Prove the Pervert Wrong

by KyuubiMan

Jiraiya is disappointed that Naruto is still determined to retreive Sasuke, and refuses to train him unless he changes his mind. Naruto, being as hardheaded as ever, is unwilling to give up, meaning that he has to train himself.

7. Meddling Kids And Their Dog, Too

Prove the Pervert Wrong

Chapter Seven: Meddling Kids (And Their Dog, Too)

Disclaimer: If you're trying to track me down because you have abandonment issues, I don't have a psychology degree… Well, that and I don't want to talk to you… Also, as a side note, I don't own Naruto.

"Speech"

/Thoughts/

"Jutsu!"

---

Pre-Chapter A/N: Over 200 reviews! Yatta! I just have a couple of quick things to say, and then I'll get to the story.

The first thing is just my ultimate assurance to all of you that this fic will NOT contain slash/yaoi/yuri/shounen-ai/shoujo-ai/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. Every so often someone asks in a review, so I'm just gonna put the answer out here for everyone. Actual pairings probably won't occur for a while anyway, because thirteen is really kind of young for that… I knew people that "dated" when they were thirteen, but only one or two that had an actual relationship at that age (even then I have to skew the generally understood meaning of "relationship"). I do know of plenty of relationships that started at fifteen and lasted for significant lengths of time, though. It's odd the difference a couple of years can make, isn't it?

My second concern is that more than one person has said that Naruto is getting too strong, which I feel is unjustified. When you consider that Itachi was already the leader of ANBU by Naruto's age (not to mention the many others who were already famous at that age), and that Naruto still isn't even jounin-level, he hardly qualifies as "super powered." It's true that he's a bit stronger in this story than in the anime, but not by that much.

That's enough rambling for now. Enjoy the chapter!

---

"Naruto, you're early! Very early! Did you stop working on new ninjutsu so that you could focus more on your taijutsu?" Seeing Naruto look down at his feet, Gai became slightly alarmed. As far as he knew, Naruto never failed to look people in the eyes. "What's wrong Naruto? Anything I can help with?"

"Uh, Super-brows-sensei, I'm…" Naruto wasn't really sure how to say that he was going to stop coming altogether, but he figured it wouldn't be very nice to just stop showing up.

"You're what, Naruto-kun?" Naruto glared at Lee for interrupting before turning his attention back to Gai's feet.

"I'm going to be training with someone else for a while."

"Someone else? Don't tell me… Did Jiraiya change his mind?" Naruto snorted loudly at the thought and looked back up at Gai's eyes.

"Ero-sennin? I don't even want to train with him anymore!"

"Naruto-kun, who could be a better trainer than Gai-sensei?"

"Heh, it's actually… er…" He mumbled something incomprehensible, causing Lee and Gai to raise their eyebrows.

"Naruto, just tell me who it is. I won't get mad!"

"Are you sure?" He remembered, of course, how spirited Gai had been about helping him, and he just knew that Gai wouldn't like the idea of Anko taking over his training. Still, he had to admit that it seemed to be the best course of action, and he considered Sasuke much higher priority than Gai.

"I trust your judgment, Naruto. You always act with the passion of youth, after all!" He struck a nice-guy pose, more to loosen Naruto up than because he felt like it. "If you say that this person is a better teacher for you, then it must be true! Just tell me who it is." Naruto, the idiot that he was, actually believed that Gai wouldn't care who it was.

"Well, if you really don't care… It's Anko-chan!" Unable to imagine a less appropriate teacher, Gai almost fainted. Lee, on the other hand, did faint, and Gai didn't even notice.

"You're training with Mitarashi Anko?"

"Yeah…"

"What could possibly make her a better teacher than me! She's not even a jounin!"

"I thought you said you wouldn't be mad."

"I'm not mad!"

"Oookay… Anyway, Anko-chan is a better teacher for me because she knows more about Orochimaru."

"Oh…" He honestly hadn't considered that. "Well, that's true. I guess I can't compete with that…" His head fell for a second before popping back up with a smile. "Just remember: any time you're looking for some good training, you're always welcome to train with us!" He struck his nice-guy pose again, finally causing Naruto to grin.

"Yeah, I'll remember! Thanks, Super-brows-sensei!" Naruto ran as quickly as he could (which still wasn't all that fast with the weights) out of the clearing, leaving Gai alone with the unconscious Lee.

---

"So you've dealt with them?"

"Yeah, we can start training now! Let's go!"

"Alright, but first we need to set up a training schedule based on what you actually want to learn."

"Schedule…? We don't need a schedule, we'll just keep training the way I used to!" Anko pinched the bridge of her nose, amazed that his idiocy could arouse a headache in her so quickly.

"Two things are wrong with that. First, the way you used to train is technically considered a schedule. Second, I don't know what it was. That's why we're setting it up. So, if you think it's such a good idea, let's hear it. How did you train before?"

"I don't know why you're calling it a schedule when you don't even know what it was, but--"

"Naruto, for crying out loud! A schedule is just a way of allocating time! If you repeated the same training on any kind of regular basis, then that was a schedule!" /How did this idiot invent S-rank techniques?/ He eyed her suspiciously for a moment, not quite sure what to make of her statement.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! What did you think a schedule was?"

"I don't know, it just sounds like it should be something complex and official…" She just sighed and shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose slightly harder. "Anyway, my old… 'schedule…' was just what made sense at the time."

"Which was?"

"Wake up at six, eat some ramen, go for a five hour sprint, create some--"

"Five hour sprint? On a daily basis?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Right after waking up? What, are you steam powered or something? That's not exactly a warm-up exercise!"

"It's not? Warmed me up pretty well…" It took her a few moments of blankly staring at him to recover from the shock of a genin doing things like that, but when she realized who she was talking to it didn't seem like that big of a deal. Not only had he been training with Gai, he was the kid who had made kage bunshin his combat specialty.

"Okay… what else?"

"After the run I usually created some kage bunshin and had a spar before lunch." She just stared at him until it became apparent that he wasn't going to say anything more.

"Is that it?"

"No, I was just waiting for you to overreact again." He grinned at her apparent anger, but she decided not to interrupt him again. "I usually ate lunch with Mabui-chan at Ichiraku's, and then spent a couple of hours working on a new technique before going over to Super-brows-sensei and Fuzzy-brows for some taijutsu practice. They kept me busy pretty late into the night, and when they left I usually got some last-minute work in on my technique."

"What about dinner?"

"Eh?"

"You mentioned breakfast and lunch, but you never said anything about dinner." Naruto started scratching the back of his head, which told her what she needed to know without his answer. "Why don't you eat dinner?"

"I usually just forget…"

"In other words, you're so ridiculously obsessed with your training that you skip it to get the extra workout time." His sheepish grin grew wider, prompting a more severe headache from her. "Well, that won't be happening anymore.

"What! You're gonna mess with my eating too?"

"I don't care what you eat, but I do care that you eat. Not eating regularly is unhealthy, and it's probably been slowing down your training. There's no way you're going to be stronger than Orochimaru in two years if you don't eat properly." She waited a moment for him to object, but he didn't have anything to say. "Good! Now, about the way you were training… it was stupid. Not only were you working on too many things at once, you were doing it in a moronic order."

"What do you mean by that? I was doing fine!"

"Yeah, you were doing fine, right… Is that why you asked for my help?" She grinned at his head falling, knowing that her point had gotten across. "Of course, if you had waited about two more seconds I would have explained it to you anyway… What I meant by 'moronic order' is that you switched your focus back and forth too much and the training lost efficiency."

"Efficiency…?"

"Yes, efficiency. Your workout was: stamina/strength, taijutsu, ninjutsu, taijutsu, ninjutsu. At the very least you should have grouped all of your ninjutsu training into one block, and all of your taijutsu into another to hone your focus on one at a time. A smarter idea would have been to split taijutsu and ninjutsu into separate days altogether. Realistically, you should also have had physical conditioning and form training on separate days too, and the preferable order would have been form, then conditioning, then ninjutsu. That way you would have allowed your body the maximum amount of time to recuperate from the conditioning before working on your taijutsu, and you could have worked on your ninjutsu while you were low enough on energy that your control would have been better, giving you the maximum benefit from all three types of training."

Naruto considered what she had said for a few moments, but decided that she was wrong for at least one major reason. "My body doesn't need to recuperate!" She cocked an eyebrow.

"What the hell do you mean by that? Muscles take time to rebuild, including yours."

"But they don't… My muscles never really get tired."

"That's just stupid. If anything that means that you're not really working very hard, which means that you aren't really getting any stronger."

"I am too working hard! I get stronger all the time!"

"You can't get stronger unless your muscles break down, and if they break down they'll get tired. Unless you're trying to say that they heal while you're still using them—oh, right, the super healing thing…" Remembering that Kakashi had once mentioned a cut healing so quickly that he was able to watch it, she realized that it was entirely possible that he didn't feel his muscles wearing down during training. "Well, I'll give you that one for now. Before we figure out your new schedule, though, I need to see what you can do." Naruto definitely didn't like the sound of that, and it showed clearly in his face.

"What do you mean 'see what you can do?'"

"Relax, I didn't mean you have to fight me." He let out a sigh of relief, at which she smirked. "I just meant that you're going to be showing me the rasengan."

"You want to see the rasengan…? Why?"

"I've heard about your bad chakra control, Naruto. Before we can get started for real I need to know exactly how bad the situation is, and the rasengan is the easiest way to gauge it. At least, it's the easiest way to gauge it in you."

"But you don't know how to use the rasengan… How can you tell how bad my chakra control is if you don't know what it's supposed to be like?" She let out one of her evil smiles upon hearing that question.

"I have my ways… Just show me the technique, 'kay?" Although he was extremely put off by her smile, as he knew that she rarely smiled for reasons that he would consider to be good, he formed a kage bunshin and then the rasengan. Seeing said smile disappearing, he formed one of his own.

"How'd you like that, Anko-chan?"

"Honestly? I can't believe that you managed to create better versions of this technique without mastering it first." His smile was quickly replaced by a look of childish anger.

"I mastered it! It took me a whole month!"

"No, you didn't master it. It is impressive that you could learn such a complicated technique in a month, and even more impressive that you found a little shortcut like using a bunshin to swirl the chakra for you, but that doesn't mean you mastered it."

"Then what am I doing wrong? It works just fine…"

"In order to master the rasengan, you need to be able to use it at a moment's notice, without your enemy seeing it coming. That's impossible if you have to have a kage bunshin swirling the chakra for you. Jiraiya taught you the technique, right?" He nodded, but she hadn't really meant it as a question. "Jiraiya happens to be the type of teacher who would overlook crappy chakra control in favor of pouring lots of power into your attacks. He's really the type who would say something like 'with your large amount of stamina, you should focus on power before control.' If I was to take a shot in the dark, I would say that he taught you kuchiyose no jutsu. Am I right?"

"How--"

"Kuchiyose no jutsu doesn't require chakra control: the more chakra you pour in, the bigger the animal that shows up. Unless you're using more chakra than is necessary to summon the leader of your summon type, Gamabunta in your case, you won't waste any chakra at all. Of course, that could still end up being a problem for someone like you, but I don't think he cared very much at the time."

"But--"

"We at least know your schedule now, though."

"Quit interrupting me when--"

"Until you master the rasengan completely, you won't be working on anything else!" She left a moment for that thought to sink in, a wide smirk on her face.

"But I need to work on my new technique!"

"Not everything is about strong techniques, idiot. You have a lot of chakra, far more than Orochimaru, but even you can run out, and the moment you do you're dead. The way you are now--"

"Wait, I have more chakra than Orochimaru?"

"You have at least twice as much!"

"Wow… I really am amazing!"

"You might have a lot of chakra, but your control is so bad that you're probably using two to three times as much chakra as you should in any given attack."

"Two to three times…? So you're saying that, if I do this, I'll be able to use twice as many techniques?"

"Wow, it is possible to teach you things! I was getting worried for a moment…" He glared at her, which made her grin grow three times wider. "You seem to be putting the chakra into your technique incorrectly, among other problems. I could explain it all to you, but you'll figure it out on your own anyway… The important thing to remember right now is that it will be impossible for you to beat Orochimaru unless you improve your control. So, how did you learn the rasengan?"

"Which part?"

"What do you mean 'which part?' The part where you rotate your chakra, idiot."

"Don't make fun of me! You asked how I learned the rasengan, not how I learned the rotation part of the rasengan! I got confused!"

"But I had already told you that the problem was your bunshin swirling the chakra for you, idiot."

"You also said I was putting too much chakra into it, so you could have meant the rubber ball part!" It took her a few moments, but she eventually came to the conclusion that he had definitely said "rubber ball part."

"Part of the training involved a rubber ball? What the hell did you do with a rubber ball?"

"I popped it, duh!"

"To learn the rasengan you… popped a rubber ball?" /I guess I understand now why everyone always said that Yondaime was a little off…/ "Whatever, I don't even care. Just tell me what the training was that taught you to rotate your chakra."

"I had to pop a water balloon…" She allowed a few moments for him to say "just kidding," but he never did.

"Please, please tell me you're making that up." Seeing him shake his head, her hand again found its way to the bridge of her nose. "Fine, let's go get some water balloons before I realize just how ridiculous this actually sounds."

---

"You'd better start getting more serious about your training! If Tsuchikage-sama finds out that you've just been lying around the hotel room all this time, he's going to--"

"Then tell him that I've been training. It won't make a difference…"

"Damn it Ankoku! That's exactly the kind of cocky attitude that could cause even you to lose! You're the only one from Iwa to make it to the final matches, meaning that the impression that people get of our strength relies entirely on you! People already think that Konoha and Suna are stronger than Iwa because we lost that war! If you lose we won't get many missions, and if we don't get many missions we won't make much money!"

"I fail to see why I should care. When I become Tsuchikage I'll crush Konoha and Suna, and then it will be obvious that Iwa is stronger. Until then life is boring, and I'll be treating it as such."

"You… you plan to start a war? Do you realize how serious that is? So many of our ninja could be lost… We could be crippled, or even destroyed outright!" Ankoku shrugged, a rarity for him.

"It should be entertaining, at the very least. You, on the other hand, are very boring. I'm going to go look for something of interest." Ankoku was gone so quickly that Ishiretsu, Ankoku's sensei, didn't even have time to yell again. All he was able to do was stare into space, horrified at the idea that Ankoku would start a war for purely entertainment purposes.

Ankoku, three blocks away, couldn't have conceivably cared less about what his sensei thought of his plan. Life was simply too boring, and a war seemed the perfect thing to spice it up. In the meantime, however, he had nothing to do. He knew that he had to become a chuunin before it would be possible to become Tsuchikage, but at the same time he was sorely tempted to attack a few Konoha jounin just for the hell of it. In an amazing show of willpower, he managed to convince himself to settle for finding someone interesting to spy on.

Hopping from roof to roof, he saw some strange things. First there was a purple-haired woman, carrying a crate of what appeared to be water balloons, shouting something at a grinning blond boy she was chasing. Later there was what appeared to be a transvestite boy drawing a picture of a tree, and then there was a vaguely familiar blond girl dragging two people out of a BBQ restaurant, screaming her head off all the while. Nothing was really interesting enough to curb his boredom, though. Until he saw Gaara, that is. Ankoku had no difficulty whatsoever in sneaking up on Gaara and his siblings, and was happy to find that he had seemingly missed very little of the conversation.

"But Gaara, how do you know he doesn't have one? He has an ability kind of like yours, and he even acts kind of like you…"

"His eyes weren't like mine, they were simply bored. He doesn't have one."

"You're basing it on something that uncertain?"

"It's not uncertain…" Something in the tone of his voice apparently told Temari that that part of the conversation was closed, because she returned to her dango with a nervous look on her face. "He won't matter, regardless."

"Why do you want to fight that Naruto kid so badly, anyway?" Kankurou, having finished his dango, felt the question needed to be answered. While it was true that Naruto had defeated Gaara's perfect form, it was also true that Gaara had changed completely after that fight. It seemed unlikely that the new Gaara's motivation was a desire to kill, but that was the only thing that Kankurou could think of.

"I… wish to confirm something." Kankurou and Temari were reminded all to well of the old Gaara's way of confirming his existence, but Ankoku just found it interesting. "Naruto taught me something. I would like to make sure that I've really learned it."

"He… taught you something? What exactly did he teach you?" Gaara briefly considered telling them, but he didn't want to say something so personal with Ankoku listening. He had, of course, known that Ankoku was there the whole time.

"If you two are finished eating, we should return to the hotel."

---

"Stupid brat, making me carry it all the way here just to annoy me… So your training is really just to pop the balloon?"

"Hey! It's harder than it looks!"

"Relax, I never said it was easy. I just think that it's a bit odd for a training exercise." She tossed him one of the many water balloons they had brought, "get started."

"Yoshi!" Holding out the balloon with his hand, he began the familiar process of swirling his chakra. After about four seconds of watching him, she managed to figure out that his problem wasn't with rotating the chakra, but with rotating it in more than one direction. It wasn't really that difficult to see, given that his bunshin had swirled the chakra in many different directions, but she would never have thought that that was the hardest part of the technique.

As Naruto continued with his training, one thing became very clear: he wasn't getting any better. No matter how much he tried, the rotation continued to be in only one direction. After an hour of watching him failing at the same thing repeatedly, Anko was beginning to wish that she had brought a book. Even one of Kakashi's perverted books would have been more entertaining.

Lunch time rolled by, and he still hadn't improved at all. She considered giving up on him and claiming that it had just been a bad idea, but eventually came to her senses and realized that that wasn't true. Despite his difficulties in controlling his chakra, he was definitely her best shot at getting Orochimaru killed. Besides, he was really a pretty good kid, if only a little too enthusiastic.

"It's lunch time, you can stop now." He continued to try for a moment before responding, and even then he didn't drop the balloon.

"Already? But we just got started!"

"Naruto, it's been hours. Regardless of your inability to sense the passing of time, I'm not going to let you continue to skip meals. Besides, aren't you going to meet that person for lunch?"

Instantly realizing that she was right, he dropped the balloon and sprinted off in the direction of Ichiraku's without a word. Luckily for her his speed was still sub-par with his weights on, so she was able to follow him without any trouble. After seeing him sit down, she nearly fainted at the thought of who he was sitting next to. She had been listening when he had said the name "Mabui," but she never would have thought it was that Mabui. Although she managed to remain standing, her mouth was left hanging open. Naruto, oblivious as ever, didn't even realize that Anko had followed him.

"Sorry I'm late, Mabui-chan."

"No problem! I actually got here a little late my--" Finally noticing Anko standing behind Naruto, Mabui felt as though she was about to have a heart attack. Seeing her surprised expression, which was an exact mirror of Anko's, Naruto got slightly worried.

"Mabui-chan? Are you okay?" He tried waving his hand in front of her face, but he got no response. When all else failed, he followed her trail of vision to Anko just in time to see the special jounin getting over her shock. "You followed me?"

"Of course I did! I already told you that I'm not gonna let you skip any more meals." /I can't believe she actually met him. This is either very good, or very bad…/ "So… When did you meet Mabui?"

"Eh?" He looked back and forth between them, more confused than he had been in months. Mabui finally got over her shock enough to close her mouth, and decided to answer the question for him.

"We met a few months ago, Anko. When did you meet him?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'meet…' We technically 'met' six months ago when he took his first shot at the chuunin exams, but we actually got to know each other a few days ago." She sat down on the other side of Naruto, who was still looking back and forth between them. When several seconds went by in awkward silence, he finally came back to his senses enough to ask the all-important question.

"Mabui-chan, how do you know a psycho like Anko-chan?"

"Hey! I'm not a psycho, I'm just… quirky!"

"'Quirky?' You licked my blood!"

"Yeah, but--"

"YOU LICKED HIS BLOOD?" Anko couldn't remember ever seeing Mabui looking so angry, which she knew was a bad sign. "You LICKED his BLOOD?"

"Yeah. It tasted pretty good, too." She smiled, but Mabui didn't seem to find the statement humorous. "It's really not that big of a deal, you know…"

"You licked his blood! How is that not a big deal?" Not wanting to see the argument drag on forever, as it was halting their response to his question, Naruto saw fit to interrupt.

"Mabui-chan, that doesn't matter! How do you two know each other?"

"…We're cousins." She ignored the look of utter horror that formed itself on his face, hoping that he would get over it quickly. "Anyway… if you really don't care," she eyed him suspiciously for a moment, "I guess I can let the blood licking slide. Even if it is one of the most disgusting and depraved things I've ever heard of…"

Ichiraku waited a while longer to make sure that they were done talking about blood licking before taking their orders. He was surprised to see that Anko was ordering as much as Naruto and Mabui, but he wasn't about to complain about making more money. Other than the shouts of "itadakimasu," the meal passed in an awkward silence. Naruto was too stunned that Mabui was related to Anko to say anything, and neither of the cousins were sure of how to break the ice. It had been years since they had even seen each other, and they hadn't left on particularly good terms. When the meal was finished, Naruto ended the silence.

"Mabui-chan, we've gotta get back to training now…"

"Oh… Well, be sure to work hard!"

"Of course! Come on Anko-chan! Let's go!"

"You go ahead, Naruto. I have to take care of something really quick, and then I'll catch up." It took him a few seconds, but Naruto nodded and ran off to the training grounds. Seeing Mabui turning to leave, Anko grabbed her shoulder. "Mabui, we need to talk."

"What could we possibly have to talk about?"

"Alright, I know we don't really get along very well, but is the harsh tone really necessary?" Mabui was glaring at her, so she decided to get right to the point. "You know as well as I do that I never actually hated him, and now that I've met him…" She cleared her throat in preparation for what was most likely going to be the hardest thing she would ever have to say. "While I'm not about to say that you were right, I will say that you… weren't completely wrong."

"What was that? I could have sworn I just heard you say--"

"Don't get me wrong here, I'm not calling him a hero! You can't be a hero if you had no choice about what was happening. All I'm saying is that, if it weren't for him, we'd all be dead right now. After getting to know him, I can honestly say that he doesn't deserve the way the villagers treat him. He's really not a bad kid, even if he can be a little annoying." Mabui was left frozen in place by Anko's words, not quite sure what to make of them. She spent a few moments thinking about it before deciding on what Anko's true line of thought probably was.

"You're not just trying to get on my good side because we're going to be seeing more of each other, are you?"

"Of course not! I wouldn't dare give you the satisfaction of hearing me say something like that unless I actually meant it." Anko smiled, which made Mabui begin to wonder if she was actually being honest. "Don't you know me at all?"

"That does sound like you…" Finally believing her cousin, Mabui formed a smile of her own. "Wow, how many years has it been since we've been on speaking terms?"

"I'm not really sure, but I do have one other thing to say." Her smile faded, as did Mabui's soon after. "While I understand that you consider Naruto to be a hero and all that, you seriously need to stop thinking so highly of him. He's just a person, after all."

"I know that!"

"Do you really? It seems to me that you respect his opinion more than your own judgment, even though you're smarter and more experienced than him, which would suggest that you don't. Just keep it in mind, 'kay?"

"…Okay, but I really don't think--"

"Oh, one last thing."

"You have even more to say? Didn't you tell Naruto that this would be quick?"

"It's just one little thing… Unlike the two of you, I'm not really a ramen lover. That being said, we've gotta go get something else every once in a while, or I'll go totally insane."

"And the difference would be…?" Anko glared before leaving, but they were both glad to be back on good terms with each other.

---

/It's been hours… Why hasn't he gotten any better? Is it really that hard, or is he really that bad? No, he made S-rank techniques on his own, so he can't be that bad… This is so boring…/ "Naruto, why don't you take a break?"

"I don't have time for a break! I haven't done anything yet!"

"And you really think you're going to magically get better just because you don't take a break?" He didn't respond, but he didn't stop either. "Fine, don't take a break, see what I care…" After a few more minutes passed, it was obvious that he really wasn't going to take a break. She eventually decided that she had to talk to him to pass the time, lest she die of boredom. "So… how long have you wanted to be Hokage?" He glared up at her, not quite sure why she was bugging him.

"…Since I was six."

"Wow, that long? What made you want to be Hokage at that age?"

"I couldn't get any respect, so I spent a lot of time figuring out how to get people to notice me. People always looked up to the old man, so I decided to be the strongest ninja in the village so that they'd look up to me too!" It took him a few moments, but eventually he realized that he wasn't training. That problem was quickly corrected.

/Interesting… I wonder if he's really thought it out, though./ "Doesn't that seem like kind of a dead-end dream?"

"Eh?"

"Once you become Hokage, you really have nothing left to reach for. It probably won't be nearly as satisfying as you're expecting it to be, people won't respect you as much as you're expecting them to, and you won't get to do almost any field work. Managerial positions don't really fit people with personalities like yours anyway, and chances are that you'll be bad at the job. Totally pointless…" Much to her surprise, he actually looked angry. She really hadn't expected him to care about what other people thought of his dream, but he clearly did.

"You think I care if it's dead-end? It's better than doing nothing! If it isn't as satisfying as I'm expecting, I'll find something else to reach for once I'm there! If people don't respect me, I'll make them! I'll worry about the future when I get there! I have to take care of the present first!" Seeing him going back to his training with a renewed fervor, she smirked.

/He really is interesting, I have to hand it to him. Most people get discouraged when they hear that achieving their goals won't make them happy, but he seems to think that he can force his circumstances to be the way he wants them to be. Well… at least I got his mind off of that Uchiha kid for a while./

---

"We just saw him two days ago; do we really have to do this?"

"You heard Lee-san, didn't you? He's training with that crazy Anko lady! Of course we have to do this!"

"Yeah, but… ugh, never mind…" Kiba really didn't want to have an argument with Sakura over it, and he saw that Ino was considering joining the fray, so he just let it go.

"Lee-san, you're sure that's what he said, right?"

"Yes Sakura-san, I'm sure." Several of them shuddered at the thought, but they continued on towards Naruto's usual training location. When they approached the clearing and saw Lee's claims confirmed, several of them had the urge to rub their eyes in disbelief.

Looking up from the book that she had brought, Anko was annoyed to see ten teens walking into Naruto's training session. Recognizing them from the exams just added to her annoyance. "Oi, we're already using this spot! Go train somewhere else!" Naruto, suddenly realizing that he hadn't warned her about their constant interruptions, did his best to look like he hadn't noticed anything.

"What are you talking about, Anko-sensei? Didn't Naruto tell you we were coming?" Anko's glare suddenly found its way to Naruto, who immediately winced even though his back was to her.

"You knew they were going to be interrupting and you didn't bother to tell me?" Suddenly noticing that she was embracing him from behind with a kunai to his throat, he gulped audibly and dropped his balloon. "That was kind of rude, wasn't it?"

"I forgot…"

"Oh, is that all?" She released him and put her kunai back into its holster, but smiled and slowly licked her lips for dramatic effect. It was a nice feeling, having the intimidation factor back. "That's alright, I suppose. Well, it's lunchtime right now, so why don't we go get Mabui and head out for some dango?"

"Anko-sensei, you know Mabui?" Seeing that all ten of them were eyeing her curiously, Anko became very confused.

"Wait, all of you know Mabui?" /Is the library that popular now?/

"Yeah…" Ino looked around to see if there was anyone that didn't look confused, but Naruto was the only one. "But how do you know her, Anko-sensei?"

"Hmm… That's really none of your business. Come on Naruto, let's go!"

"Yoshi!"

After following Anko and Naruto to the library, they became even more confused by the fact that Mabui just smiled and greeted Anko warmly. It took a moment for Mabui to notice them, and they got the impression that she and Anko knew each other well.

"Hey everybody! We were just about to go get some lunch, do you wanna come?"

"Mabui…"

"Oh, have you guys met Anko?" The wary way that they were eying her was more than enough to answer her question. "She tries to act mean and creepy, but she's really pretty nice deep down. So, do you wanna come?"

"Uh… of course we'll come to lunch, Mabui…"

---

"What do you mean 'no!' Tsunade-shishou okayed this personally! You can't just say 'no!'"

"Tsunade-sama actually told you that you could drag Naruto away from his training?"

"Well… not in so many words, but--"

"Why don't you just tell me exactly what she said? That'll show whether or not you're overstepping your boundaries here." That left Sakura with very little to say, considering that Tsunade had never actually said that they could stop his training. She looked around at the others, most of who looked to be on her side, before deciding on a course of action.

"It doesn't matter what she said! What she meant is what counts!"

"You think so? Well, I suppose that's true…" Naruto suddenly looked very depressed, but everyone else was finally feeling confident. "Of course, Tsunade-sama is very good about wording things correctly, so she probably meant exactly what she said." Every expression except Anko's immediately changed. "Come on Naruto, you've got training to do."

"Yatta! You're so cool, Anko-chan!" She allowed herself a grin at that comment before the two of them went running off towards the training grounds. Completely clueless as to what to do, the group of ten didn't follow right away, opting instead to discuss the plan of action. Unfortunately, none of them had any ideas, so several minutes passed in silence.

"We're gonna do something, right?"

"Of course we are, Ino-pig! We'll just have to think of a way to convince him to take a break willingly…"

"You really think that can be done?"

"I hope so…"

"What happened to your original plan?"

"It backfired, Neji. Didn't you notice?"

"I noticed that you gave up on it prematurely, but other than that nothing really went wrong."

"What do you mean 'nothing went wrong?' We weren't able to build up his confidence enough that he thought he had earned a break, and we were constantly reminding him of the thing that made him want to train in the first place!"

"It seemed to me that that was due to poor execution, not a flawed plan."

"It's too late to use that plan, though…" Everyone looked over at Shikamaru, who let out a big sigh. "The idea was to make Naruto realize that he had come a long way in a short time by being amazed at his accomplishments, right? We've been paying attention to how well he's been doing for months now, so it won't be convincing if we suddenly start acting like he's the most amazing person of all time…"

"True, but I wasn't suggesting that we revert to it. I was merely curious as to why they gave up on it so quickly…"

"We're wasting time!"

"Are you saying that we're in a hurry, Ino?"

"Yeah!"

"Oh. In that case, I'll have to disagree with you. Based on the current circumstances, I would say that there is little or nothing left that we can do today. We'll have to use this time to come up with a proper--"

"No, there's gotta be something we can do today!"

"But Sakura-san, Anko-sensei is hardly the type to back down, and--"

"We can at least try again!" No one wanted to fight her on it after seeing that her eyes were watering, so they all nodded. "Come on!" They all followed her out of the restaurant and towards the training grounds, wondering exactly what she was planning to do. When they finally arrived, she marched right up to Anko looking very serious. "Naruto's coming with us." Anko, looking up from her book, found herself very annoyed.

"I don't see why you would think that, considering that he doesn't want to go with you. Now, if you don't mind, he's in the middle of some training, so--"

"We're not leaving without him."

"Oh?" /Tsunade-sama's apprentice… I could force them to leave, but Tsunade-sama did give them all the day off for a reason, whatever that might be. There's no way in hell I'm gonna let his training get slowed down, though./ "Suit yourselves, then. You'll just end up spending the whole day here, watching him train."

"Anko-chan! You can't let them stay!"

"Relax, none of them have the talent necessary to learn the rasengan, and even if they did they couldn't learn it just by watching you do one part of the training. They might annoy you a bit, but other than that there's no real reason to be upset."

"…Chikushou…" Although they didn't like Anko saying that they were lacking in talent, Naruto's friends settled in to watch him train. It was more to support Sakura than because they actually felt that being there was going to do something, but they were there all the same. Right when Naruto was about to pick up the water balloon again, Kiba realized that something was off.

"Wait, Naruto already knows the rasengan! Why's he doing training to learn something he already knows?"

"Because he never mastered it. Now shut up and let him train!" Not wanting to test Anko's temper, they all remained silent as Naruto picked up the balloon and resumed his training. After it became obvious that playing with the balloon was the training that he was doing, all of them except for Shino sweat-dropped. Several minutes passed by before anyone was willing to risk saying anything, and even then only Sakura felt it was worth it.

"Naruto, please… just take the day off and come hang out with us!"

"No way Sakura-chan! I have to get stronger so I can--"

"Naruto, how many times do I have to tell you? We'll save Sasuke together! You don't have to do everything, so don't push yourself so damn hard!"

"But… if we're doing it together, I still need to give my all! Even if I don't have to do all the work, I'm still going to do my share!"

Anko looked up, not wanting to waste her book while other things were around for entertainment, and was astounded to see that the balloon was acting slightly differently than usual. She realized, after a moment of analysis, that he was managing a second, slightly weaker ring of rotation, meaning that he had improved. Although she wasn't sure why, it seemed that having people tell him to stop training made his training more effective. That didn't mean she was okay with them telling him to stop, but it did mean that she didn't bother to tell them to shut up.

"Damn it Naruto! You're already doing more than your share!"

"It's impossible for me to do more than my share! Doing my share means doing my best!"

"But--"

"Sakura-chan!" She fell silent at the harsh tone, and Naruto went back to his training. Feeling her eyes watering, she quickly closed them and let her head fall, not wanting anyone (including herself) to realize how deeply affected she actually was by the way he was acting.

---

"Well, that was a bust. Not only did we fail, we wasted the whole day!"

"Shut up Kiba! Forehead feels bad enough!" Seeing that nearly everyone looked disappointed with the way that things had turned out, Shikamaru let out a big sigh.

"We should at least come up with a plan, now that we've shown that spur-of-the-moment tactics won't work."

"What kind of plan, Shikamaru? I think he has the advantage in terms of strategic thought…"

"That might be true, but it's still better than trying to improvise. Of course, if we're trying to catch someone like him off-guard, we'll really have to think this through. The first thing we need to consider is why we're doing this."

"Wait, you're just trying to convince us not to do it again!"

"No, I think we have at least one valid reason this time." He didn't appreciate the dropped jaws, but he decided to overlook them. "That reason is, of course, that his obsession seems to have gotten much more severe. If you had told me a month ago that Naruto was going to speak harshly to Sakura, I never would have believed you, but he did it today without hesitation, just because he believed she was hampering his training. Now that his obsession has grown to the point where it's affecting his personality, we have every right to be concerned."

"You're concerned? It must be worse than we thought…"

"It might be troublesome, but he's our friend. We can't just sit by and watch him lose himself for the sake of bringing Sasuke back to Konoha against his will." They all smiled and nodded at that, glad to know that Shikamaru actually cared one way or the other.

"So, what's next?"

"What do you mean 'what's next?' I said we need to consider why we're doing this first."

"Didn't you just explain that?"

"I explained my reason. Based on what all of you have said before, I would hope that there are other reasons that you all want to do this."

"Isn't one reason enough?"

"Not necessarily…" He let out another large sigh, but didn't bother to elaborate at all. Not wanting to question him, as he was far better at this sort of thing than any of them, they all tried to think of exactly what was actually motivating them. Tenten was the first to come up with an answer.

"Well, there was that bad feeling we were having about his training… Asuma-sensei said he had a bad feeling too, so--"

"That's no good, Tenten."

"What? Why not?"

"It's an unknown factor, so we can't use it as motivation to do something… For all we know, the bad feeling we were having was that we noticed small changes in Naruto's personality, meaning that this would map back to the first reason."

"Oh…" Ino looked unconvinced.

"But it seemed different today… Did anyone else feel like Anko-sensei was making it worse?" Seeing everyone nod, she frowned. "I wonder if that has to do with his secret that Asuma-sensei won't tell us about…"

"We'll get to that later, so don't worry about it yet. Are there any other reasons, or do we just have the one?" They resumed their thinking, but couldn't think of anything. "I was actually right? You were doing it for no reason? So troublesome…"

"Hey, don't start giving us that crap, Shikamaru! Just because a bad feeling isn't a good enough reason for you, that doesn't mean it's not a reason!"

"Fine, whatever… It doesn't really matter anyway, as we have a real reason now. The next step is to figure out exactly what it is that we hope to accomplish."

"What are you talking about? We already know what we want to do! That's why we're here!"

"I hate to say it Shikamaru, but Ino-pig's right. Our goal is to make Naruto slow down in his training. We all know that." Shikamaru pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing that he had smarter people to work with.

"There are at least two problems with that, Sakura. First: that's far too vague to actually be useful as a mission statement. He could cut one minute off of his Saturday training and we'd be done. We need something exact to work towards, so that we can measure our progress and know when we've achieved our goal. Second: that goal doesn't seem to fit our motivation very well. It's entirely possible for him to train less and still be obsessed, or to lose his obsession and train even more. Considering that he is a ninja, wanting him to train less seems… stupid."

"But…" Sakura didn't like the sound of that, but she couldn't figure out why. "Are you saying that our goal should have to do with getting rid of his obsession with bringing Sasuke back?"

"No."

"Then what are you saying?"

"I'm not really saying anything. We don't have enough information to form a goal just yet."

"What're you talking about? How can we not have enough information to know what we want to do?" Seeing that the others were thinking along the same lines as Ino, Shikamaru let out yet another deep sigh.

"We don't know what our goal is yet because we don't know what his secret is, or how it's affecting him. Given that it could involve Sasuke, or any number of other things that we probably can't even imagine, we'll need to know what it is before we continue."

"What! How're we supposed to find out what his secret is?"

"Sakura, there's really no reason to get so upset… There are plenty of people that know, so we'll just have to get the information out of them in whatever capacity we can. I'm sure that Tsunade-sama knows, Ino said that Asuma knows, Mabui seems to know, and I would think that Kurenai-sensei and Gai-sensei would know. Anko probably knows too, but I don't think we'll be getting any information out of her…"

"So you're saying that we need to get information out of some jounin and the Hokage…"

"It really shouldn't be too hard, as long as we're subtle. We'll need to pool our info together as soon as possible, but you can take care of that, can't you?"

"Me? Why would I be able to take care of it?"

"I just mean that you have to convince Tsunade-sama to give us all an extra day off next week, preferably mid-week so that we all have time to actually get the information."

"Oh… I guess that makes sense…"

---

"He convinced Anko to help him? Mitarashi Anko?" Sakura nodded, leaving Tsunade no choice but to let her eyes widen slightly. "I don't know how he keeps doing that, but I wish he'd teach me to do it too…"

"Doing what, Tsunade-shishou?"

"Finding the perfect person to help with whatever situation he's in, and then convincing them to actually help him." Sakura was clearly confused by that, but Tsunade really didn't feel like explaining. "She doesn't seem like the type to take on a student, either. I don't suppose you were there when she agreed to it?"

"No, I wasn't…" Tsunade looked disappointed, but Sakura had more important things to worry about. "Um, Tsunade-shishou, I was wondering…" /Crap, what do we know about his secret?/ "Um… Can you think of any reason that it might be dangerous to use shintenshin no jutsu on Naruto?" Seeing her teacher suddenly glaring at her, Sakura had a feeling that she wasn't as subtle as she thought she was.

"That's classified information, Sakura. It's really none of your business, and you would do well to drop it."

"Wait just a minute! Why can't I know? He's my teammate, so--"

"I wouldn't tell you even if you were marrying him, so being on his team won't even get you a hint. Seriously, let it go."

"But--"

"No. You don't need to know, so I'm not going to tell you. It would be illegal to tell you anyway, so quit asking."

"Kuso…" /There's gotta be a way to get it out of her… If we just knew a bit more about it, this would be way easier./ Her training for the day began in silence, and that silence continued on for nearly an hour before she thought of a new approach. "Tsunade-shishou? Do you know if Naruto has ever… killed anyone?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"Well, it's just that I remember someone saying that he killed their whole family once, so--"

"I told you to drop it, Sakura."

"Drop what?"

"It's obvious what you're doing, and it isn't going to work. If you keep pressing it, I'm going to get angry. Very angry." Sakura wasn't very happy with that, but she really didn't want to anger Tsunade any more.

---

"Chikushou!" He again formed the dragon and bird seals, and again got no results. "Chikushou! Chikushou! Why can't I figure out this technique?"

"Kaen?" Kaen turned around to see a man with bright blue hair, many scars, and a warm smile carrying a plate of food. "Your mother made a snack for you, so I thought I'd see how you're doing."

"Go away father, I'm busy."

"Too busy for your mother's tempura?" Seeing that he had at least gotten Kaen to look his way again, Aoshi smiled. "You'll have more energy if you eat it, you know. More energy means more strength, so--"

"And what would you know about strength? I'm having trouble with a technique right now, so the last thing I need is for you to be in here bothering me."

"Trouble with a technique?" Peering over Kaen's shoulder, he was surprised to see that he actually recognized the scroll. "You've moved on to A-rank jutsu already?"

"Yes. Now go away."

"I seem to remember that there was an intermediary technique between this one and one you already know… The scroll for it is right upstairs, if you--"

"Bring it to me."

"Sure thing! It might take me a while to find it though, so you should really go ahead and have some of that tempura while you wait." Kaen waited until his father was out of the room before trying some of the tempura, and even then he only took one shrimp. He really didn't want his father to have the satisfaction of thinking that he was being helpful. After a fifteen minute wait, Aoshi returned with a dusty scroll.

"Took you long enough."

"Yeah, well…" /He barely touched it…/ "Here's the scroll for that technique I was telling you about. It actually sounds pretty useful on its own, so it should be worth your time to learn it anyway." Snatching the scroll from his father's hand, Kaen gave it a quick once-over.

"Yes, this does look useful… Well, if that's all you're here for, I would appreciate it if you would leave now."

"Alright… I'll just leave the tempura here, in case you decide to have some more."

---

"Good job getting us all the day off again, Sakura."

"It wasn't easy… Did you guys at least find out what his secret is?" The frowns that she received answered her question, but Shikamaru decided to take charge of the conversation.

"None of us really expected to find out what the actual secret is, we just needed to get some clues. We'll just have to gather all of our information together and hope it shows what his secret is. Sakura, you go first."

"Yeah, sure…" Her gaze dropped to the ground, letting the others know that she probably didn't know anything significant. "Do you guys remember when that guy at the dango shop said that Naruto had killed almost all of his family?"

"You found out what he meant?" They all looked anxious to hear what she was going to say, but she didn't think it really answered any questions. "Come on Forehead! Spill it!"

"I didn't find out what he meant, but I did find out that it has to do with what makes using your shintenshin no jutsu on Naruto dangerous."

"So… it's dangerous because he's a mass murderer?"

"He's not a mass murderer! You know Naruto's not that kind of person!" They were all taken aback by her sudden defense of him, especially since Ino's tone had been extremely sarcastic, but none of them said anything about it. "All I know is that the two things are related… Well, that and that his secret is classified information."

"Classified?" Shikamaru looked interested, but she couldn't figure out why. "You're sure that she said the actual word 'classified?'"

"Yeah, why?"

"That's interesting, given what Asuma said…"

"Asuma-sensei told you something? What did he say?"

"Don't get so worked up Forehead, it wasn't really all that much. He basically just implied that a lot of people know the secret, whatever it is."

"A lot of people know it? How can it be a secret if a lot of people know it?"

"He wouldn't say…"

"Ino, you remember the way Naruto acted the first day of training with us, right?"

"Of course I do Chouji! Why?"

"Well, it's just… He really didn't seem surprised at all that Asuma knew, but he seemed to think he'd die if you found out."

"Oh yeah! That was really strange… Asuma said you weren't allowed to know either. What kind of secret could that be?"

"Ino, Chouji, shut up for a minute." Ino glared at Shikamaru, causing him to sigh. /Being in charge of something like this is too troublesome. Too bad Sakura isn't smart enough to handle it…/ "That's all we were able to get out of Asuma. What about Kurenai-sensei?" Seeing that Kiba was about to talk, he decided to save himself a headache. "Shino?"

"Kurenai-sensei denied having any knowledge of Naruto's past whatsoever. It was obvious that she knew something, but we were in no position to force information out of her."

"Oh… Tenten, did Gai-sensei know anything?"

"Yes, but he--"

"Tenten, don't tell lies! Gai-sensei told us that he knows nothing about Naruto's secret!"

"But Lee… he told us that without us even mentioning it directly…" A few of them sweat-dropped, but ultimately they all knew that it was to be expected. "So, Shikamaru, what now?"

"I have one more question before we can start trying to figure it out. Ino, what did he actually say when you tried to use shintenshin on him?"

"What did he say? Uh…" She had to think about it for a moment, but eventually she remembered. "He just asked if I can talk to people while in their minds… Why?"

"That's interesting…" /Why would that bother him?/ "Let's summarize what we know. Naruto has a secret that's known by a large number of people, including quite a few jounin and the Hokage. It's classified information, and he seems to care whether or not people know, but he wasn't at all surprised to find out that Asuma knew. Using shintenshin on him is dangerous, and the same event can apparently make him look like both a murderer and a hero. Whether or not people know seems to be an issue of either rank or age, but given that Mabui and that old man seemed to know I'm inclined to say age."

"So what do you think it is?" He gave Ino the single longest, most tired look he had ever given her.

"You're kidding, right? There could be any number of possibilities! It could have to do with his family, his birth, something he did as a kid that none of us remember… Whatever it is, we don't have enough information to narrow it down yet."

"What!" Sakura looked pissed, and they all knew why. "You're supposed to be the genius! Hurry up and figure it out so we can help him!"

"Sakura, calm down…" /So damn troublesome… Naruto, you'd better appreciate what I'm doing when all of this is over./ "We aren't completely out of options yet. While it's true that the jounin are too smart to give out information, we happen to know that Naruto is an idiot."

"Wait, you're saying that our best shot is to get Naruto to tell us himself?" As they thought about it, it really didn't seem like a bad idea. There was one problem though, and they all realized it fairly quickly. "Won't Anko-sensei keep him from telling us?" Shikamaru grinned at that question.

"That's why we wait until she's absorbed in the book we know she's going to bring."

---

/Damn this is creepy… How in the hell can she stand to do nothing but silently watch him for so long? It's been three hours!/ "Mabui, are you sure that I can't interest you in something to read? I understand that you came to watch him train, even if I'm not clear on the reason, but--"

"Anko seriously, I'm fine!" Although she couldn't help but think that Mabui was just proving her point for her, Anko decided to just let it go. Naruto clearly didn't mind, and Mabui didn't look bored, so she didn't think it was really any of her business if Mabui was idolizing the boy.

It was three hours after they got back from lunch that Anko began to notice that two things were most definitely out of the ordinary. The first was that, even after all those hours of Naruto doing the same kind of training, Mabui still seemed absorbed in watching him. She didn't talk, she didn't read, she didn't look around, and she was blinking a disturbingly small number of times. Anko had always assumed that, after being around him for a while, Mabui's Naruto obsession would wear off, but she had obviously been wrong.

The second, far more confusing issue was that, as far as she could tell, Mabui's mere presence was having a positive effect on his training. She wasn't sure whether it was because he was more confident, more comfortable, or more pressured to do well, but she didn't really care. His training was picking up speed, and that was all that mattered.

Unfortunately, even with Mabui there, his training was still going far too slowly for her tastes. By the end of the day he was barely able to maintain rotation in four different directions, and they had to be significantly different directions for him to keep it going for very long. Not only that, it looked like the balloon was swirling way too slowly to pop, and he was never able to keep the pace even.

---

Again seeing a random swell in the water balloon, Anko was beginning to get angry. It almost seemed that his control was getting worse as it was getting better, and she didn't know what could possibly be causing it. Only one idea was coming to mind, but she really didn't want that to be it. Of course, she didn't want to just ignore it if it was the problem, so she resigned herself to check. After carefully making sure that no one was nearby, she walked over to him and crouched down so that their eyes were level.

"Naruto, lift your shirt and mold some chakra."

"What! Why?"

"Just do it!"

"But what are you gonna--" Suddenly remembering the time when Jiraiya had helped him with the water walking training, his face lit up. "Oh, are you gonna hit the relaxation points?"

"The what?"

"When I was learning to water walk, Ero-sennin hit some points on my stomach to relax me, and it made my control way better… So you aren't gonna do that?"

"No, but I still might be able to make your control better. You'll need to lift your shirt, though…" He happily lifted his shirt and molded some chakra, not wanting to stop her from helping him, and she saw the seal for the first time. Upon analyzing the seal, she realized something very important: she had almost no knowledge of seals. Straining her memory somewhat, she managed to remember some very basic principles of fuuinjutsu. From what she could tell, Naruto's seal was set up to allow Kyuubi's chakra to leak out, which was exactly what she had been afraid of.

"Naruto, I have to go deal with something really quick. You just keep training, 'kay?"

"Where are you going?"

"I'm just going to look into helping you with your training. It shouldn't take too long." With that she took off towards the Hokage tower, leaving Naruto alone with his water balloons. There was a small problem when she entered Tsunade's office, however, and that problem's name was Sakura.

"Anko? What are you doing here?" She glanced at Sakura before answering.

"I need to ask you a question, Tsunade-sama."

"Ask away." Seeing Anko glancing at Sakura again, this time making it much more obvious, Tsunade felt a twinge of annoyance. "I'm sure that your question can be asked in front of my apprentice, Anko."

"Actually, Tsunade-sama, it can't. It has to do with Naruto's training, and I'm fairly sure that your apprentice isn't allowed to know about it." Tsunade's eyes widened slightly, and Anko nodded.

"So you really agreed to help him… Sakura, I'm going to have to ask you to leave for a moment."

"What! If it's about Naruto's training, I want to know what's wrong! You can't just--"

"Sakura! Just do what I told you to!" Although she didn't like it, she knew that Tsunade wasn't about to give in to her request, so she left the office and pressed her ear up against the closed door. The guards spotted her though, so she was forced to wait a good ten feet away. Back inside the office, Tsunade narrowed her eyes at Anko. "What happened?"

"Relax, Tsunade-sama, nothing happened. I'm just a little bit curious about the seal…"

"And you think I know about it?"

"No, that's not what I meant. I took a look at it myself, and it looks like it's set up so that the Kyuubi chakra can leak out at all times. My question was whether or not that could be causing his chakra control to be more difficult."

"Maybe… What prompted you to look at the seal?"

"He seems to have trouble with keeping his chakra flow consistent. Sometimes it's very strong, and sometimes it's barely there at all."

"That sounds like a problem… I may have a temporary solution though, if it's really an issue with the seal."

"A… solution?" Tsunade smirked, causing Anko to smirk as well. She suddenly understood exactly what the solution was.

---

"Oi, Naruto! I'm back!" Tenzou found it odd that Naruto didn't even look up, but Anko seemed unfazed. "I brought someone who should be able to help with your chakra control, but if you aren't even polite enough to introduce yourself I should probably just call the whole thing off." Naruto instantly looked up to see Anko standing next to Tenzou (or "Yamato," as Tsunade had told him to call himself), then dropped his balloon and ran over.

"No, don't do that!" He turned to Yamato, whose look betrayed surprise at the odd student-teacher relationship. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, the next Hokage!"

"Hi Naruto, I'm Yamato. It's nice to meet you."

"Yeah! Thanks for helping with my training!" Yamato smiled and nodded before turning to Anko.

"I suppose I should get set up as soon as possible?" Seeing Anko nod, he sat down a ways away from Naruto and prepared to keep Kyuubi's chakra under control.

"Anko-chan, how exactly is he going to help?"

"Hmm…" /Of course, even an idiot would eventually figure out that Kyuubi's chakra is less troublesome while Tenzou's around… Naruto probably won't, though./ "You don't really need to know that. It's enough to know that he'll be helping." Naruto wasn't really happy with that response, but he knew that he wasn't going to be getting anything else out of her, and he didn't really care all that much anyway.

Resuming his training, Naruto was surprised to find that his chakra was much more manageable, and that he was having no trouble in keeping the strength constant. There didn't seem to be any benefit in terms of the rotation issue, but the instantaneous improvement was enough for him to know that Yamato's help was going to be important.

After seeing that Naruto was already getting better, Anko grabbed her book and walked over to stand next to Yamato. "So that was the problem after all?"

"Yeah, the situation was pretty bad."

"How bad is 'pretty bad?'"

"I wasn't expecting anywhere near that amount of chakra to have been leaking out… Worst case scenario: the seal might be weakening."

"Weakening? How could the seal be weakening?"

"I don't know, but it looks like it is. It isn't enough to raise any major concerns yet, but I'll tell Tsunade-sama about it just in case."

"Are you going to have any trouble keeping it in check?"

"There shouldn't be any problems."

Naruto's training did become much more effective with Yamato's help, but Anko still didn't think it was going quite well enough. Considering the kind of people that Naruto was bound to end up fighting, his rate of growth was still next to nothing. She had an idea to give him some extra motivation, but decided to give him a couple more days first.

---

"So we're really just gonna come out and ask him?"

"We don't really have any other choice, Ino. If we dance around the issue for too long, Anko will start paying attention and intervene. Our best bet is to get it out of him quickly so that she can't stop him from telling us."

"But… even Naruto isn't stupid enough to tell us something that he doesn't want us to know!"

"We'll just have to hope that he is…"

They all became quiet when Naruto came into view, not wanting to be overheard. Upon coming closer to him, they realized one very important problem: there was another person besides Anko helping Naruto with his training. At least, they assumed he was helping, even though he was just sitting in the middle of a circle of odd wooden posts with his hand outstretched. It wasn't difficult for them to conclude that their plan was doomed, as this man was paying far more attention to Naruto than Anko was, and probably knew the secret as well.

"What, you guys again? You don't do this every week, do you?" Ignoring Anko, Shikamaru had an idea. He didn't think it likely to work, but it was better than nothing.

"Oi, Naruto, we need to talk to you alone for a second." He could see that Anko and Yamato were already suspicious, but he didn't think he had given anything away.

"No way Shikamaru! I'm in the middle of my training right now!"

"We're just asking for a moment of your time…"

"So talk to me here!"

"That really isn't a good idea, Naruto…" He glanced again at Anko and Yamato, which made them even more suspicious. The only reason that Naruto's friends would want to talk to him without Anko or Yamato there was that they were trying to get something out of him, and it was all too obvious that it was information about Kyuubi that they were after. Naruto didn't really know any other secrets, after all.

"If you guys have anything to say to Naruto, you can say it in front of us."

"Actually, Anko-sensei, this is somewhat personal, so--"

"Like I care… You're being too suspicious; there's no way I can leave you alone with him now."

"You can't just follow him around wherever he goes if he doesn't want you to!"

"Why not? You seem to do it quite often…" None of them could think of a valid response to that, even if they didn't like the sound of it, so they just stayed quiet.

It surprised them that Yamato didn't come to lunch, but he had plans of his own. Throughout the meal the only people that spoke were Mabui, Anko, and Naruto, which even Mabui found somewhat suspicious. She didn't mention anything though, and the ten teens quietly followed Naruto and Anko back to the place where Yamato was waiting. They came to a silent agreement on the way that they should just ask him, even if Yamato and Anko were there. Sakura, as the one that cared the most, was the one to speak up.

"Naruto, can I ask you something?" Although Naruto looked somewhat suspicious, his answer was in his normal cheerful tone.

"What is it, Sakura-chan?" At that point she realized that she wasn't really sure what to ask.

"Well…" /Okay, I need a question that will get him to tell me the secret without realizing that he's doing it…/ "Why did that guy at the dango shop think you killed his family?" Naruto suddenly froze, indicating that she had asked the wrong question. The look on his face told her that he knew exactly what she was trying to find out, even if he didn't know why. To them the anxious silence seemed to hang forever, but his reply actually came fairly quickly.

"That's… that's nothing, Sakura-chan! Don't worry about it…"

"Come on Naruto, just tell us! We're just trying to--"

"Oi, brats!" Anko was getting extremely annoyed with their constant attempts to bother him, and this was definitely crossing the line. "It's forbidden for him to tell you that, and even if it wasn't he would never let you know. Just shut up and let him get back to his training!"

"We don't care if it's forbidden, damn it! We need to know!" Anko turned her attention to Ino, hoping to quash the rebellious attitude right there and then, to see a very unwelcome sight: the seal for shintenshin no jutsu. It wasn't aimed at Naruto, but it was still a very bad sign. "Naruto, if you don't tell us right now I swear I'll just go in your head and find out for myself!"

"You idiot! Didn't anyone ever tell you not to use that technique on him? There's no telling what could happen!"

"Then just tell us, Anko-sensei!" Seeing no sign that an explanation was on its way, Ino aimed her seal at Naruto to show that she was serious. Anko, thinking it over, realized that Naruto was hardly the type to know that shintenshin no jutsu is a slow-moving technique, meaning that he was unlikely to even try to avoid it.

Then Ino did something that shocked everyone, including her: she actually used the technique. She wanted to know what the secret was so badly that she was actually willing to call the bluff. As it turned out, Anko was entirely correct about Naruto's knowledge of the technique, meaning that he just stood there with a horrified look on his face while Ino used it.

Luckily, for everyone, Anko managed to push Naruto out of the way in time, despite the fact that she had been more then ten feet away. Unluckily, Ino's technique hit her instead, and everyone attributed her body's slumping over to the fact that she had just body-slammed a 2,000 pound boy hard enough to actually move him several feet. When she realized that she was in Anko's body, Ino allowed herself a grin. She was in the perfect spot to hit Naruto with the technique, and he didn't even realize it!

Yamato, noting the grin, knew that something was off. While it was entirely within Anko's character to grin after causing Ino to miss, the grin had been distinctly non-Anko in nature. Anko's grins were usually much darker, which he knew could mean only one thing: Ino was in Anko's body. He quickly realized that she was within feet of Naruto, ran up behind her, and made sure that it was impossible for her hands to come together.

"What do you think you're doing? Let go!"

"Not until you release the technique." A few eyebrows rose, but they quickly lowered when their owners realized what he was implying.

"Kuso… How'd you know?"

"The grin gave you away; it wasn't sinister enough. Now hurry up and release the technique."

"How am I supposed to do that without a hand seal?"

"Oh, good point…" Ignoring everyone sweat-dropping, he turned her around so that it was impossible for her to aim the technique at Naruto before allowing her hands enough freedom to make the seal.

"Kai!" Anko's body again slumped forward, but Yamato didn't let go until both Anko and Ino regained consciousness. At that point he positioned himself between Ino and Naruto, and waited for Anko to join him. When she did join him they stood side-by-side, glaring at Ino in silence for a few moments, before Yamato began scolding her.

"That was by far the stupidest thing I've ever seen! Do you have a death wish or something? Anko warned you that it was dangerous, and I know you heard her. What were you thinking?"

"I--"

"I'll tell you what she was thinking." Anko couldn't resist joining in if it was going to make Ino feel worse. "She was thinking that, if it was that easy, there was no reason not to ruin her life. Taking Naruto down with her was a bonus, I'm sure."

"But--"

"Don't be so hard on her, Anko. I'm sure she didn't want to ruin her own life; no one's that stupid. Her goal was clearly to kill Naruto and/or any chance he ever had at being happy."

"What--"

"I don't know about that Yamato. These kids today…"

"Would you just--"

"Listen Ino, this is important." She found it creepy that Yamato actually remembered her name, even though he had just been briefly introduced to her along with the other nine in the group, but she quieted down all the same. "Using that jutsu on Naruto is an extremely dangerous, completely unpredictable prospect. In a worst case scenario, you could end up causing not only your own death, but the deaths of countless other people as well. There was also the possibility that both of you could have gone completely insane, or that you could have been trapped in his mind, or any number of other things that are just as bad. I can't imagine that your father never told you not to use the technique on Naruto, but even if he didn't you know now."

"Deaths…?"

"Yamato, you shouldn't have told her that… Now there's a chance that they'll figure it out, which would be very bad news for you." He just shrugged, confident that that hadn't been nearly enough information for them to figure it out. Anko turned her attention back to Ino with a sigh. "As for you… Regardless of the danger, you had no right to do that. Even if your technique is a spying technique, that doesn't mean that you can use it to get your hands on Konoha's classified information. Besides that, using it on a comrade is completely unethical. I don't really know in what capacity you and Naruto could be considered "friends," but I don't know why he puts up with someone that respects him as little as you do. If I were him I probably would have attacked you by now, just to get you to leave me alone."

"Anko, don't you think that's going a bit far?"

"No Yamato, I really don't. She's constantly trying to get him to stop training, despite the fact that he's a ninja, and now she's shown that she has little or no concern for his safety. That isn't exactly the type of person you want hanging around you, is it?"

"Well, no…"

Ino, feeling thoroughly bad about herself and what she had done, let her head fall. Although she earnestly hoped that neither of them ever had children, as they were both far too good at guilt trips, she knew what she had to do. "I'm sorry…"

"What was that?" Anko was having a little too much fun torturing her.

"I'm sorry, okay!"

"Who exactly are you apologizing to?" Ino moaned in frustration, causing Anko to form a wide grin.

"Naruto, I'm sorry that I tried to use shintenshin on you." It was practically mumbled, and it didn't sound sincere in the least, but Naruto couldn't help but grin at hearing her apologizing to him. As he thought about it, he wasn't entirely sure that anyone had ever apologized to him before.

"That's okay, Ino-chan… As long as you don't do it again, anyway." She nodded half-heartedly before nervously turning her attention back to Anko and Yamato. While she took Yamato's smile as a good sign, Anko's smile struck her as a very bad one.

"Well, now that that's over, let's get back to the training!"

"Yamato, I think you're forgetting the part where we make sure that she actually leaves."

"Why would we do that, Anko?"

"What do you mean 'why would we do that?' You saw what she did, didn't you? She's a security risk!"

"I don't think she's going to try it again any time soon, given the way she reacted when I told her what could happen. Besides, Tsunade-sama did give her the day off so that she could spend it with Naruto, so we're probably not allowed to force her to leave…"

"You're kidding, right? After something like that you don't think that we can force her to leave?"

He raised his hands defensively, "if you want to deal with Tsunade-sama's reaction, feel free to remove her yourself. All I'm saying is that Tsunade-sama must have had a reason for doing it, and Ino doesn't seem to be posing any further threat, so you might get in trouble if you don't let her stay…" Anko looked back and forth between Yamato and Ino a few times before deciding that it wasn't worth the probable backlash. She then turned to Ino and adopted the most murderous look of her life.

"Alright, you can stay, but try anything and you'll be dealing with me." Seeing the desired reaction on Ino's face, Anko calmly walked back over to her book and began reading again.

---

"Okay Ino-pig, what the hell was that?"

"I already said I was sorry! What do you want from me?"

"It'd be nice to know what you could have possibly been thinking, to start with."

"We need to know the secret, don't we? Shikamaru said that asking Naruto was our last chance, and he wasn't gonna tell us…" Sakura turned her glare to Shikamaru, who let out a big sigh.

"You know, I never said that that was our last option. Don't put words in my mouth…"

"Wait, you're saying there's more we can do?" Everyone was looking at Shikamaru curiously, which caused him to sigh again.

"I didn't say that…"

"So… you're saying that we should just go ahead without knowing the secret?" He shook his head, which made Ino even angrier. "Then what the hell are you saying?"

"That what you did was stupid and your reason for doing it was an unfounded assumption."

"Okay, I get it already! How many times do I have to say that I'm sorry?"

"I'd say that that about covers it…" Her head fell again, which made everyone else feel a little bit better. After a solid minute of silence, Tenten surprised everyone by speaking.

"Did anyone else feel like something was different from last time?"

"Well, yeah…" The fact that Kiba was the first to answer her surprised everyone even more, but he just wanted to hear himself talk. He had been silent most of the day, after all. "But there was an extra person there, so--"

"Even so, it felt less…" Neji searched for the right word, "ominous. Perhaps we were just imagining things…"

"No we weren't!" Everyone looked over at Ino, surprised that her embarrassment had subsided so quickly. "Don't forget that Asuma-sensei felt it too!"

"That's true…" All eyes quickly found their way to Shikamaru again, an all too common occurrence in his opinion.

"Fine, I'll ask Asuma about it the next time we play shougi…" /These guys are so troublesome… Can't they do anything by themselves?/

---

Coming into the clearing to start his training for the day, Naruto was discomforted by Anko's disturbing grin. The idea that she had gotten there before him was odd enough, as she usually showed up at least fifteen minutes after he did, but her grin was just too much. Yamato's look of curiosity only amplified Naruto's fears.

"Good morning, Naruto!"

"Er… Good morning, Anko-chan. You too, Yamato…" Yamato nodded, but didn't lose his curious look. Not wanting to ask what was going on, Naruto went to grab a water balloon, but was stopped by Anko.

"Actually Naruto, there's been a small change in plans."

"Eh?"

"Your training isn't going quite as well as I had hoped, so we're going to do something different!" Yamato looked even less sure about what was going on, which did nothing to make Naruto feel better. Anko's grin widened at the looks on their faces. "To help with your chakra control training, you and I are gonna have a little race!"

---

A/N: Sorry about the title, but I couldn't resist. Akamaru didn't even get mentioned in this chapter, now that I think about it, but I'm still leaving his mention in the title. I'm also sorry if Naruto's inspirational speech didn't come out all that well, but it was the best I could do. My life hasn't been nearly terrible enough for me to be the inspirational type…

I was listening to "The Hampsterdance Song" and "Safety Dance" a lot while writing this (which may be part of the reason that it took way longer than expected to write), but I hope that those songs didn't influence my writing at all… If they did, please let me know so that I can stop listening to them (or at least listen to them less).

You may be wondering why everyone (especially Tsunade) is so against the rookie nine and team Gai learning about Kyuubi, despite the fact that Kakashi talked about it to a ninja from Suna right in front of Sakura in the manga. There are a few reasons that I feel are valid, in addition to the obvious "I don't want them to know yet, but I want them to be thinking about it." The first reason is just that Kakashi is way more lax about that kind of thing than anyone else, so it stands to reason that he wouldn't mind letting Sakura and Chiyo know. Also, when you think about it, the idea behind the law was to keep people at Naruto's age-level from discriminating against him, and there's really no guarantee that their opinions of him wouldn't change after they find out. Then you have to consider that they could manipulate him with the knowledge, and that the Akatsuki scare was more recent at this point than in the Gaara retrieval arc of the manga…

Moving on, I'm glad that so many of you like this fic, even if there have (finally) been a few flames. While I'm on the subject of flames, please don't bother to flame, as I'll just ignore it. Getting back to the good reviews, I find it a little odd that some of you have said this is your favorite story (have you not read Never Cut Twice?), but I'm not complaining. Some of your comments can be really fun to read. My favorite comment so far was "Burn, Ankoku, BURN!" by LordVicious. Not enough people hated Ankoku…

Anyway, on to the Q&A!

Did Anko being related to Mabui surprise you? If not, I demand that you tell me what gave it away.

Does it bother you that the English spelling is "tempura" as much as it bothers me? Despite the fact that it's "tenpura (天麩羅)" in the original Japanese…

Is it completely obvious what Anko's idea is?

That's really all I've got to ask you for this chapter, and the second question isn't even really feedback… Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it! Please review!