CHAPTER EIGHT – Present day, human world, village of Konohagakure

(There is a layer of dust on the page, but no stains)

(A/N: This chapter has a bloody scene filled with gore. Be forewarned.)

Naruto passed through Ibiki's interrogation unit, not without having to learn a lot more than he'd thought he'd have to. As good as he was at the other aspects of being a shinobi he knew surprisingly little about a good questioning. So while Iruka managed to go through the unit rather quickly, Naruto found himself having to relearn several concepts he thought he had down pat. But with that behind him, it was time for the final unit of the jounin test, and it happened to be one that he had been looking forward to almost as much as the swords unit. He would be sent out on missions for the final two weeks of training with genin and he would have to properly demonstrate his worth as a leader.

Five ANBU operatives accompanied him while he walked to the field where he'd meet his team for the first time. "Honorable Son," the most powerful looking of the bunch entered, "if I may, I'd like to get a basic grasp of your planned schedule for training." His and his fellow ANBU's presence would be backup in case anything went wrong, because with a less than jounin instructor, even one as skilled as Naruto, extra precautions had to be taken.

"Uh, I'm going to train them the first week and get to the missions the second," he explained. "After all, I want to make sure that my students are as skilled as possible before they go out into the world." His response came in the form of a nod from the ANBU ninja.

"Understood, Honorable Son," he replied.

The venture took roughly five minutes to the place within the woods that he had been scheduled to meet his crew. This was the final unit and he definitely did not want to screw it up by being late. He entered the clearing within the woods as the sound of the wind through the trees provided a soothing setting in which to concentrate and train more acutely. He looked around and saw, sure enough, three childish-looking brats that obviously were fresh from the academy, and couldn't possibly be older than eleven. Of the three, there stood one who clearly held firm in the minds of the other two as the team leader. A stocky but not disproportionate, proud-featured kunoichi with dark blue hair drawn into a long ponytail behind her head and three clumps hanging over her right eye, grandly stood erect in front of her two male teammates. For her age she looked quite confident in herself, bearing a look of incredulousness that her teacher for her missions would be a kid not much older than herself. She had a face that, if it slightly more vertically oval, would look rather creepy, with eyes that looked like they belonged on the devil. Of the two boys, the more mature-looking of the two stood with folded arms. This was a bore for him, he graduated top of his class and did not realize how much he still had to learn. He, unlike the slightly pudgy kunoichi he stood behind, seemed devoid of any fat whatsoever. His almost gaunt face had features high up in appearance. His hair, a defiant brown. The final teammate, a boy with hair blacker than the night sky, seemed physically, the most average of the bunch. Not too skinny or fat, without very abnormal features, he seemed quite in the middle in appearance. His face bore a smile and a pair of eyes blazing with the fire of life, a sense of "suck in every day you can" that looked as though inextinguishable. Naruto grinned to himself; this team would be his first and likely, his favorite.

"Hello, genin, my name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I..." he began. Unfortunately he would not be afforded the chance to finish.

"You?" The kunoichi scoffed at the prospect of learning from a child, and let loose a guffaw that made both teammates, and all five ANBU stare at her in disbelief. "You aren't but six years older than us! What the hell are we to learn from you?"

Naruto gritted his teeth. Okay, he figured; off to a rocky start. "As I was saying before you SO RUDELY INTERRUPTED ME," he said, shouting for effect on certain words, "I am a jounin-in-training and I have been appointed to be your instructor..."

The kunoichi scoffed again. "Oh GREAT! We don't even get a full-fledged JOUNIN! We get some damn wannabe in training!"

"PLEASE quit interrupting me," Naruto barked, growing progressively angrier with each interruption. "For the next two weeks..."

"Two WEEKS?"

"WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

His outburst caused all three to cringe. He waited a moment for another word from the kunoichi. None came. Smiling he continued. "I will be your instructor for the next two weeks. You will learn many things about chakra usage from me, as well as the art of fighting. First, I'd like to hear your names and we can then get off to a good start. You first, little girl."

The girl folded her arms and scowled. "My name's Yomiko. Komojirai Yomiko." She pointed a finger directly at him. "And if you EVER tell me to shut up again, I'll beat your FUCKING ASS!"

Naruto adjusted his shirt and continued. "Thank you, Yomiko. Although if there'll be ANY CURSING it'll be from me. GOT THAT?" Holy crap, Iruka warned me she had a problem with authority, he thought. "You next, boy."

The overly-slender prodigy looked up. "I'm Matsukita Satoshi, and if I may ask, Naruto-sensei, what's our first objective?"

"After your third teammate introduces himself I'll say. You?"

With a cheerful grin the third one raised a clenched fist and shouted, "Hoohaaa! I'm Higurashi Otowano!"

His female teammate looked at him with a exasperated feeling, signified by the raised right eyebrow. "Hoohaaa?"

Otowano looked at her. "Everyone's gotta have a catch phrase. You know, so that years later people remember you by it? Isn't that right sensei? Hoohaaa!"

Naruto nodded; this boy's cheerfulness and fullness of life reminded him of himself. "Yeah, everyone has to have a catch phrase. Believe it!"

The dark haired Satoshi smacked his face. Oh, lord. 'Believe it!' is even worse than 'Hoohaaa!'

"Now then," Naruto began, "our first lesson will be simple. Directing chakra to all points of your body." He heard a collective groan. "I know you've done this God knows how many times in the academy, you had to to pass, but I wanna see you do it." They, he saw, at least knew how to control their chakra. All of them directed the chakra to the corners of their body effectively but none so much so as Satoshi, as to be expected based on his grades. Otowano, it seemed, had the most chakra of the bunch to move around, and Yomiko had the fastest use of her chakra. He saw immediately the intrinsic differences between the three.

"Our first lesson will likely take the first two days or so," he explained. "You will be learning a technique that, quite frankly, everyone considers above your capacity to do. You will climb trees...without using your hands." The prospect bewildered the team. "Let me explain it to you visually." Naruto took a few steps up the side of a tree, and stood in place partially up. "You have to clear your mind and sense the chakra output of the tree, and match that in your feet. Miss the exact amount-even slightly-it will fail miserably, and you could fall."

"How is it we were never told of this before?"

"Good question, Satoshi," the blonde chuunin interjected. "The answer is very simple: the goal of the academy was to make you a ninja. They were not to teach you how to be an expert ninja, just the basics you needed to function as a ninja. It is our job as field jounin to do the final sculpting of you into the ninja you need to be. Begin!"

Closing their eyes, each member cleared their mind, and moved chakra to their feet. Satoshi took a running start, clung to the tree, made it about two steps up and fell. Yomiko got halfway up to the first branch before plummeting. Otowano made it a step higher than Satoshi and missed a step. Naruto folded his arms; a predictable first attempt. "Alright, I expected that. Now keep trying until you use up your chakra." He sat Indian style and watched as his students kept trying. Although none of them made it to the top of the tree, Satoshi made the most progress. The other two were comparable to him in terms of success. "Alright, you guys did good your first day. Go home and get some sleep, and tomorrow we'll try again." The next day they met, and the result once more as Naruto had predicted, a good (but not extreme) amount of improvement for all three, except one thing went against the grain of his thought; Otowano, this time, was the one who made the most significant improvement. The third day all three mastered the tree exercise.

On the fourth day of the first week, the three huddled in front of their group leader, still less than enthusiastic about being taught by a trainee. "You guys mastered the tree exercise a year ahead of many of your fellow genin would. I am impressed indeed," Naruto congratulated them. Otowano gave a proud "hoohaaa!" He immediately went on to the next issue. "Now, I propose an exercise which will help you work on your teamwork skills, which are vitally important if you are to become an effective ninja. I will go stand behind this tree," he pointed to an unruly piece of lumber towering above them, "and read. Meanwhile, you three will come up with a team strategy to complete your task."

Satoshi raised his hand. "What is our objective, Naruto-sensei?" Not that I can't do it, jounin wanna be, he thought.

"Your team objective...is to hit me."

Three eyebrows raised in confusion.

"You heard right. Your goal is for one of you to land a blow on me that isn't blocked. It sounds easy, but believe me, I have tangled with other jounin who train your friends and classmates; it isn't easy to hit someone like me. You have until I finish this chapter." He then strolled beyond talking range, and leaned against the tree. He pulled from his pocket The Legendary Tales of Shodai, written by his father and the third Hokage roughly ten years ago. Engrossing himself in the tales of the first hokage's ventures, he could not pick up what they were saying. After finishing the chapter he started, he calmly began walking towards his group from behind the tree. Yomiko stood very innocently and calmly in the center of the clearing, ten feet away from him. He utilized his demonic senses; their strategy likely involved using her as a lure while they attacked from behind, which held the most logical weight as a potential plan.

Sure enough, Satoshi came flying in at a forty-five degree angle from a high tree, his trajectory directly behind Naruto. Throwing his left foot out like a joust he made it to within an inch of his sensei's head before the young fox demon spun around, grabbing the foot tightly in his right hand and flinging the hapless dark-haired genin violently to his right. He sensed a chakra presence-Yomiko's-materialize immediately behind him and spin a low roundhouse kick at his stomach. His gut instincts told him to move rather than block, and it paid off immensely when he reappeared behind the kunoichi, and found himself in the right spot to grab the right fist of Otowano, who had attempted a medium flying punch. As the kunoichi whirled to deliver a super kick to the chest of her sensei, Naruto flung Otowano into her, knocking them both down and allowing him to have enough of a moment to throw his arms upward into the path of a flying kick from Satoshi aimed directly at his face. Instantly after blocking the attack he delivered a counterclockwise roundhouse kick which blasted the dark-haired genin backwards onto his back.

"EXCELLENT improvisation!" Naruto cheered, rapping his fist in midair. "I see that when I foiled your plan to have Yomiko lure me into prime position, you immediately thought of each other's attacks and worked accordingly. The only criticism I have is that you were a mite predictable." Damn they were fast! A slower ninja would have been nailed for sure! He doubted that any ninja of only slightly less skill than him would be done in by their plan, but then again, their plan was just to hit him, not to kill. Still, for genin their age they were talented.

"See guys? Naruto-sensei says we're good!" Otowano cried loudly, raising a fist. "Hoohaaa!" Satoshi and Yomiko, however, still held a bit of a grudge against their sensei for not being older. Naruto sensed the hostility, but ignored it; at least they were respectful and willing to listen. He did not have the job of making them love him, he had the job of molding them into expert killers.

Satoshi looked at his awestruck teammate. Idiot idolizes this jounin wannabe, he knew. Our sensei is good. I'm sure he's one of the best. But why in the hell is he almost our age and still so much better? Are we that sucky! He wiped his brow. I can't believe he was fast enough to outdo my plan. The strategy had been his best. For it to fail confused and angered him.

"You know the drill. I stand behind the tree, you plan. We're doing this again." Naruto went behind the tree and read another chapter, and came back out.

Stepping towards the area from the tree he saw no one. He sensed a chakra signature up in the tree, but looked up and saw an animal. Yomiko came running up behind him and swung her fist at him, he jumped to his northeast to dodge. When he landed at a certain point Satoshi leaped in from behind a bush and kicked at Naruto, almost hitting. The blonde chuunin did a forward flip leap to avoid it, landing on his feet a foot or two ahead. Yomiko appeared in front of him and kicked at his knees; he spread his legs apart slightly to dodge, and then both her and Satoshi swung blows at his arms, he extended them at his sides as a quick dodge. What the hell is their plan? he wondered.

"NOW!" Naruto looked up to see who yelled, and Otowano drove a blood covered right hand into the dirt. When he did, vines grew rapidly out of the ground and two trees parallel to Naruto, grabbing each of the blonde's limbs. "BLOOD VINE NO JUTSU!" The chuunin could not be more amazed; from whom did the genin learn how to create blood vines, plants whose growth could be controlled by blood and chakra? From that it couldn't be simpler: Yomiko clenched a fist and drove it into her sensei's gut, the force ripping him free of the vines and throwing him backward a couple inches.

"You guys did it!" he said to them. "But tell me, Otowano, who taught you the blood vine technique?"

Otowano beamed. "My mom taught me, I just never thought it'd amount to anything!"

Yomiko rolled her eyes. "If you'd have told us before, you moron, we could've avoided the first screw up!"

Naruto gave them the thumbs up. "You guys passed my first two tests, and we still have most of the week left!"

Otowano drove his fist in the air. "Hoohaaa!"

Yomiko smacked him. "Enough with the damned 'Hoohaa'!"

"Aw, Yomiko, let him be. He's a spirited kid." Naruto winked at his idolizing student, and whispered, "believe it!" He cleared his throat. "Meet at the village gates tomorrow. Since you guys passed ahead of what I expected you to, we'll get our first mission."

The next morning, Naruto met his crew at the village gate, with their mission: guarding a traveling village councilman home to his village. He had been the target of robbers lately and requested ninja backup, he had told them. The crisp morning air made the group of four and one civilian feel better, as the wind rustled the trees. The large gates opened allowing them into the outside world. With the genin and Naruto keeping a constant state of suspicious alertness for would be attackers, the group felt safer. The first hour of walking seemed completely uneventful, with only the scenery changing. Keeping his senses tuned to the councilman, Satoshi glanced a mere moment at Otowano. He pulled off a hell of a good plan, the dark-haired genin thought. I'm really impressed. He squinted as he thought more about it. But that means he'll be a more even match for me and I'll have to work harder to surpass him now. He grinned. Don't worry, Otowano, one day I'll be strong enough to kick your ass. Otowano had a smile on his face that amazed Yomiko. She thought of her teammate.

How do you do it, Otowano? she wondered. How do you always smile? What makes you so cheerful all the time? She just couldn't understand; she never saw him sad or frowning. Otowano sensed that his teammates were focusing on him, even if only for a moment, and he looked at them. "Guys? Is something up?" Neither one said a thing, and he turned back to looking forward.

After passing the halfway point, the bushes rustled. "KEEP GUARD!" Naruto shouted, and his genin took stance around the councilman. The noises stopped, and Naruto looked around; perhaps it had been merely a group of animals. That is, until he felt something sharp touch his neck. What the hell...? he thought as he turned around and saw a thorn sticking out of the bush. Turning back around immediately he saw the councilman and his team gone. Suppressing nervousness he cleared his mind and sensed four chakra signatures moving rapidly; they had been abducted by someone. But they were not moving very fast, and he knew he could catch up with them.

"You won't be going anywhere, Konoha shinobi," a voice cried out. A poof of smoke later and a jounin appeared in front of Naruto. A brown-haired lanky man, his headband was that of Sand Village. Naruto recognized him as a missing-nin, because Konoha and Sand Village had signed a treaty. This man was part of a plan to abduct his team, he believed. The blonde chuunin pushed aside a right handed punch and drove a kunai deep into the man's gut. Unfortunately, the man utilized a replacement jutsu. Appearing behind Naruto, he swung a roundhouse kick that was ducked beneath.

Naruto swung a roundhouse kick of his own but found it rapidly blocked. Instead of attacking-an action to which the fox demon would have moved quickly out of the way and retaliated-the missing nin threw sand in his eyes, which took dramatically less time than attacking. "Arrrgghh!" Naruto rapidly began trying to wipe away the sand, but by the time he got his sight back the man and the other enemies were long gone. He cursed loudly as the ANBU showed up. Why they had been so late was beyond him.

"Honorable Son!" one said. "We must go back and gather more shinobi! Warn the village of an abduction!"

"NO!"

"Honorable Son, what are you saying!"

Naruto clenched his teeth. "Their goal was not to kill us, or they'd have done so, and the jounin would have tried to kill me. Their specific goal was kidnapping; I believe they are anarchists trying to start a war."

"How do you know they're not from the Sand Village trying to add to their ranks with our genin?"

Naruto shook his head. "Too much work. It'd be much easier to just kill them on the spot and try to kill me. These were anarchists. If you go back and tell my father, you'll be doing their work for them. Trust me."

"What will you do?"

"Follow me, but not close enough to be seen. I'm going to get them back myself."

"How do you know they won't kill them before you get there?"

Naruto clenched his teeth; he didn't. But he couldn't possibly say that to an ANBU. "Because," he lied, "they'll wait for someone to spot them to spread the word. Anarchists work through others seeing their message and spreading it. A victim killed in plain sight of someone else has more effect than presenting a dead body to the target audience." The answer satisfied the ANBU and they left, Naruto leading the pack.

The inside of a dimly-lit central room saw Yomiko and her teammates tied to metal folding chairs. They were watched closely by four separate ninja guards. The jounin Naruto had fought with earlier sat in a chair in front of them. "Your sensei is going to tell his people you were taken, along with the 'councilman,' who played his part so well, and your village will start a war with Sand Village." He snapped his fingers. The fake councilman approached.

"This'll work out so well, Kazuya," he said.

"I know," Kazuya said to him. Immediately, he shoved his hand into the chest cavity of the fake councilman. The man fell dead in a matter of seconds. A beating heart the jounin threw on the ground. "This blood will not even compare to what the two villages spill when war breaks out," he said, laughing as he wiped his hand on each genin's face. Otowano looked at the fake councilman, dead on the ground.

"You betrayed your own man! How COULD you be so heartless!" he cried, frightened out of his wits.

The jounin laughed. "Ninja life is like that," he flatly stated. "You don't like killing? Be a lawyer."

Satoshi shivered in terror as he looked at the happenings. Yomiko as well, felt unable to move out of fear. I know I hated him, but God, please let Naruto-sensei save us! The dark haired genin prayed silently. A few nervous hours passed without any change in situation.

Six shinobi patrolled the basement of the partially ruined fortress that had been built by settlers centuries ago. A pair of hands silently eased out of a dark hallway and snatched a ninja by his neck, silencing him with a single snap. All of the remaining five turned around. One found himself impaled, the others defeated quickly by ANBU. The whole matter had been amazingly quiet. The invading force crept up the stairs, killing a few bodyguards here and there. It amazed Naruto how a bunch of anarchists trying to start a war could have such pitiful forces; in all, the leader of this bunch had seventeen chuunin level ninja guards. Not many of them even gave Naruto and the ANBUs a good fight.

Alright, Naruto telepathically told his ANBU guards, we're nearing the main room.

Kazuya told one of his guards to check his men. When he opened the door, a gust of wind passed through the room. Four heads hit the ground, they all belonged to the jounin's ninja guards. When he snatched his blade and went for the genin, he immediately found himself encircled by Naruto and the ANBU. Oh, shit. "You may kill me, but my fellow villagers will not stand for this! You can expect a war!"

"Cut the bullshit," Naruto commanded. "We know damn good and well you're not representing the Village Hidden in Sand."

Kazuya had been caught, but he did not betray his shock. "What're you talking about? You're starting a war by killing me!"

Naruto knew otherwise. "If you were from the village, you'd have killed the children already. And furthermore, you're not even in Sand Village territory. Strikes one and two. Also, you hired chuunin that were pathetic. Strike three. Any sand villager would have jounin, even for killing children." Foiled, Kazuya tried leaping out of the window, but got six blades through his torso before making it halfway there.

The genin, free of their restraints, grabbed hold of Naruto's legs. "Thank you for rescuing us!" Satoshi cried. "I swear I love you man!"

Naruto chuckled. "Oh, so no more 'I hate Mr. Jounin wannabe?'"

Satoshi and Yomiko both shook their heads. "No! You're definitely a jounin, Naruto-sensei!" she yelled.

"Yeah, I know I'll be. As soon as we get home."

The trio left the adventure behind. Dammit, Naruto thought. I wanted a mission that was real, so I could teach them more. Oh well, at least their safe. Now, I hope dad doesn't utterly kill me for this.

"Naruto-sensei saved us!" Otowano raised a fist. "Hoohaaa!"

Satoshi smiled and raised a fist in mimicry of his teammate. "Believe it!"