Homecoming – 12 years later

Sasuke laced his fingers together and flattened out his hands, resting his head on the newly made surface. He blew out a bored sigh and rolled his eyes away from his book on the 'theory of your ninjutsu'. What the hell did he need to know the theory for anyway? It had no place on the battle field; as long as he could perform the Jutsu correctly he would be fine.

Sadly, he had his final exam in two days and the academy instructors felt that this knowledge would somehow help them through their future career.

His eyes followed a squirrel reaching for an acorn in the tree outside, for lack of anything better to do. His nightmares had woken him a few hours earlier than normal that morning and he had been unable to close his eyes again afterwards.

When he was younger, his bad dreams would cause him to wake sweating and screaming; tangled up in his sheets and unwilling to leave the safety of his bed. Now he was older he simply opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of his leased apartment until his heart stopped racing. He then wondered over to the Uchiha compound and beat out his anger on the training dummies that stood facing the river bed.

That was what he had been doing this morning from five o'clock.

At the end of his normal training routine, he had slowly made his way over to the academy to start the day properly; only realising the time when he had arrived to an empty classroom and a clock that proudly chimed 8:00.

The academy didn't start till nine…

He had spent half an hour reading up on theory he already knew off by heart and now he was stuck trying to think of something else to spend his time on.

His eyes drifted to the black board at the front of the class, still messed with diagrams from yesterday's lesson. His eyes returned to the squirrel; brows furrowing as something niggled at the forefront of his mind.

The creases in his forehead deepened as he looked back towards the board, and then disappeared as his eyes opened wide in shock.

There on the board was a very detailed drawing of the lower male anatomy, with labels such as 'gear stick' and 'stress balls'.

Sasuke looked around the classroom, searching for the idiot who thought such an image was in any way funny… but he drew a blank. There was no one else in the room with him and neither the door nor the windows were open. The picture definitely hadn't been there when he'd walked in and he hadn't heard anybody else enter.

He calmed himself down enough to realise how suspicious this would look to a teacher, what with him being the only student for miles around. He didn't want to clean up after somebody else but he also didn't want to be blamed for such a shameless act, so he swallowed his pointless pride and approached the board.

He could barely even look at the drawing, it was so embarrassing and he really didn't want to put his hand anywhere near something so vulgar (not without all of the doors and windows closed in the safety of his own flat). Nevertheless, he picked up the rubber and brushed it over the chalk.

Nothing happened.

He tried again applying slightly more pressure this time but again, he received the same result.

'What the hell?'

Was it not chalk? He leaned in closer to the drawing, trying to figure out what had been used to draw it by scrutinising the pattern the white strands left over the board. He reached his finger up to see if his could scratch it off with his nail.

'Maybe –'

With no warning, the door to his right slid open. His body froze; eyes flicking towards the newly created hole.

Iruka sensei stood in the frame with a stack of papers in his arms and a bemused look adorning his face. Sasuke's body went cold before flushing with warmth. He could feel the blood rushing to his face and he did his best to push back the blush threatening to cover his pale cheeks.

He dropped his hand to dispel the incriminating picture it presented, raised like that in front of the disgusting image that he did not draw.

"Sasuke? You're here early, have you been studying?"

Iruka's eyes flickered back and forth between Sasuke and the book he had left behind on his desk.

"Do you need some chalk? I know it often helps to remember things when you write them down, the board can also help with visualisation. We still have twenty minutes left before class if you want to use it."

Iruka gave him an encouraging smile as he walked into the room and headed past Sasuke, dropping his paper stack onto his and Mizuki's desk. Sasuke didn't answer for a minute, looking back to the board and the picture that Iruka seemed to be ignoring.

'Wha-?!'

The board was clean, with no hint of the drawing that had previously covered its surface. Sasuke's eyes flickered across the entirety of the black board, searching for a clue as to what had become of its state. Maybe… it had been a genjutsu?

But that was impossible! Sasuke hadn't sensed any illusion within the room.

As an Uchiha he had already been given a rudimentary course in detecting genjutsu of genin level, so this couldn't be a trick from one of his classmates; even if one of them knew how to cast such a thing.

He also had not noticed anyone come or go from the room whilst he had been in there, whoever did it was on a completely different level… mid-chunin at least.

He hissed quietly in frustration at the reminder that he still had a long way to go before he was on the level of his brother. Turning back to his seat, he finally answered Iruka; who was now seated in front of his stack and arranging the papers into different piles.

"I'm alright just reading sensei."

Naruto chuckled to himself as he waited with Jiraiya outside the Hokage's office, awaiting the signal from the secretary that it was ok to enter. Jiraiya looked at him curiously, but he knew enough about Naruto's reactions to new places to guess near enough what had happened.

Naruto, for his part, was too immersed in his recently acquired memories to notice Jiraiya's interest; he ran through his clones actions with glee. The look on that kids face when his teacher walked in had been priceless. After weaving the genjutsu, the clone had posed as an abandoned rubber, watching with glee as the boy in the room played along perfectly. The boy reminded him of someone but he couldn't for the life of him remember who…

Naruto was honestly shocked that – not only did the student not notice him – but the teacher also didn't seem to realise he was there. Was this the level of typical Konoha ninja?

Jiraiya had told him that he would be ahead of his classmates with regards to ninja activity and brain work (he was apparently inherently too smart for his own good) but he'd thought the difference would be a lot less obvious than that.

He had had plenty of previous experiences with other ninja of course, mostly Kiri ninja who didn't like him because his Dad had been frickin' awesome, or rogue ninja that Jiraiya got into bar fights with. Naruto lost count of the number of bars Jiraiya was banned from somewhere around the 15 mark.

Not that he let that stop him of course; he just went in disguise.

Naruto had always found genjutsu a hell of a lot harder than any ninjutsu he was tasked with learning. Jiraiya said it was because he had about as much control of his chakra as a bull had of its undercarriage during mating season, whatever that meant.

Naruto knew all about it of course (his god-father was the biggest perv) but he didn't understand the state of mind people had to be in to do … that. At that point his head got rubbed so hard he thought it would split and he was told he'd grow up one day.

Such love.

At any rate, it had taken him an awful lot of control exercises to be able to weave the most complex, chakra draining illusion Jiraiya had in his vast arsenal. If he wanted to go any finer than that, he had to wear himself out pretty thoroughly. Luckily, he had been travelling and training for the whole day so he was in the perfect state for it.

He was pulled out of his thoughts as Jiraiya grabbed the top of his pony tail and dragged him through the door he hadn't even noticed being opened.

"ITAI! Get off you old perv!"

Naruto took a swipe at the ribs exposed by the elevated arm, jabbing his extended knuckle into the gap between the two most protruding bones.

Jiraiya instinctively let go of Naruto's hair, then rewarded him with a whack to his cranium; which he ducked. Before they could get any further into their impromptu spar, an intruding cough came from in front.

They both straightened up and faced the aged Hokage, sitting at a – rather empty looking – desk and covering an amused smile with an annoyed frown.

Naruto's face immediately lit up in childish joy, and he flung himself across the desk and into the old man's waiting arms.

"Jiji!"

He hugged the man for all he was worth; making up for the 2 years it had been since he had last entered Konoha. When he'd had his fill, he carefully pushed himself off the old man and climbed back over the desk, returning to stand back at Jiraiya's side as the Hokage straightened his clothes and re-composed himself.

"It's good to see you again Naruto," Hiruzen smiled warmly at his successor's hyperactive child. Over the years, it had become obvious that Naruto had inherited his mother's brash personality and cheerful exterior. To his surprise – and delight – Naruto had also shown himself to be a budding genius, just like his father.

He looked like Minato also; practically a spitting image. His eyes were a shimmering blue, though where Minato's were the lighter colour of the morning sky, Naruto's were a darker colour; as deep as the ocean surrounding their continent.

The front of Naruto's hair stuck up on the crown of his head, the rest fell down his back in layers, tied with a simple red band. The style was eerily alike to that of Jiraiya's and he could only hope that his student hadn't been teaching the blonde to use it in a similar way (those techniques were creepy).

He had three lines running down each side of his face, akin to whisker marks. Hiruzen was unsure where they had come from, whether they were due to the Kyuubi or whether they were birthmarks still remained to be seen. He honestly doubted they would ever find out either way.

He was still dressed in his ninja gear at the moment. He wore loose black trousers that were littered with pockets and held up with a brown belt that sat lopsided on his hips on his lower half. His torso was covered with a tight mesh top underneath an open half Kimono.

The Kimono was a shimmering blue, matching his eyes perfectly; it was lined with a silver trim. His belt held a sheath encasing a Tanto that Hiruzen knew hadn't been there last time.

'I wonder when he picked that up'

"What am I, chopped liver?"

His gaze switched to his student who was standing with his arms crossed and faking a hurt expression.

"Jiraiya? I didn't see you there! When did you get back?"

Jiraiya rolled his eyes and replied:

"You must be going blind in your old age sensei, why hasn't some punk come along and beat that hat off your head already."

"Ah, I'm afraid he's not quite old enough for it yet… are you Naruto?

He directed his question towards the young blonde, who's face lit up with a feral smile.

"Better hold onto it tight Jiji, I'll be there soon!"

Hiruzen chuckled lightly, waving his hand to settle the conversation down again.

"Yes well, until then you had best keep training. You need to pass the academy first."

Naruto grimaced at the reminder, turning his mind back to his clones antics and the lack of skill he had witnessed there.

"Do I have to? Couldn't you just take Jiraiya's word for it and promote me now?"

Hiruzen saw Jiraiya's eye brow raise at Naruto's comment. They both knew that Naruto had been looking forward to meeting the kids in the academy and passing with them, he wondered what had changed since then…

"It's the law kid," Jiraiya said, bringing his hand down to ruffle his spiky blond locks, "they gotta make sure you're well rounded enough to become a genin."

"You'll still train me when I'm a genin right? You're not just going to go straight off again?" Naruto had a strange expression on his face, almost as though he were fighting not to let his emotions show.

"I still gotta keep track of the network kid, but I'll be around for a few weeks still and I won't stay away as long as we normally do. Anyway, you'll be busy with your new team so you won't have much time to miss me."

Jiraiya finished with a superior look on his face his chest swelling up with self – import.

"Che, who would miss you?" Naruto was quick to bust him back down, but both men could see the little quirk at the corner of his mouth that showed he was happy.

"Any way," Hiruzen interrupted the brief silence that had fallen between them. "The Academy starts in 10 minutes".

He rummaged about in one of his desk drawers until he found the right scroll.

"Give this to one of your teachers – Iruka would probably be best. And behave for them please? You're only going to be there for three days."

"Hey!" Naruto held his arms up in a gesture of surrender. "I'm far too busy to prank anyone these days."

He grinned in such a way that took Hiruzen's breath away, as any differences between the boy before him and the fourth Hokage became practically non-existent.

He pinched the offered scroll with a wink and twirled around; waving as he disappeared out of the door.

Jiraiya slumped down into a chair when they were left alone his smile instantly dissolving into his 'business' expression.

"I want to know about that message you left in your last scroll, Jiraiya. What exactly did you mean by that?"

AU: Sorry for the long wait, exams are over now though so hopefully it shouldn't be so long again. I wouldn't hold your breath though, having three stories on the go at the same time is a lot to manage, and I am most invested in my other story 'When the full moon cometh'.

So I do apologise if this I don't update as often as I would like.

Anyway, Naruto's back in Konoha and has lost all enthusiasm for the academy. What on earth could happen next?

Please review, I would love to hear your thoughts on the story so far.