of my system."

"Now, let's train!"


"But, sensei, you know I'm not a good candidate."

"Then who else is?"

"Tsunade is-"

"If you can bring her back, I'll allow it. And that means not forcing her." he sighed. "If you don't do this, the position may fall into the hands of Danzo."

"... Fine. I'll take it for now, but I'll resign if Tsunade comes back."

"That's acceptable. Also, be sure to tell Naruto that you're his godfather."

Jiraiya flinched, but sighed and nodded.

"Naruto, I'm leaving today."

Naruto's face dropped. The Sandaime was donning his battle armour, and a pack hung from his back.

"Today, Jiji?"

Hiruzen smiled sadly, "Yes, today. You've graduated, and it's time for me to leave. Take care, Naruto. I already have everything planned out if I were to fall during battle." He paused. "And now that you've graduated, you can tell everything to your friends, if you so wish."

Naruto beamed, glad he could reveal his secrets to his two long standing friends.

"But who's the replacement for Hokage?"

Hiruzen smiled wryly, "One of my former students, Jiraiya of the Densetsu no Sannin."

Naruto's eyes lit up in admiration. Jiraiya was practically a war hero at this point! He had gone on several infiltration missions, and made Kumo cancel their attacks three times over! He even single-handedly destroyed armies of shinobi, and was feared across the lands!

"When he comes, Naruto, he'll have something to tell you. But, I'll leave that to him."

Naruto nodded, wondering what the Jiraiya had to tell him.

Suddenly, Hiruzen remembered something. "I must be getting old, to have forgotten this."

"Naruto, how is that jutsu coming along?"

Naruto sighed a bit. "I have all the fūinjutsu components, but in order to really use it, I have to redesign the entire matrix from scratch, and sort of lock it with my chakra. But after that, I should have it down no problem!"

Hiruzen smiled. Trust Naruto to learn fūinjutsu to practically mastery in little over a year.

"Goodbye, Naruto. I have faith that you'll do your parents and I proud. Go out there, and show the world what you're capable of."

As he walked away, Naruto's eyes welled with tears, and ran forward, "Jiji!"

Naruto hugged the old man's waist tightly, not letting go, "Please come back! Please!"

The aged Hokage too cried, "Naruto, I'll do anything I can to stop the war, and come back, just to see you take the seat, alright?"

Naruto smiled, "Alright!"


"Team 6 : on Active Duty

"Team 7 : Uzumaki Naruto, Hyūga Hinata, Uchiha Sasuke, led by Hatake Kakashi, Special Assault and Assasination Squad.

"Team 8 : Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, Haruno Sakura, led by Yūhi Kurenai, Tracking and Espionage Squad.

"Team 9 : Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Chouji, Nara Shikamaru, led by Sarutobi Asuma, Frontal Assault and Support Squad."

Iruka looked up at the class of genin graduates. "Rest of teams on active duty. And that concludes our teams. Please wait for your sensei to arrive."

Nearly an hour later, it was just Team 7 in the classroom.

Sasuke twitched, "Where is our sensei?"

"I don't know, but I really wanna prank him right now," said Naruto through his clenched teeth.

"Aargh! I can't stand it!" Naruto's willpower was wavering. But he held on.

Finally, after a total of 70 minutes of waiting, a silver haired man walked into the room.

All three of them immediately noted the odd spiky hair, mask, and then the jōnin outfit.

"You're our sensei?" they collectively asked.

The silver-haired man smiled with his eye ("How did he do that?" wondered Naruto).

"Yes. I am Hatake Kakashi. Come to Training Ground 7, we shall reconvene there."

He then vanished in a swirl of leaves, leaving the three genin behind.

The walk to the training grounds from the Academy was not far. In fact, Hinata, Sasuke and Naruto were there in a matter of minutes.

"Alright, now that you're all here, let us begin."

The trio jumped. They hadn't expected for him to be behind them!

"You may think you're genin, but you're actually not. You must pass my true genin exam in order to become Team 7." He eye-smiled again.

In their sensei's hands were two bells, each tied to a string. The bells jingled as Kakashi's hand moved, refracturing the harsh sunlight into their eyes.

"Whoever can get a bell from me passes."

Naruto was the first to protest, "But there's only two! Does that mean one of us will fail?"

Kakashi's tone contained a streak of humorous sadism, "Exactly."

Without allowing them any time to think about it, he shouted. "Now, go! You have three hours!"

The three genin hopefuls scattered, leaving only wind and clouds of dust rolling in the air.

"Hm, well hidden," observed Kakashi out loud.

"Is he taunting us?" though Sasuke, incensed by their new sensei's actions.

Without any sort of planning, Sasuke leapt out of the tree he had been hiding in. In the air, his hands blurred through a series of orderly motions.

"Katon : Gōkakyū (Fire Release : Great Fireball)!"

Kakashi's eyes widened a bit. To be able to utilise a C-rank ninjutsu with no significant power downgrades is impressive for any genin. However, he simply sidestepped the infernal ball of heat.

"Impressive, but not enough." Kakashi then grabbed Sasuke by the collar, and threw him to the ground. "Good for a genin, but not enough for a bell."

Sasuke's rage was only fueled by the taunts. "I'll show you what's enough for a bell!" His eyes burned like purgatory, and with a snarl, Sasuke tried to engage Kakashi in taijutsu.

Key word being tried.

Sasuke, despite being one of the strongest genin hopefuls that year, had made a grave mistake.

He was a genin. Kakashi was a jōnin.

In a matter of seconds, even though he was still holding back, Kakashi had Sasuke on the edge of defeat. However, his purpose was to teach, not kill. "And what better way to do that than teach the Uchiha a little humility?" he thought.

"Doton : Shinjū Zanshu (Earth Release : Double Suicide Decapitation)"

Kakashi dove underground, and in the blink of an eye, re-emerged. By the time he surfaced, Sasuke was snuggly embraced and confined by the earth.

"Well, so much for showing me," he smiled, taunting the trapped boy. "I hope that your teammates perform better, because that was simply pathetic."

Sasuke scowled, and struggled in his prison. Kakashi mockingly waved goodbye, and left Sasuke to his own humiliation.

Sasuke was not sure what the purpose of this was, but if Kakashi was aiming for humiliation, he succeeded. Never had he felt this embarrassed before! But then again, it was his fault. Hinata and Naruto had constantly warned him of his short fuse, and his pride.

"Bastard, yah gotta pull that stick outta your ass someday, otherwise it'll break, and you'll fall and hurt your butt."

Sasuke shook his head at the memory. "If only they were here, we could probably make a plan to win against him."

"And that's what we'll do!"

Sasuke strained against the ground, but Naruto and Hinata shifted their bodies into his view.

"We'll get you out of here, Sasuke," smiled Hinata.

Sasuke blinked, "But Kakashi -"

Naruto smirked, "Nah, he's preoccupied with my clones."

It only took a few moments to dig Sasuke out with the help of clones and kunai. He groaned, rotating his limbs in every direction, and shook the dirt off of himself.

"So, what's the plan?"

Naruto and Sasuke's grins mirrored each other as Hinata told of her thought out strategy.

Naruto jumped right in front of Kakashi and started throwing punches without giving any sort of a warning.

"Oh, quite a rude one, aren't you?"

Kakashi simply dodged around his fists, "You're going to have to do better than that to get a bell, you know."

Naruto simply grinned at him.

Kakashi heard the telltale sound of kunai slicing through the air, and turned around to see two clones hurling their weaponry at him.

"Not bad, but still not good enough."

He was truly caught off guard when the original Naruto turned into Hinata.

Hinata let out a cry, and rushed in.

She assaulted Kakashi with a fast barrage of Jūken strikes, aimed at his tenketsu.

"Jūken, hm? Guess I can't hold back too much now."

Hinata smiled ("What was it with these kids and smiling so creepily?" thought Kakashi), and then suddenly changed styles.

"Jūken!"

Hinata lashed out with her fingers extended.

Kakashi dodged these with ease.

Her palms glanced off the side of Kakashi's vest.

Naruto sent several clones in, and they went in and engaged Kakashi all at the same time. Although Kakashi quickly disposed of them, Hinata's palms had been very close to their target this time.

Hinata's hand touched the bells.

Sasuke and Naruto joined the fight, enthusiastically participating in this brawl.

Sasuke hurled four kunai into the air, in positions that appeared to be unrelated to each other.

Naruto's hand flew through a series of seals, and a strong gust of wind accelerated the speed of the kunai several fold. However, it only hit two of the four knives.

Kakashi raised his eyebrows. Despite Naruto's jutsu not covering all the kunai, it was still impressive teamwork for a duo of genin. However, he simply dodged the kunai and started going on the offence in his fight with Hinata.

Naruto then ran in, and started attacking wildly. Kakashi easily picked a hole in his stances, and threw him away like a rag.

He forgot that Hinata was still there.

With the ferocity of a lion, Hinata once again leapt into action, her middle and index fingers outstretched, as deadly as any knife, seeking out their sensei-to-be's vital points.

Kakashi could do nothing but jump away, as getting struck by those deadly hands is equivalent to losing.

And this forced him into the two kunai that had not been sped up.

In one smooth motion, the kunai sliced through the strings binding the bells to Kakashi's belt. The bells glared in the light, a glare that was soon snuffed when a small hand wrapped around them and rolled away.

Sasuke smirked, and held up the bells.

Kakashi froze, then he smiled.

"You pass!"

He continued, "This test was designed to test your teamwork, seeing if you would work as a team despite there only being two bells."

His eyes conveyed his pride as he spoke, "And you did exactly that."

"Who came up with the plan?"

Sasuke and Naruto pointed at Hinata.

"Naruto, good distraction. However, I could tell something was off, so try to use more realistic diversions so the enemy can't tell it's a diversion."

"Sasuke, good job putting your pride aside and working together. Your biggest mistake was using the Gōkakyū in situations where I could easily dodge it, and wasted your chakra. Use it only in situations where it can actually do something."

"Hinata, good plan. It was clever, and well executed. Taijutsu is above average, as expected," Kakashi scratched his chin. "Perhaps expand your repertoire beyond just your clan's techniques. A few elemental ninjutsu never hurts, and perhaps using some poison in conjunction with your Hakke Rokujūyon Shō and Jūken could be effective."

Naruto was beaming, Sasuke was smiling a bit, and Hinata was blushing. None of them were really used to such praise.

"Team 7 starts its duties tomorrow!"


"You passed?"

Sasuke nodded. His father was stern, and would not tolerate any excess expression of emotion.

"Good, as expected of you."

Sasuke sighed. "Everything I manage to accomplish is 'expected of me'! Even the ones that aren't are overshadowed by Itachi."

Fugaku's eyes softened a bit, "Sasuke, I know you still feel accomplished. Perhaps it is because of me. However, just know that I am … proud of you. Even more so than Itachi."

Sasuke stood there, shocked. His surprise was so great, that his mind stopped working for a moment.

Fugaku's heart melted a little. "He's that surprised, just from hearing me say that I'm proud of him?"

"Sasuke, you'll do fine, stop worrying about my opinions and become your own person.

"When Itachi returns, I'll bring both of you and show you to Naka Shrine. There's something there, but I'll wait for him to come back."


Hūyga Hiashi sighed.

The clan elders were such a nuisance. Who gave them their powers in the first place?

Tradition?

A snort came out of Hiashi. Tradition. The clan's tradition, in coarser language, was complete bull.

What family would be cruel enough to coerce their own kind to such a terrible fate? If the Hyūga clan was a village within the village, then the Main Branch was a clan within a clan.

He simply hoped that Hinata, Hanabi, and Neji could remain innocent for as long as possible.

However, he knew it was not to be, as Hinata would be sent onto the battlefield sooner or later.

Hiashi hoped that the war would end before Hanabi grows up, and before any ill fate befalls his beloved daughters and nephew.

"Neji-niisan!"

Neji turned around, and saw Hinata running towards him. When she reached Neji, Hinata wrapped her arms around him. Neji smiled softly. Hinata was like a little sister to him, and the only member of the Main Branch he could tolerate.

"Hinata. How were your genin exams?"

Hinata then told him about the bell test, and how they had snagged the bell from Kakashi-sensei.

Neji smiled again. It was hard to frown when Hinata was around. She was like a sun that was well wrapped. Gentle, yet passionate and joyous.

As they chatted, members of the clan passed by. Many scowled, and internally frowned upon a Main Branch member associating with the Side Branch. Some smiled, and hoped that their relationship would one day bring about the unity of the clan.


Naruto sighed.

He laid on his bed, all his energy spent.

He spent the past two hours simply calculating the first section of Hiraishin, the chakra key.

Who knew simply using your brain could be so tiring?

His lips were cracked from a lack of moisture, and he felt light-headed. Naruto knew these weren't good signs, so he slowly forced himself up onto his feet.

He slowly trudged into the kitchen, boiled a kettle of water, and made himself some tea while grabbing a cup of instant ramen. As he waited for the godly noodles to cook, he sipped his tea, already feeling much better than before.

After slurping the steaming hot noodles and cleaning the cup of any remaining broth, Naruto let out a sigh of contentment. It was time to go back to work.

"Fūin!"

The intricate designs and kanji on the paper lit up, before suddenly combusting and sending smoke everywhere.

Naruto groaned. "Where did I make a mistake this time?"

Shaking off the only evidence he had of the failure, Naruto grabbed another piece of paper and tried again.

The sounds of explosions and frustration echoed throughout the ink-black night sky.


"Hokage-sama!"

Hiruzen clutched his left arm, where a kunai infused with lightning chakra was embedded deep in his flesh.

Itachi quickly went on the offence, forcing his opponents to back, before leaping towards the injured Hokage.

"I'm fine, Itachi. Finish your squad as soon as possible, and we'll retreat."

Itachi nodded, but the concern remained in his eyes.

His black eyes morphed into a sea of blood, with three tomoe swirling around a singular black orb.

"Genjutsu : Sharingan."

His attackers, elite shinobi from the Kinkaku Unit, froze under the illusion. Although Itachi had been fighting them for a while, he never used his Sharingan, saving it for a quick retreat. With his opponents rendered useless, Itachi gritted his teeth, and disposed of them. This was war, there was no room for pity.

Channelling a portion of his already low reserves to his legs, Itachi practically flew into the Sandaime's fight. Hiruzen had disposed of most of the Kinkaku Unit, and only three remained. Itachi's feet greeted the chest of an enemy, immediately crushing his ribcage and punctured his lungs, leaving only two. Itachi landed, immediately asking his Hokage, "Hokage-sama, are you injured?"

Hiruzen grimaced, feeling the pain in his shoulder, "No more than before."

Itachi nodded, and dashed toward the two remaining shinobi.

The enemies shouted in unison,

"Suiton : Suiryūdan (Water Release : Water Dragon)!"

"Raiton : Jibashi (Lightning Release : Electromagnetic Murder)!"

A wave of water and lightning merged to form an electrically charged beast of water, rushing at Hiruzen and Itachi.

Ignoring his injured left arm, his right hand flashed through seals, and slamming his palm onto the ground, Hiruzen summoned a series of mud walls.

"Dōton : Tajū Doryūheki (Earth Release : Multiple Earth Walls)."

The torrent of water and lightning broke through several walls, but failed to penetrate the last. Using this window of opportunity, Hiruzen charged forward and with quick strikes of his staff, finished off the shinobi who had foolishly wasted their chakra.

Itachi leaned Hiruzen against him, and carried the old shinobi to a resting area.

He tended to Hiruzen's wounds, grimacing slightly at the blood that stained the Hokage's armour.

Hiruzen sighed mentally. To burden a twelve year old boy with such responsibility, even during war, was not something he ever intended or wanted to do. But here they were.

"Itachi, we're retreating to our base in Yugakure. Shimogakure's allegiance is unknown, so we will go on a diplomatic mission there soon."

Itachi nodded. He prayed that this war would soon be over.