Chapter 2

Fledgling Beasts

"Oi, Jiji!" Naruto barges into the Hokage's office with a bundle of plastic bags in hand. The Hokage barely manages to hide his book in time to avoid getting grilled by his adoptive grandson for being a pervert.

"N-Naruto! How's your training been? I-I hope you haven't had too much trouble!"

The orange-clad brat grins as he sets out ten bags with ten different fur samples on his table. "I actually caught more than that, but I pushed myself to catch ten different species."

Sarutobi pauses for a moment, but sets his pipe down and leans in to inspect them all. "… That's not bad at all. You've completed this step far sooner than I expected. Alright, now that you've learned to enclose and contain your targets…" He reaches into his desk and pulls out a scoll, opening it to unseal a series of kunai, shuriken, and senbon. "You need to kill your targets."

Naruto crosses his arms. "Eeeh… well, I killed and skinned a few of the ones I caught, but I guess ya mean I should make the traps kill them, huh?"

The kage nods. "Of course. But, you should put some subtle cues for ninja in the area to avoid them, so only animals fall prey to your designs."

Naruto snorts as he recalls how one of his traps was tripped. "Guessing Bushy Brow Sensei told you about Lee getting caught in one of them?"

"Oh, I heard." He groans. "That man's ranting is almost as obnoxious as the council's bickering. There's a damn good reason I insist he submit formally written reports of his missions rather than oral reports."

Naruto nods and chuckles nervously… but then starts to cackle mischievously.

"Naruto, I swear to Kami, if you pull any pranks involving recordings of his rants and those damnable green leotards, I'll put you in a pink one and tie you upside-down from the main gate."

That shuts him up rather quickly. "S… S-Soooo, deadly traps? Shouldn't be too hard… but…" He pauses and stares down at the scroll. "… Can you teach me that?"

Sarutobi pauses and stares down at the scroll himself. "To use sealing scrolls?"

He shakes his head. "Using them is kinda obvious. Just pulse some chakra, and poof." He gives Hiruzen a smaller, more confident smile. "No, I wanna make them."

Hiruzen's eyes widen as that hits him. For a moment, he can almost see the Yondaime's spirit imposed behind the boy, with a hand on his shoulder. Soon, he too smiles and leans forwards. "Sealing is a very complex art that very few have ever mastered. Just as few as trap masters. Are you sure you want to walk both paths?"

Naruto shrugs. "Well, who's to say I'll master it? I just wanna give it a shot and at least learn to make storage seals." He scratches his chin. "There's just… so much I could do with them as parts of my traps!"

"Naruto…" Hiruzen chuckles as he pulls a basic sealing guide and a small ink kit from his desk. "That may be the best damn idea you've had since the Orioke no Jutsu."

Once Naruto leaves, Hiruzen leans back in his seat and stares at the ceiling. "… You're planning to take him as an apprentice now, aren't you?"

"… Yeah." An old white-haired sage in a red vest fades into view behind him, leaning against the wall. He doesn't use it often, but his transparency jutsu comes in handy occasionally. "He's gonna make a name for himself quickly. He'll need my protection soon enough. I had hoped we'd be able to protect him through anonymity a while longer, but he's growing too fast."

Hiruzen turns his seat to face his old student. "I suppose so. But the question now is whether to tell him about your relation."

Jiraiya opens his mouth to answer, but chokes on the first sound and sighs, closing his eyes in shame. "No… I don't deserve that title. Maybe I'll tell him someday, but not now." He pushes himself up from the wall and steps towards the windows. "For now, I'll leave him to you and Kakashi. I need to leave again to look into my old teammate. Seems the snake's been digging around near Kusa. A snake in the grass, go figure…"

"Hm…" Hiruzen hunches over at his desk and weaves his fingers together to lean into. "Troublesome… See if you can find Kuma out there. He'll be hospitable and informative for certain. Be especially careful, though. That worm may be planning to set Iwa after us somehow. I'd much rather avoid having to deal with Onoki throwing a fit."

"I'm sure the fence sitter feels just the same about dealing with a certain old monkey throwing his shit." Jiraiya grins as he ducks a mug thrown at the back of his head, then turns transparent once more and leaps out the window.

That Monday morning, Naruto wanders into class with his newest book open and repeatedly tripping and stumbling in the halls. With his nose nearly buried into it, he barely even notices all the weird looks we receives from fellow students on the way into his classroom and up to his seat. He even manages to trip on two of the steps on the way up.

"Um…" Ino whispers over to Sakura. "What's up with Naruto? I've never seen him read this much. Hell, I don't think I've ever seen him read…"

"I don't know…" Sakura raises an eyebrow. "Is that a book on sealing? Why would he even be interested in that?"

Shikamaru just smirks at the back of the room and keeps his silence. They'll learn eventually. Sasuke doesn't even bother trying to consider whatever Naruto is up to for more than a few seconds. It's perplexing, but not worth his time.

Hinata of course is taking in every detail of the young blonde's expression as he passes. She's never seen him so focused or bold, and it's rather intimidating… but it still manages to make her heart skip a beat.

Iruka is just as attentive as Hinata, but obviously for very different reasons. He's known Naruto for years now, and slowly come to see him as a little brother. He knew Naruto was training to use his traps more effectively, but he never could have predicted him taking it so seriously. It's an entirely new and chilling side of Naruto that reminds him all too much of his childhood idol, Minato Namikaze. But the oddest thing is that Naruto has never expressed his brilliance or calm demeanor. But… then there was all the evidence that popped up last week.

Iruka clears his throat to gain the class's attention. "I regret to inform you all that Mizuki-sensei has been relieved from duty and will not be returning to us. There's also a few other staff members that have left with him, so things may be a little hectic around here for a while. Potential new teachers are being considered and should be arriving over the next month, along with a new curriculum we'll be experimenting with for the remainder of the year. Expect some significant changes, but don't worry too much about them. This is like a watered-down part of what it means to be a shinobi. We have to be able to adapt to whatever situation is presented to us, and-" He pauses and stares up at Naruto, who's still got his nose buried ten miles deep into his book. "Naruto, could you please put the book away?" All eyes fall upon the blonde as he continues to read. "… Naruto." Iruka's eye starts to twitch, and finally, he resorts to his infamous Big Head Jutsu. "DAMNIT NARUTO, CLOSE THE BOOK!"

Naruto nearly leaps from his seat. "S-S-Sorry Iruka-s-sensei! I was in the middle of a pretty big c-chapter…" He sighs and shakes himself out of shock before setting a bookmark at his page and setting the book away. "I'll have it put away in just a second." He pulls a scroll from his pocket and uses the ink and brush provided at his desk to start writing up a simple storage seal. Everyone present watches in fascination as he completes the seal and stores his book away in a puff of smoke. Iruka's mouth falls open as he steps up to take a closer look at it. "This seal… how did you get this good at making a storage seal so fast?"

"Wellll… My handwriting was already kinda perfect, so that helped. Remember when I spent a month practicing my signature for when I become Hokage?"

Silence falls throughout the room as the bizarre fusion of sense and absurdity in that statement sets in. It takes several moments for Iruka to manage to ask Naruto another question. "A-and, um… w-why are you so focused on this, then? You never pay this much attention in class…"

"Oh, uh…" Naruto chuckles and scratches at the back of his head. "Well, Hokage-jiji gave me that book so I could learn to mix seals into my traps. At first, I had a little difficulty understanding it, but there were some notes in there by the previous owner that really simplified things. Apparently, they wanted to write a better book on it, but I guess they never got the chance to. Seems they thought whoever wrote this one was, in their words, 'an obtuse dunderfuck'."

Iruka stammers incredulously before pulling the book from the scroll and opening it to take a look. Lo and behold, the book is full of notes in the margins and some sections that seem to just be covered in white-out and written over! Worst of all… he recognizes that handwriting. It was on many of his paychecks in his earliest days as a shinobi, over twelve years ago. He slowly closes the book and seals it away once more, handing the book back to his favorite student. "… Ok then…" He stumbles down the steps and back to his seat. "Well, class… how about, while the curriculum is being redesigned and our next steps are uncertain, we cover some more recent history?" He returns to his seat with a smile. "Today, we'll be discussing Namikaze Minato, our Yondaime Hokage."
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Later that afternoon, once Naruto had gotten out of class, he wanders towards the woods on the outskirts of the village once more to seek out his latest traps and whether he'd succeeded with any kills. On the way, he receives the usual slew of glares and mutterings of 'demon' and 'fox brat'. As usual, he does his best to ignore them and focus on his own goals. That's been getting a little easier to do, with so much to focus on lately, but it's also getting easier for him to reason as to why they call him such things.

Little did Iruka know, Naruto did pay attention in that lesson today, and a few things stood out to him right away. First of all was that Minato was a seal master of the highest caliber. That got him kind of excited about his new career path, considering how much more like his idol it would make him. Second was that the Kyuubi was killed and Minato died on his birthday. Of course, there's also the use of fox's as nature's tricksters, a myth he always felt he could relate to, and lived up to as well. Ever since the Kyuubi's attack, foxes have been hated here, and often hunted by drunks and vengeful veteran shinobi. Having seen the results a few times when hiding from some of those drunks himself, he just couldn't bring himself to harm the fox he caught last week. Speaking of which…

Naruto slows to a stop and sighs soon after passing through the tree line and out of sigh. Peeking back, he finds that very same fox tailing him and now tilting her head as she stares him down. "… You're playing a dangerous game by getting so close to town around me, Yoko." He turns and kneels, reaching out as the fox kit scrambles up to him, shaking and wagging like an overexcited puppy as she nuzzles up to his hand. "Settle down, girl… come on, gotta go check my work." He stands and waves for her to follow, which she gladly does, nipping at his heels as they go. "A-Ah! Come on, don't do that!" He chuckles softly. It doesn't really hurt, it's just a bit startling at first. She's too cute to yell at, anyway.

Eventually, Naruto stops by one of his kunai traps and sighs as he sees his target got away. The tripwire was triggered, but his firing mechanism wasn't quite strong or accurate enough. The kunai are scattered about in far too wide a range. Two of them seem to be missing though, and a trail of blood leads further north. He sighs and pushes himself back to his feet after inspecting the scene, waving for Yoko to follow as he tracks whatever he hit. According to the fur left behind, his best guess was a racoon.

Thirty yards north, as predicted, he finds the little trash panda lying dead against a tree. Unpredictably though, he finds Lee kneeling over it with Gai consoling him. "Um…" he chuckles nervously as the spandex-clad duo raises their eyes to meet him. "Sorry, Lee. I kinda moved up to testing lethal traps." He crosses his arms and inspects the body from afar. "… Really gotta work on the accuracy and firing speed, though. I wanted a quick, clean kill."

Gai looks between Naruto and the racoon for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Tragic as its death is, Lee, it's a necessary stage in Naruto's training, and I'm sure he'll make good use of this one. His death will not be in vain." He sighs and rubs his student's back before returning his gaze to Naruto. "As for a quicker kill, that's a good assessment. This body is still warm, but the blood trail is mostly dried. If this were an enemy shinobi, they would have had plenty of time to escape and recuperate. If they had a decently trained medic on hand, it would have been little more than an inconvenience. And that's if it even hit them."

Naruto nods and kneels down to collect the corpse, sealing it into one of the compartments of a scroll in his left pocket. "So, how's your training going, Lee?"

Lee lets off a few final sobs and blows his nose for a moment as he calms down. "… It's… s-slow, but working. I'm now able to run faster than Tenten can throw her kunai. Neji on the other hand seems to have much better reflexes still…" He growls and clenches his fists. "I need to catch up to him. I need to learn faster…"

"Well…" Naruto takes a seat and crosses his arms. "What are you doing between all your exercises and drills?"

"… Huh?" Lee tilts his head. "That's just to eat and sleep… and bathroom breaks."

Naruto blanches at that. ".. ok, for one, that kind of training schedule is inhuman. Second…" He sighs and shakes himself out of his daze. "If that's the case, then Neji already knows everything you're training to do."

Lee pauses as that sets in, but groans and covers his face. "Of course! How could I be so stupid?!"

Naruto shrugs. "I have no clue. Ask the Anbu that can't find me half the time. Iruka-sensei's better at finding me. Seems ninja have been forgetting what stealth means." He ignores the twitch in Gai's eye as his gaze falls towards the orange jumpsuit. "Anyway, if ya wanna get a leg up on Neji, you gotta train in something else, something really personal that he'll have a lot of trouble dealing with."

"That may be difficult…" Gai stands and paces, scratching the back of his head. "Lee's physically incapable of actively using chakra in anything more tha miniscule amounts for such things as wall walking, and even that took an incredible amount of time for him to learn, so anything that isn't taijutsu is out of the question."

"Huh…" Naruto reaches into his pockets and withdraws a scroll, then pulls a book on seals from that. "What about passive chakra absorbing seals? They're used to detain criminals, but also used as components of gravity seals for training pretty often. I think I might be able to modify them onto just about any seal, really. So if you can't control your chakra, but have a good amount of it, then you should be able to pull off seal-based tricks as long as we use absorbing seals with them."

Gai nods and pinches at his chiseled chin as options roll through his head. "That… just might work. But, I'll really need to brush up on seals. I've only used a handful of really simple ones over the years, and I struggled to get them down."

"But…" Lee stands and arches his back, the flames of youth pouring from his eyes. "I WILL NOT FAIL! I'll learn to make these seals myself if I have to!"

"YES LEE! Your flames of youth will never be extinguished!"

Naruto chuckles nervously and nods. "G-Good drive, but try to keep it quiet. You don't wanna tip everyone off your new moves. Best to have a few aces up your sleeve. Might wanna pick up a weapon with a good reach, too." As he speaks, the impatient fox that had been hiding behind a tree nearby leaps out and into his lap. "A-Ah, Yoko, s-settle down!"

Gai leans down to get a look at the fox. "You know this one? She seems wild to me."

"Um… yeah, kinda." He sighs and gently pets the fox in his lap to calm her down. "She was one of my first captures. I just couldn't bring myself to kill her. Ever since I showed her mercy that day, she's been sneaking around the outskirts of the woods, waiting for me to return every day."

"Hmmm…" Gai's eyes narrow as he stares down the fox. "Very smart for a wild one, but far too friendly to be malicious. I would suggest keeping her as a pet, but in Konoha…" He sighs deeply. "More likely to make both of you the town's biggest targets if anyone catches you."

Naruto nods sadly as he scratches under her chin. "Yeah… that, and she gets a bit noisy, and my apartment doesn't allow pets."

"… I think I know a solution, if you're willing to take a risk." Naruto peeks up to Gai and raises a brow. "You're pretty good at henge no jutsu, right? Well, if you can keep her still and get her to comply, you might be able to wrap the both of you up into one henge that looks just like you, and carry her into town. But not just anywhere. "Gai flashes his signature pearly grin. "To the Inuzuka clan! Ask to speak with Tsume, your classmate Kiba's mother. She's the clan head over there, and she may be willing to help you train her. If she can fight for herself, or better yet, outsmart and outrun most of those angry blowhards that'd want to hunt her, you should have no problems at all! That, and once you've graduated, she'll be registered as a living ninja tool and be legally safe."

Naruto's eyes widen as the potential of it all sets in. Soon after, he grins wildly down to Yoko, who raises her head to look him in the eyes. "Whadda ya think, girl? Do ya trust me to get you into town safely?"

She cannot reply, but the look in her eyes says it all. They almost glow, if not for his vantage point, Gai would have witnessed Naruto's eyes turning red for a moment.

"Alright then…" He stands and hefts her up into his arms, but rather than just carrying her, he tucks her into the front of his jacket and zips her in. "You just rest up there, and we'll be to the Inuzuka compound soon." With a quick handsign and a puff of smoke, the fox head sticking out of his collar and added mass in the front of his jacket are nowhere to be seen. He peeks back up to the grinning man towering over him. "Thanks for the tips! I'll let ya know how it goes, and I'll tell Tsume ya said hi!" He turns and bolts through the woods, headed back into town and towards the unmistakable Inuzuka compound. The barking makes it far too easy to track down, and he's snuck in to pull some of his best pranks often enough to have it memorized from all angles. For now, Yoko seems content to ride in his jacket, and not a peep is heard.

Hiruzen smiles down upon his adoptive grandson through his crystal ball, then peeks over to the files on his desk. Ten staff members at the academy, detained. Mizuki's mugshot sits atop the pile. "These are the moments I really love being Hokage." He turns his chair away and takes a puff from his pipe. "Do me proud, boy. Me, your father, and the entire village…"