"Sasuke! Sasuke! Sasuke! Guess what," shouted the hyperactive blond ecstatically as he rushed into the Clan Head's house at the Uchiha compound.
"What is it, Loser? And weren't we supposed to meet tomorrow like usual? It's almost midnight," complained the Uchiha clan heir as he walked out of his bedroom, still groggy after being woken up mid-slumber.
"We get to learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu," stated Naruto, still as excited as he was when he first found out almost three hours previous, despite the small lull in his attitude due to the disconcerting news he received regarding why the villagers hated him.
"Wait, seriously," asked a skeptical Sasuke, though he did noticeably get more excited. At his question, Naruto just nodded repeatedly. This quickly got the Uchiha's attention and soon, he too was thrilled at the knowledge of being able to learn the highly coveted, to them at least, jutsu.
"How did you get the Hokage to change his mind," asked Sasuke once he was calm enough to speak, though he was still quite excited at the prospect of learning such a technique.
At this question though, Naruto had a slight disheartened look flicker across his face before his previous exuberant expression returned to his face. Despite how quickly these changes were, though, the blonde's best friend was able to witness them as if they were in slow motion. If this was because he was so well trained or if he was just that close to Naruto, however, was still up for debate.
"I'm just that awesome," stated Naruto with all the enthusiasm he could muster, hoping beyond hope that the Uchiha hadn't caught the downcast look he was just sure had crossed his features,
"Yeah right, Loser. Now tell me the truth. And while you're at it, tell me why you looked so sad about the question," demanded Sasuke.
'Dammit, he did see it,' thought the blonde. He figured he might as well tell his best friend the truth, if he asked the correct questions, that is. "Well I just happen to have a bunch more chakra than a normal Genin. So, like I said, I am that awesome. Anyways, I convinced the Old Man to teach it to both of us. Well more like I got you an audition to learn it. If you can show you can hold the strain of the jutsu, then you can learn it," explained Naruto. He really hoped Sasuke's joy over the fact he convinced the Hokage to teach him the Shadow Clone Jutsu would shove any thoughts of the blonde's momentary foul mood.
"You did that for me," asked Sasuke, shocked that his friend would have done that.
"Of course, you Bastard. It'd be pointless for me to learn and use it if you weren't right there with me along the way, so you'd better pass the Old Man's test," stated Naruto like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and to him, it probably was. At this statement, Sasuke couldn't help the small smile of gratitude that brought itself to his lips.
"Hn, of course I'm going to pass it. I can't let you get ahead of me in our training," scoffed Sasuke before his face twisted into a look of contemplation. "But you didn't answer my question of why you looked so down."
"Oh that? Heh heh," chuckled Naruto nervously. "Well you know how I said I have a bunch of chakra?" At his question, the Raven-haired boy nodded. At this, Naruto continued, "Well telling me I could learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu was only one part of the meeting. Another part was telling me why the village hated me." At this revelation, Sasuke's interest was officially piqued.
"Well," prodded Sasuke when the blonde was continuing. "Why and how do those things correlate? What did he tell you?"
"Well first he went into a retelling of the story of the Nine-Tailed Fox's attack. Then he told me it was a lie. Partially at least. The Nine-Tails couldn't be killed, only sealed. So, the Fourth Hokage sealed it in me, at the cost of his life." Once Naruto was finished his tale, he was prepared for anger, as multiple Uchiha clansmen were killed that night, fear, for Sasuke might see him as the beast within him, hatred, since he had spent the last four years with a monster. The last thing he expected was a hand to grasp his shoulder. When he saw his best friend's hand raise, he flinched back, shutting his eyes as tight as possible, expecting a blow to impact his body. When he opened his eyes to feeling of a hand on his shoulder, he stared straight back into Sasuke's eyes, seeing the understanding on his face. Understanding of the fact that he wasn't the fox and understanding of the pain the blonde had gone through. After a brief moment between the two Genin, Sasuke spoke two words, "It's okay," squeezed his friend's shoulder one last time, then drew back his hand back.
Despite the shortness of Sasuke's response, Naruto couldn't be happier about his friend's acceptance of him. He didn't know how he would be able to handle any of this if he didn't have the Uchiha there to help him through everything.
After a good minute or so of silence, it got quite awkward, so Naruto said the first thing that popped into his head: "I have a family," Naruto blurted out.
"What," asked Sasuke.
"The Old Man said it wasn't only one reason I have so much chakra," stated the blonde once he realized what he said, putting significant emphasis on 'it' to make sure Sasuke understood what he meant. "The other reason is that my mother's clan has naturally large chakra reserves. Sadly, he wouldn't tell me the name of the clan. And since I don't know if my last name comes from my father or mother, I can't know if Uzumaki is his or her clan, or if Uzumaki is even from them."
After Naruto had explained what he meant when he said he had a family, Sasuke couldn't help but feel happy for his best friend, he knew just how much he wanted a family. So to finally find out he didn't just have a family, but an entire clan, it must have been a dream come true. Despite him feeling happy for the blonde, he didn't show it. He just smirked and sent his friend a challenge, "Hn, now we both have an advantage. I have my Sharingan, and you have your large reserves." At this, Naruto couldn't help but grow a bigger, though just as challenging, smile.
"Mine will of course win. What use is the Sharingan without the chakra to back it up," declared Naruto, pointing out a small flaw with the Sharingan.
"Well what point is large reserves if you get beat by my Sharingan before you get to even use them," asked Sasuke rhetorically. Forgoing the use of words, the two just decided to glare at each other, though, as usual, there was no malice involved.
~~The Next Day~~
The morning came quickly enough for the two Genin. It was so late, that Sasuke insisted Naruto just sleep over for the night. Luckily for them, Naruto still had his ninja gear with him as everything that had happened the previous day had occurred in such quick succession that the blonde never got the chance to make a stop at his apartment. After they each had a quick shower and a small breakfast, the two 12-year-olds made their way to Training Ground 7, despite knowing Kakashi would not be there for two more hours. However, they figured that, just in case the Hokage had decided to come at the beginning of their training, they should get there on time.
"Do you think we made the right call, coming here so early," asked the blonde.
"I don't know. I guess time will tell," stated Sasuke.
"Maybe we should spar a bit while we wait," Naruto wondered aloud.
"I guess we have nothing better to do. Sure, let's do it," agreed Sasuke. "Sharingan or no?"
"I guess I'll allow it this time. We don't want you getting rusty with it, now do we," joked Naruto.
"Hn."
With those final words, they both stood up, Naruto obviously more energetic, as he actually jumped up, coming off the ground a foot or so. Sasuke displayed his excitement in his own, moe subtle way, which was the smirk on his face. It had been far too long since he had use his Kekkai Genkai.
Soon enough, they had both gotten ready about ten feet apart. For close to a minute, the two just stared at each other, faces showing their excitement to spar against each other, as they were the only ones that could push the other to fight their hardest, to improve just to try and beat the other. As they were staring, the wind blew, first obvious by the billowing of Naruto's cloak. The wind carried leaves of the tree they were just at between them.
In the split-second that passed when a leaf obscured their eyes from each other, Sasuke had activated his Sharingan and they had simultaneously launched each other at their sparring partner, increasing their speed with the training they had received the previous day. Sasuke made the first movement, as he had better control of his chakra, therefore he could supplement his speed better than Naruto could. His first move turned out to be a feint, turning a left hook into a counter-clockwise leg sweep that Naruto easily jumped over.
In retaliation, the blonde used his momentum from falling to try and land a haymaker to the side of the Uchiha's face. Despite his advantage with his Sharingan, Sasuke could only throw his hands up in a cross guard. The blow stung his forearms, but the black-haired boy paid it no mind, hastily grasped the Uzumaki's own forearm with one hand and pulled him into his fist, making solid contact with Naruto's stomach, forcing a cough of spittle out of him.
Overcoming the pain, Naruto used his hand that was in Sasuke's grasp to grab his rival's arm and ram his fist into the other's faces. Due to how close they were, the Sharingan did little to warn Sasuke of the incoming blow. With the force of the punch, the grips were broken, and Sasuke was sent back through the air, though he quickly righted himself midair, landing in a crouch. After sliding back a few inches, Sasuke launched himself at his rapidly approaching opponent once more.
When the distance had been halved, Sasuke had leaped into the air, spinning into and axe kick that Naruto sidestepped. Before his rival had the time to stand up, Naruto attempted a roundhouse kick to the side of Sasuke's head, but the target quickly rolled out of the way. The blonde hurriedly pressed his advantage, trying to get a few jabs in as the Uchiha rose from his roll. This time, the Sharingan showed him where Naruto was punching at, and easily maneuvered himself between the punches. After the quick series of jabs sent his way, Sasuke retried his first move. The feint failed once again, but this time, Naruto leapt away, throwing some shuriken to occupy Sasuke while he got the rest of his plan together.
As he rose, the clan heir quickly deflected the shuriken away with a kunai he had drawn from his holster. This gave Naruto enough time to attach an explosion tag to a couple of his kunai. When he threw these, Sasuke, easily seeing the tags with his Sharingan matched his opponent's move with the single knife in his hand. Using the shuriken skills he was taught since a young age, he used his own kunai to knock one of Naruto's into his other, scattering all three across the field.
Fighting the urge to mock the weak attempt to catch him by surprise and subsequent duds, as Sasuke knew it would only serve as a distraction to himself, the Uchiha ran at the Uzumaki. Leaping into a flying kick, Naruto wasn't surprised when his sparring partner took a step to the side, trying to grab his proffered leg. Before his appendage could be seized, the blonde spun midair into a roundhouse kick that the Sharingan weilder couldn't dodge due to his trying to grab the original leg. With the connection of the kick, Sasuke was launched back, landing on his side and tumbling across the ground a bit, though he then rose to one knee. With his breath knocked out of him, the Uchiha didn't notice the spike of chakra originating from his companion, or even the sizzling behind him courtesy of the 'dud' explosion tag until it was too late.
Naruto knew that Sasuke would see the tags, so he purposefully didn't try to detonate them when he originally threw them, instead having Sasuke scatter his two perfectly functional tags. The next step in his plan was to get his rival close enough to a tag to be effective, while simultaneously distracting him long enough for the tag to explode. He figured the only way to do that was disorient Sasuke, but that was harder said than done when said Uchiha had the Sharingan. That's when he got the idea for the kick that feinted into a kick. Naruto aimed his kick at the stomach so he could hit his opponent's diaphragm, knocking the breath out of him. Then it was only a matter of sending a pulse of chakra to the tag, then 'kaboom'. Naruto really liked making things go 'kaboom'.
While the tag was blowing up, Naruto raced towards Sasuke, getting a kunai ready. Once the Uchiha had finished rolling, sporting a few minor burns, Naruto was there with his kunai to his throat. Once Sasuke could feel the steel pressing into his neck, he could only groan at losing, and probably the pain.
"Looks like I win again. How many is that, five in a row," asked Naruto, clearly trying to rub it into his friend's face.
"No," declared Sasuke in indignation before turning his head and begrudgingly forcing out "four in a row."
"That just goes to show I'm better than you, Bastard." Stated Naruto
"I would have won this if we used jutsu, but I had to save it for the Hokage's test," argued Sasuke.
"Maybe, maybe not. I guess we'll find out next time we go all out. Which will of course include the taking off of our weights," planned the Uzumaki.
"Oh yeah, I forgot we had them on, though that probably explains why your kicks were so powerful. Guess that means it's time to increase the amount again," observed the ravenette.
"I guess so. Well, I guess we'll have to do that after training today. Speaking of which, what time do you think it is," asked the blonde.
Right as Sasuke was going to respond, a certain kunoichi appeared and answered for him, "It just turned 7 o'clock, idiot."
"Oh great, she's here," Naruto cheered sarcastically.
"Hey Sasuke, wanna go on a date after training," asked a hopeful Sakura.
"No." As usual, that hope didn't last long. Once that hope was gone, it was quickly replaced by despair. Then, the despair was replaced by hatred. Particularly for one blond shinobi.
"It's all your fault, you idiot," shouted an irate Sakura. She would have swung at him, though she quickly learned at the academy that abuse is one thing Naruto didn't tolerate from her.
'Damn it all. This is going to be the longest two hours ever,' thought Naruto and Sasuke simultaneously.
~~Two Hours Later~~
"Yo."
"Kakashi-sensei, you're late again," shouted Sakura.
"Sorry, sorry. It's just that I saw a dog being chased by a cat, and since I'm a dog person, I had to save it, but then I found out they were married and having a fight, so I felt it was my duty to counsel the two into working it out," explained Kakashi, still reading his book. Due to how complex and thought out his excuse was, none of the Genin could actually bring themselves to yell at their constantly late sensei. Instead, they stared at him blankly, slightly amazed by how ridiculous it was.
"I think you overdid it a bit with how inane your excuse was. I hope all of them aren't that way, Kakashi," spoke Hiruzen Sarutobi as he approached the group. With the Third Hokage's appearance, all three soon-to-be murderers broke out of their stupor. Three of the four people there bowed towards their leader, saying a quick "Lord Hokage," before straightening up. Then there was the fourth person in the Hokage's presence.
"What's up, Old Man? You here to finally give me that hat or just test the Bastard over there," Naruto questioned.
"Don't be like that, idiot. Show Lord Hokage some respect," berated Sakura.
"It is quite alright, my dear," Hiruzen waved off. "I am to administer Sasuke's test. I hope those burns on him aren't from him practicing his Great Fireball Jutsu."
"Ah, those? Nah, I gave him those in our spar earlier," declared the blonde.
"Hn. Naruto is correct, Lord Hokage. I can do the Great Fireball Jutsu with no difficulty," stated Sasuke respectfully, even going as far as to not call Naruto 'Loser' as he usually did.
"Very well, Sasuke. Would you mind demonstrating the jutsu for me," requested the Third Fire Shadow.
"I do not mind at all, Lord Hokage." With his response to the Third's request given, Sasuke faced away from the group. He then sped through the required hand seals as fast as he could without messing them up, ending on the Tiger seal, shouted "Fire Style:Great Fireball Jutsu and then launched a large fireball roughly fifteen feet in diameter towards the open clearing.
"Very good, Sasuke. And how many times would you say you can create one of that size," asked the Hokage.
"I'd say five times of that size before I feel incapable of creating any more, Lord Hokage, though more if I decrease the size. I can also use Phoenix Sage Fire Jutsu multiple times, though the amount varies on how many fireballs I create each time," explained the Uchiha.
"Impressive," stated the elderly ninja. And this wasn't just hollow praise. Very few Genin could use elemental ninjutsu at his age, let alone be able to make so many Great Fireball Jutsus that large.
"Um, Lord Hokage? Why exactly are you testing Sasuke," asked a hesitant Sakura, a bit nervous being in her leader's vicinity for so long. Only her insatiable curiosity gave her enough courage to ask the powerful man this question.
"I was asked here by Naruto to determine if Sasuke should be allowed to learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu," explained Hiruzen.
"Well Old Man, can he learn it," asked Naruto excitedly, positive his best friend would be given permission to learn it.
"While I admit he does have the chakra capacity to safely create two or three, I'm afraid I must defer the decision to his sensei, Kakashi," declared the Leaf Village's leader. At this, all eyes turned to Kakashi.
"Can he sensei? Can he? Can he? Can he? Please," begged Naruto.
"You seem quite adamant about someone else learning this jutsu, Naruto. Why is that," asked Kakashi.
"I've known Sasuke for four years. He's my best friend in the whole world, and he accepts me for me, all of me," stated the blonde, looking both older ninja in the eyes, making sure they understood that he had told the Uchiha about his burden. "And if anyone deserves this jutsu, it's him. Sure, he's a prodigy and learns things at an impressive rate, but that's not always enough. A prodigious mind can only get one so far. As I'm sure this jutsu can only get you so far. But I'm sure, with both of these things, Sasuke could accomplish great things for this village. I wouldn't be surprised if, after he gets his revenge on the bastard that hurt him like he did, Sasuke could become Hokage if he so wished. That's still my goal, but Sasuke probably has a better chance of doing it than I do, since he's a prodigy. So yes, a good portion of why I want him to learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu is so he can get stronger, which, in turn, would push me to be stronger, but I also want him to learn it for our home."
Looks like I finished another chapter, woohoo for me. It's even more surprising since it's so soon after the last one. And this one is even longer than the last one by a couple hundred words. I'm pretty sure both of these chapters have been longer than any academic paper I've ever written. Though that probably says more about how much effort I put into my schoolwork than it does about the effort I put into this. Speaking of school, I have to wake up for class in about 3 and a half hours and I have yet to sleep, so I don't feel like reading through this for mistakes, so sorry about all the mistakes I undoubtedly made, it's only for this chapter. Anyway, I hope I didn't screw up the fight scene too bad. I don't usually do fight scenes, which will definitely change with this story as it's mainly an action story. I actually had to rewrite this last rant from Naruto because it was more about getting revenge than about why he should learn the jutsu. Anyways, this is too long, so I'll be cutting it off after this. Just please R&R, it helps me get motivated to write. Well, until next time, which won't be too long as I've already started on the next chapter.