Sasuke

When I first saw Tetsu coming down the street lugging a giant pot I was totally psyched. Not only would I be able to show off my new jutsu but I was pretty sure I could figure out a way to make sure my cousin was wearing whatever it was that was in that pot. Hehehe… I hope its something gooey and sticky, or maybe even smelly. I rubbed my hands together and snickered, just imagining Tetsu covered in fishy gumbo or eel paste caused me to grin maniacally.

THUMP! Something hard hit the back of my had almost knocking me off my perch on the roof of our house.

"Whatever you're thinking…..just NO! Its not an option, I am forbidding it. Tetsu hardly comes over anymore and I'm sure your practical jokes do nothing to help that. Save the pranks for Hayate. He just thinks he's so cool. Sakura-chan's kid is just too much, he's such a bastard," my father clenched his fist and shook his hand. I truly find it comical, my dad has some crazy rivalry going on with a 13 year old, its just ridiculous.

My dad says he can't stand Hayate, but I know he really cares about him, a lot. Sakura and my mom were pregnant at the same time, Hayate and I were actually born only seven hours apart. I was born first, that's how I got to be names after Uncle Sasuke (I am so lucky, Uncle Sasuke is so cool!). My dad and Sakura both knew they were having boys and had argued up until both Sakura and my mom had both gone into labor, over whose son would be named after their lost teammate. At that point my mother was pissed as all hell. There she was, in labor, in like tons of pain, and my dad was in the other room fighting with Sakura. We'll just say you should never get a jinchiriiki experiencing excruciating contractions angry with you, especially if you're her husband. My dad, a little worse for ware, compromised with Sakura that whichever baby was born first would bear the name. Aunt Sakura admitted to me that she only agreed because she was sure Hayate would be born first, seeing as how she'd started four hours before my mom. Alas, Hayate proved more stubborn about coming into the world than I was, and I got named after the coolest guy in our whole village. I'm not knocking Hayate's name though. Gecko Hayate was my Uncle Genma's best friend, he died defending our village when Orochimaru attacked. His name is engraved on the hero stone. I know a lot of kids whose names are there. I guess that's a testament to how many Konoha shinobi will never forget their comrades. My dad says you should never forget a friend and that if you do, you're no better than trash. He said he learned that from someone wise, but I've met all of my dad's friends and none of them seem all that wise. Even Shikamaru, the legendary strategist seems like a lazy slacker.

Some people, mainly idiots from my school, think I'm so lucky because I'm the sixth hokage's son and I get to meet all of the hero's from our village, and even some from other villages, personally but I don't know about that. When you think of someone as a hero and you look up to them a lot you probably don't want to know how human they really are. For instance, growing up, while I was in the academy I heard all these stories about the great copy cat ninja and his amazing battle prowess. I was in awe, here was a guy I could try to be like, a guy to look up to. Then my parents decided to start these retreats with their Bojan buddies and I got to meet the great copy can ninja, Hatake Kakashi. Imagine my disappointment when instead of the swashbuckling hero I was expecting I got disinterested pervert who has never been on time for anything, he's always too busy reading pornography. Don't misunderstand, Kakashi is a great guy, and I do still look up to him, just not in the way I did before. That's happened to a lot of the kids I know. That's probably because all of my dad's friends are talked about in school, even my dad is, so the first time we kids all got together we were all in for a heap disappointment. The Kazekage had apparently been telling his son, Ichigo, about how great Konoha's hokage was, and how he'd saved him from a life of loneliness and all this other crap, so when we got on that first retreat Ichigo spent the first two days following my dad around in awe. Shortly after that my goofball of a father was showing off his greatness….and slipped on a pile of dog shit landing in a mud puddle that he had created himself to show of some jutsu he'd made up. Hysterics ensued but Ichigo looked devastated. And that's how most of us were at that first retreat. When you find out that your heroes are just human it's a hard swallow.

Now its different of course, now we all know what to expect. I also know that I don't look up to any of them any less, I just accept that nobody is perfect. Sometimes I think the things they've done are even more heroic now that I know them personally. The stories about my dad are proof enough of that. My dad seems to be a bumbling idiot sometimes, and yet I know that he's fought some of the most dangerous guys out there. He's never backed down from a fight and he's saved thousands of lives, knowing that he still carries a wallet that looks like a frog and is a klutz makes it more amazing that he's brave enough to put his life in danger over and over again.

My dad is also a really big show off. So it was no surprise to me that when Tetsu came over asking my dad to help him with his cloning jutsu that he was ecstatic. Clones are my dad's specialty. He was almost glowing in anticipation to show Tetsu his technique.

"You need help with your clones?! Don't you worry Tetsu, I, Uzumaki Naruto, will show you how its done. I am a great master of the kage bunshin technique," he bellowed.

I almost felt bad for Tetsu, he had no idea what he had gotten himself into. I on the other hand knew we were in for an evening of a thousand blonde idiots running around and barking orders at poor Tetsu, while he would probably just get confused, as one often does when more then one person tells you what to do. We went out back to my dad's persona training area, and my dad started explaining the basics of the jutsu to my cousin.

"Sasuke!" my dad yelled, and really wished I'd been quicker in my attempt to run away. "Show your cousin how to do a basic bunshin. I would do it myself but I have too much chakra and I don't want to embarrass your cousin by being too amazing."

Oh man is my dad full of himself. Like Tetsu would think he could make a hundred clones just because my dad can. Get real dad. He can so totally be a pain in the ass. But I got up and performed the seals, creating a single bunshin to show my cousin.

"What?! Only one bunshin! You can't really be my son!" my dad yelled in exasperation.

"You said a basic bunshin, this is a basic bunshin," I said. "If you wanted to show him tons of clones why didn't you just do it yourself?"

"Ugh…If you want something done right you've got to do it yourself, my dear Tetsu," my father whispered to my cousin.

I sighed, and released my bunshin. This was so what I mean. My dad has to be the worst show off in the history of the world. He could easily have created one clone, or even five if he wanted to get his point across. When he was younger his chakra control wasn't that good and he might have accidentally created fifty clones instead of one, but now he's got it down. Which made the next display even more groan inducing.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" my dad yelled, and our back yard filled with about five hundred copies of my dad. To my cousin's credit, he just stood there looking confused, like what was he supposed to do. Just watching my dad make a ton of bunshin is not going to make someone else be able to do it. I learned that the hard way. When I was younger I really thought I would instantly be able to make like a hundred clones just because I had seen my father do it, boy was I surprised when it took me forever and a day to even make one, and its still not my best jutsu, some things are just not passed down to the next generation.

Then the real fun started. It was almost as funny as if I'd gotten to spill that pot onto my cousin. Now, my cousin is standing in the middle of at least five hundred bunshin, and they are all staring at him. The first one finally gets annoyed and kicks him in the ass, "What are you doing? Try making a clone."

"Oh, o-okay," my cousin stuttered. He formed the seals and created the most pitiful looking clone I'd ever seen. It's clothes appeared to be melting off, and when it tried to speak it sounded like an old drunk man.

"Ish thish whatch use waaass lookinn for?" the melting clone asked.

I just watched, knowing it could only get better. And it definitely did.

"That is terrible," one of my father's clones said.

"What the heck is that?" asked another.

"Get rid of that, I think its in pain."

"You made the hand signals wrong." "You should have yelled kage bunshin." "Next time concentrate more on your chakra flow." "If you visualize what you want the clone to look like it will help."

All the clones were now yelling advice at poor Tetsu, while he futilely tried to accommodate all of their requests, and continued spitting out crappy bunshin after crappy bunshin. At this point I couldn't help but laugh. It was one of the funniest things I'd seen in a while.

"No, no, you've got it all wrong. You're trying to do you're hand signals too fast." "Slow down!" "No, you're not going fast enough." "You're using too much chakra." "Maybe you should close your eyes, we might be distracting you." "You need to think more, you need to use more chakra."

The barrage of ridiculous advice continued to pile upon my poor little cousin, and if I hadn't been having such a good time watching the show I would have stopped it long before my aunt Sakura showed up.

"Naruto! What the hell are you doing?" Sakura yelled into the sea of Uzumaki Naruto's filling our yard.

Poof! Suddenly only Tetsu and my dad stood in the yard, my dad wearing a nervous grin and self consciously tucking his hair behind his ears.

"Oh nothing, Sakura-chan. I'm just showing Tetsu here how to make a bunshin, he's worried he won't pass his test at the academy," my father replied sheepishly.

"You think that was helpful, the poor kids head is spinning," my aunt scolded my father. "Tetsu, if you want help with your bunshin technique come over to my house and I'll explain in a way that you can actually understand."

"Sakura-chan! I am the Kage Bunshin expert here, not you. You can not take my student from me, just when he needs me the most," my father argued.

"I know you are the Kage Bunshin expert, however you are the worst teacher I have ever seen, and I'm doing him a favor by taking him."

I'll never tell my father this, but I completely agree. While my dad can complete almost any jutsu himself, he can barely teach even a basic substitution jutsu to anyone else. Jaraiya, one of the legendary sennin, once told me that its because my dad couldn't listen when he was a child. My dad learned all his jutsu's by practicing them all hundreds of times, without actually trying to figure out why they were working. My aunt Sakura on the other hand, learned exactly the opposite way, she knows exactly how a jutsu works and therefore can execute it with far less practice then my dad. Tetsu was lucky she'd come to save him, evidenced by the fact that I heard he passed his exam the next week. My dad pretends its because of his help, but Tetsu and I know better.