Disclaimer: Still don't own Naruto. Still wish I did.

Sorry about the delay guys. but life. On the plus side, I now have medication for my recently diagnosed ADD so expect faster, longer updates. (This 4 am update has been brought to you by Adderall).

Like always read and review cuz those reviews help me a lot. Please don't think I won't pay attention to your review because I do. Every Good job gives me more motivation to write faster, and every time you guys question some part of the plot, I make sure I question it myself and make sure that I haven't fucked up and then respond to you guys. I write for you guys. I won't change my plot just because someone asked, but I will always try to make sure that my quality is up to the reader's expectations.

Post Edit: HOLY SHIT. MY FOLLOWERS JUST HIT 100 AS I WAS ABOUT TO POST THIS. THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU WHO DEEM THIS STORY WORTH HAVING ON YOUR ALERT LIST!

Enjoy

Sasuke smirked as he watched the water clones fail following his blitz. He'd been miffed that Naruto had been the one who was the lynchpin in the last plan against Zabuza, but being able to take care of Zabuza's water clones right now had helped greatly with his pride.

"Well look at that," Zabuza said, uncaring that his clones had been destroyed."Looks like you have a rival for your speed."

"Well the Mizu Bunshin were just 1/10th as strong as the original" the ceramic masked nin beside Zabuza replied."

Zabuza smirked at that. His tool was one of the best. Speedy with a weapon that he could use with great efficiency. Combine that with his kekkei genkai, and he was unbeatable. At least to these gennin. "Why don't you show the brat how it's done."

The nin nodded sharply and then blurred towards the other genin. Sasuke received similar orders from Kakashi and the two rivals for speed, clashed in a furious display of taijutsu before locking kunai together.

"Looks like we're tied so far," Sasuke remarked.

His opponent didn't say anything before he brought up his other hand and proceeded to use one handed seals. Around the two, dozens of water needles formed. "Looks like I have the lead", the fake hunter nin said as he jumped back and watched as the needles crashed together. As mist from the needles dissipated though, he saw that Sasuke wasn't there.

"Nope, looks like I'm in the lead" the hunter nin heard before having to protect himself from being attacked from behind. After a quick burst of jabs and sweeps, the two jumped away from each other towards their respective superiors, Sasuke no worse for wear, but the hunter nin sporting a small wound in his side.

"Looks like we have the advantage in speed," Kakashi said nonchalantly. "I can't have you looking down on my cute little gennin. After all, One of them is the #1 rookie of Konoha, another is the smartest kunoichi of her generation, and the last is the most unpredictable ninja in Konoha."

Zabuza grit his teeth at hearing that. As it was, the fight with Kakashi would be a close one, so his tool would have to take care of the gennin by himself.

"We can't waste anymore time. Take the brat out." Zabuza ordered. Wanting the speedy brat out of the picture before the blond one got there.

The hunter nin nodded before forming a hand seal. All around Sasuke, water began to rise. Sasuke braced himself, not willing to try to touch the water rising in pillars around him for fear that he would get trapped like Kakashi was. He watched the enemy nin intently, ready to take him on. Just as the pillars started to form rectangular surfaces that began to ice over, he felt something plow into him and send him crashing into one of the almost formed ice sheets. The current layer of ice being thin enough to allow him to pass through it and come out rolling on the other side. Getting his bearings he looked up to see what had ran into him, only to find the answer less than pleasing and grit his teeth. Naruto.

"Heroes always arrive late," Naruto declared cockily, not realizing he was now in the trap instead of Sasuke.

Regaining his composure, the hunter nin poured more chakra into the technique and completed his technique, a dome of mirrors now surrounding the less cocky Naruto. Sasuke tried to get back into the fight by jumping between the gaps in the mirrors but was rebuffed by a accurate shower of senbon and was forced to jump back from the dome.

"In another time and place, I might have chosen to fight you both at once," the hunter nin declared, merging into a mirror, much to the surprise of Naruto. "But I no longer have that luxury, so please wait your turn."

Sasuke grit his teeth but stayed back to avoid being punctured. He glared at Naruto within the mirrors. Angry at losing a chance to improve himself.

Seeing the distracted genin, Zabuza sped forward, intent on cleaving the last Uchiha in two.

"Now, now," Kakashi spoke as he blurred forward in response, using a pair of chakra reinforced kunai to keep the missing nin's Zanbatou at bay. "Your fight it with me. Lets leave the disciples out of this shall we?

Naruto frowned from within the dome of mirrors. Around him, the mirrors reflected the hunter nin onto all their surfaces, as one, they brought up their hands and fired off a volley of senbon.

Naruto tried to dodge them but mostly failed. Six senbon reached their mark. Two to his forearm, one to his back, and three more to his right thigh.

With the hunter nin being identical on all mirrors, it was impossible for him to tell where the attacks were coming from.

But that wasn't what held his attention.

"It can't be." Naruto said softly to himself.

"Oh?," the hunter nin queried, hearing the softly spoken words. Another volley of senbon left the mirrors. "What can't be?"

"No, please no." Naruto now sounded desperate. He absently pulled out the senbon in his legs but was forced to leaving those in his forearms and back in place as he dodged another shower of pain. This time he took 5 to his legs 2 to his other forearm, and another to his back.

"Have you realized the futility of your situation?" the hunter nin asked readying another volley. "Well then let me put you out of your misery." The nin release the third volley. But this time there were over a dozen senbon heading at Naruto.

Naruto saw them coming and knew he couldn't dodge them all. Knowing it was his only choice, he released a full body Doki with the chakra that had been automatically been building and compressing in his coils.

Like smoke bomb, nearly visible chakra exploded from Naruto, the senbon that had already been in his body joining their brethren as the flew back towards the mirrors. The hunter nin watched in consternation as one of his strongest attacks was nullified. Looking back towards the blonde genin, the ice-wielding nin saw that Naruto looked extremely exhausted and had let down his guard. Seeing his chance the nin readied himself to end the quick fight.

Naruto panted hastening to have his chakra refill his pathways. His took a second to remember the training he had received from the toad elders.

(Flashback)

-Night before the battle-

Naruto was panting trying to recover from a Zenmen-teki(Full-Scale) Doki, seeing it's new and improved effects. His training over that past day and a half had focused almost solely on his Doki skill upon Ma's insistence. She said she saw great promise for it, but the recharge time for the technique meant that Naruto was left open every time he used it. Ma had seen three possible fixes that would make the technique viable.

The first was to reduce the recharge time to the point where it was negligible. At gennin levels, that would mean a recharge time less than 5 seconds, at chunnin, less than 2 second, at Jonin levels it meant times less than half a second, and at kage it would have to be less than a millisecond.

The second was to find a way for him to release only a certain amount of the gathered chakra at a time. This meant that when he released a Doki from his arm, the would only release somewhere around 40% of the chakra built up in it. This would allow him to avoid making his limbs go through temporary chakra exhaustion due to pathway depletion every time he used the technique. While this technique would still have the necessity of him waiting between using Doki on the same limb, it would allow him to still use the limb in battle instead of having it dangle uselessly at his side.

The third possibility that Ma had seen was to choose, specifically, which tenketsu Naruto would release his technique from. By doing this, Naruto could avoid debilitating his limbs by, for example, only releasing a third of his tenketsu on his right arm, leaving the other two thirds to keep his arm running.

As it was, the latter two required chakra control well past what Naruto was capable of. The first required the least amount of control but would take the most amount of time for Naruto to physically work up to. Ma decided that Naruto would accomplish all three.

-A day and a half ago-

"Now Naruto," Shima said kindly as Naruto sat in front of the two toads."I want you to try the jutsu. If you can learn it, it will be extremely helpful for training. Its a highly chakra intensive technique so put a good bit into it."

Naruto had just gotten instructions on how to perform the Kage Bunshin form Fukasaku. Thinking it was the same as the technique he had seen in the scroll, he had channelled the same amount of chakra he used in his Zenmen-teki Doki and used the instructions Pa gave for the last half of the technique. Shima nearly had a heart attack when nearly 300 Shadow clones with high gennin chakra reserves appeared.

A moment of silence followed, from the two nonplussed elder toads, while Naruto cheered at creating working clones for the first time.

"Yatta!," Naruto exclaimed in joy, jumping around, "I'm the greatest. Take that Academy Exam. Two clones? HA! I made 300! How do you like me now M- Ittai!"

Shima whacked Naruto over the head and landed back on the ground as Naruto crouched down with his hands rubbing his now smarting head.

"Baka, I never said use that much chakra! Using that many Shadow clones is dangerous for you. Especially since you're still growing." Shima berated Naruto.

"But the scroll that Jiji had said that you were supposed to pump as much chakra as you can into the Taju Kage Bunshin." Naruto replied, one hand still massaging his scalp.

"For the Taju Kage Bunshin, yes, but what Pa taught you wasn't the Taju Kage Bunshin." Ma explained, her voice once again dropping into a motherly inflection."The regular Kage Bunshin has one distinct difference that makes its dangerous to use a large amount clones. That is why the Taju Kage Bunshin was created and listed as a separate technique."

"Really? What makes it so dangerous?" Naruto asked curious about Shima's extreme reaction.

In response, Shima made a quick set of hand signs and destroyed around 250 clones. "Each of you go get a leaf each." Shima said turning to the remaining 34 the clones sprinted of in different directions towards the edges of the clearing, she turned to Naruto to explain. "Unlike the Taju Kage Bunshin, the normal Kage Bunshin pass on their memories to their creator when they are dispelled."

Naruto nodded, not really understanding how that worked but taking it in stride, "but then wouldn't it be better to use more clones so I could learn more quicker."

Shima shook her head at Naruto's question. She already figured out that Naruto learned by doing so she had decided to nip this in the bud before Naruto tried it himself and got hurt. "I am about to show you what happens when you use too many clones at once."

Turning back to the clones who had each gotten a leaf she gave out her next set of instructions. "I want each of you to take the next 30 seconds to memorize as much of the leaf you each got as possible."

With a nod they each looked down at their leaves, a few of them sticking the tips of their tongues out in concentration. For the original Naruto, it was weird to see his face scrunched up in 34 different depictions of concentration. Shima counted down the 30 seconds in her head, and at the end, her hands once more blurred in hand seals before she brought them up to her mouth from which she spewed a controlled inferno to dispel the rest of the clones.

Naruto had been waiting to see what it would be like to have memories be transferred from the clones. Excitement soon turned to excruciating pain as the memories of the 34 clones hit him all at once, overloading his short term memory.

"Now do you get why it's not a good idea to use too many regular clones? That was only 34 clones, and the only information they passed along to you was the mental image of a leaf. With so many points of view being transferred at once, you hurt yourself if too many dispel at once, and you don't even learn anything*." Shima explained while Naruto slowly recovered from the intense but short lasting migraine.

Naruto wanted to argue that he could handle the pain and thus use more clones to learn quicker but, as Shima made her last point, he realized that he actually hadn't learned anything from the clones and just nodded in agreement.

What followed was 30 minutes of experimentation during which Ma and Pa tried to help Naruto find the most efficient number of clones to train with as the duration the clones lasted wasn't as much of an issue as the number of points of view. What Naruto found was that he could best handle three clones dispelling within a period of 5 minutes. With that discovered, Shima had Naruto make two clones with a large chunk of chakra. After 10 minutes of effort, The best Naruto could do was 5 clones each with mid Chunnin Chakra levels. Shima had Naruto dispel 3 of them before asking Naruto to create a single clone with as even more chakra. Slipping into Doki, he created a clone with a Zenmen-teki Doki worth of chakra, comparable to a mid Jonin. The three clones went with Pa as he lead them to the nearby river. Meanwhile Shima worked with Naruto on reducing the recharge on his Doki.

"Now Naruto, I want you to sit cross legged on the ground, and no matter what happens I want you to stay that way." Shima instructed as the last clone disappeared from view and Naruto sat on the ground. "Your Doki jutsu has great promise but it currently had too many holes for the enemy to exploit. As far as me and Pa can tell, there are three ways to fix this. Two of the solutions require much greater chakra control and Pa will explain them to your clones as he tries to help you with that. The third solution doesn't require control but if you want to use it, then you're going to have to further develop your chakra pathways. From what I could tell every time you used your jutsu, you create overload your coils, but when they heal, they increase by about .1%. Now that doesn't seem like a lot, but what that means is that every 700 or so times you use the technique, the amount of chakra you can channel at a given moment will double."

Shima smiled as Naruto face slowly lit up in wonder and excitement as the information sunk in. "I've seen you use Doki with one arm but can you use it with more?" Ma asked Naruto.

"Ya," he said, nodding in pride, "I can do one with my whole body that I call Zenmen-teki Doki, but the recharge time it still like 30 seconds. I already managed to shave a second of my one arm Doki to bring it down to a 9 second recharge."

The elder toad nodded, calculating how much Naruto could accomplish and creating a schedule for the remaining day and a half that she would remain summoned. " Alright then," Shima spoke, having finished with her plans,"if we work you to the bone for the next day and a half we could probably increase the size of your pathways by a factor of 5, maybe even 6 or 7 if we're lucky."

Naruto frowned at that. " But if I only need to use the jutsu 700 times to double wouldn't I be able to increase my pathways by…" Naruto paused for a minute tallying up numbers on his fingers."...by like 70?"

Ma shook her head. "We would if you continuously used the technique for the next 36 hours, but that's not an option. While you may have a lot of chakra, its not infinite. What we'll be doing is one hour of Doki practice followed by 3 hours of break to allow your chakra to replenish. During the three hours you'll eat and sleep. I'll also try to teach you some frog kata if you want."

Naruto nodded. Steeling himself for the training. For ten seconds he just sat there as the wind blew through the clearing. "So what am I supposed to do again?" Naruto asked

Shima just palmed her face.

-Back to the Night before the battle-

Shima had eventually explained to Naruto that he was to stay in a crosslegged position while performing a Zenmen-teki Doki. Impatient to get stronger, he didn't wait for Ma to finish and had sent himself launching into the sky. On the way down, Ma caught him and spent a good 10 minutes berating Naruto about patience. Eventually Shima had got around to explaining to Naruto exactly what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to use the Doki to send himself launching up in the air (at least he had gotten that part right). On his way up and down through the air, he was supposed to spend the time concentrating on refilling his pathways And then release whatever he had gathered as soon as he got closer to the ground, once again send him up in the air. Eventually, this helped Naruto learn to reduce his recharge time while also increasing the size of his chakra pathways.

Feeling himself finish recharging, Naruto pulled himself out of his retrospection to see the effects of his Zenmen-teki Doki.

Looking round the now larger clearing, he saw the marks on the trees, left over from when Ma and Pa taught Naruto the Frog Kata. Naruto had said that something about the technique felt missing, but was assured that it would be filled in for him at a later date. He was no master at the style, but he now had a taijutsu form that he knew at a mid genin level thanks to two of the clones practicing non stop while they worked on water walking.

After explaining to the three clones about the other two ways in which the flaws of Doki could be corrected, Fukasaku had show the two clones with chunin level chakra how to water walk and then left them to practice while he went back to the shore to work with the third clone.

The third clone had put it's mid Jonin chakra levels to good use by summoning the younger toads and making connections. Every toad summoner had their own set of toads that they would use and with how young Naruto was, it was decided that Naruto would make friends with the younger toads and make companions from there. So far, only four of them had made any impact on Naruto. Gamatatsu, Gamakōsei, Gamaimasu-fu and Gamakichi.

Gamatatsu was one of the sons of Gamabunta, the chief toad. He was laid back and more that a bit lazy, but him and Naruto had bonded over their mutual love for ramen, spending 2 hours debating the merits of various kinds. Before allowing him to dispel, Naruto had promised to summon him to eat with him at Ichiraku's.

Gamakōsei was the son of Gamaken. Unlike his father, he was quite confident in himself and used twin spears made to look like a pair of chopsticks. At first he had rubbed Naruto the wrong way, but after butting heads for a bit, Kōsei had decided that he was more that willing to follow someone as confident as Naruto.

Gamaimasu-fu, or Fu-chan as she had asked Naruto to call her, was the daughter of Gamahiro, and, at least to Naruto, highly confusing. When he had first summoned her, they had spent a few minutes talking about Naruto. Once Naruto got to his talking about his team and was forced to talk about Sasuke, Fu's eyes had started to sparkle before she abruptly dashed off in the direction of his team. Knowing all about Sasuke fangirls, he had been prepared to write her off, but half an hour later, she had come hopping back with frown on her face. When asked why she had come back, she had responded that she could never be attracted to something with a duck's ass on it's head. Naruto had fallen off the log he had been sitting on and pounded the floor in laughter. An hour and a half later he had decided that he liked Fu after talking with her some more, even if she looked at him a little weirdly. Sorta reminded him of Hinata actually.

Gamakichi was the other son of Gamabunta and was by far his favorite. Kichi was confident without being an asshole. They had enough in common that they spent a few hours lost in conversations that went over Fukasaku's head, but had enough differences that they could each teach the other new things. Kichi had never had too many friends as had been groomed for leadership from the instant he showed himself to be of summon intelligence. With his only other contact being Gamabunta and Gamatatsu, Kichi had insisted that they become brothers and that Naruto make him his primary summon at the end of the first day. Pa had explained that by contracting himself to Gamakichi, if he summoned a toad without specifying which toad he wanted, he would summon Gamakichi. It also meant that Naruto could shunt chakra into Kichi while they remained in contact. While it would do nothing in the human realm, every time Kichi went back to the summon realm, he would go through growth spurts, helping him reach boss summon size. In exchange, once reaching that point, Naruto would be able to summon him at any size he wanted for a greatly reduced chakra fee. The only issue was that such a contract had to be put into effect before the toad was still in the chibi class. Not seeing an issue with it, Naruto had acquiesced and Pa had taught him to summon a contract toad. After signing the contract, Kichi had stuck with the original while the clone had continued to summon, mostly to circulate his name amongst the toads.

"Damn,' Kichi whistled as he jumped atop Naruto's head."Your Doki has gotten so much stronger bro. Mine barely reaches a quarter of a foot."

Naruto smiled at Kichi's comment. Once he saw Naruto's Doki, Kichi had begged Naruto to teach him. Naruto had been hesitant to teach his brother at first, the hokage's words about how it would permanently damage anyone who didn't have the healing provided by the kyuubi, but Kishi had assuaged his concerns by telling him about a Toad technique called senjutsu and, after getting confirmation from Ma and Pa that it was okay, had taught Kichi the technique.

Senjutsu didn't seem to be able to heal as well as the Kyuubi so Kichi's recharge time was much longer than Naruto's and, due Kichi's immaturity, the effect of his Doki was much weaker than Naruto.

Naruto held his hand up in a fist in front of Kichi and got a fist-bump in return before Kishi dispelled for the first time since Naruto summoned him.

Naruto felt ready.

Having pushed himself, Naruto had blown Ma's estimate away by increasing his pathways 9-fold, and it showed. His Doki now had an increased range nearing 20 feet. his recharge time for a single limbed Doki recharge had been cut down from 10-15 seconds to 5-6 seconds passively, or 2-3 while actively concentrating on the limb. His Zenmen-teki Doki recharge had been similarly reduced from 30 seconds to 15 seconds passively, or 10 if concentrated. Another change was that he was now always prepped for a release. Using the Technique nearly 1500 times had made his body subconsciously alter the 'normal' pressure be the amount required to release a Doki at a moments notice.

He couldn't lose.

(Flashback end)

He couldn't win.

He couldn't hurt the hunter nin reflected at him from mirrors. Even if he had another two days, another week, another year to train, he couldn't.

"You have yet to hurt me once", the hunter nin declared, mirroring Naruto's thoughts.

"I can't…", came the response, the anguish in the blonde's voice obvious now.

"It seems you have finally realized your position." the hunter nin declared after a moment. "If only had given up the bridge builder when Zabuza trapped your sensei. You could have survived. But now your sensei won't let him die, and so I must kill you before I kill the bridge builder." The porcelain masked nin drew back both his arms. three senbon ready to fire from each.

Naruto clenched his teeth as he listened to the hunter nin's remarks, absently noting that his pathways had finished recharging.

There was a funny thing about his technique. Because he had to channel large amount of chakra into his pathways, the bleed-over had caused his senses to become extremely sharp. Even more-so than they were before, and they used to be on par with the Inuzuka.

As the hunter nins words floated through his ears, there was only one thing that was on his mind. Not the words or the hunter nin's intentions, but the voice. There was only one other voice that it reminded him of, and the two were and exact match.

"Would you really do that?", began Naruto, still crouched over.

"Ye-"

"Haku"

The hunter nin froze. For a moment, neither combatant moved. Then the hunter nin brought his arms back down and put the senbon away. Hands now free, he reached up and removed his mask to reveal a feminine face displaying a sad smile.

"Hello Naruto-san"

AN: Hope you guys enjoyed. The bridge fight was supposed to end this chapter but Ma refused and shoved herself into a flashback. So long as the characters behave, then the battle will end next chapter.

I am still looking for a Beta so please. CONTACT ME

*: A person's short term memory can only handle a certain amount of information at a time. When a clone dispels, its memories first go through the originals short term memory before being saved into long term. Try to 'remember' too much at once gives you a headache and leaves nothing learned.