Chapter 2

Socializing

Naruto woke up the next day, after washing himself, he went down to the basement to meet Kakashi, but he wasn't there, instead, he found a tall man with waist-length, spiky white hair that was tied back into a pony tail, with two shoulder-length bangs that framed both sides of his face. He also had red lines that came down from his eyes and wore a horned forehead protector with the kanji oil on it. He possessed a wart on the left side of his nose. The man wore a green short shirt kimono and matching pants; under it was a mesh armor that came out of the sleeves and legs of his outfit. His outfit was completed with hand guards, a simple black belt, traditional Japanese wooden sandals, a red sleeveless coat with two simple yellow circles on each side. The man carried a large scroll on his back.

"Hey, do you know where Kakashi-sensei is?" Naruto asked, darting his eyes across the place.

"Yes, he said that he had go to Kuroinu to train, so you are my student for the time being." Jiraiya answered.

"And who are you?" Naruto questioned, making a big mistake.

"Who am I? Thank you for asking Moumt Myoboku's toad holy master sennin, wooer of women, world famous author, one of the three legendary sennin, I am Jiraiya the Gallant, remember it!" The toad sennin introduced himself.

"So, what are you teaching me?" Naruto asked, getting straight to the point.

"How good are you with Fuinjutsu?" Jiraiya asked.

"I never was taught Fuinjutsu, all I know is that it is the art of sealing." Naruto answered.

"Well, today, you'll be training with the best, so first you need to know the concept..." Jiraiya started, explaining the concept of his specialty.

After a week of training in Fuinjutsu with the help of Shadow Clones, Naruto reached level three quickly and was able to modify low level sealing, like making the Explosive seals more deadly and increasing the space of the storage seal.

"What are you doing, Naruto?" The sennin asked, observing Naruto drawing a seal that he didn't recognize.

"It's a theory I have. If the symbol in the middle of this explosive tag is fire I was just seeing what would happen if you change it into water, lightning, earth, or wind" Naruto responded. Jiraiya was surprised, as he had never thought of it himself.

After he was done drawing the seal with each of the symbols, the crimson-eyed boy slapped each of them onto a wooden dummy. For the water symbol tag, water blasted out of it with the power of a C-ranked water jutsu. The lightning tag shocked and paralyzed in its blast area. Chucks of earth shocked out when it was activated. And for wind, a strong gale repelled and pushed anything near it away.

"Hey, Naruto, you just got a way to be a millionaire." Jiraiya said, amazed with the result.

"I know." Naruto replied as he was also amazed by his own creation.

"So, do you have any other theories?" Jiraiya asked, but was a bit disappointed when Naruto shook his head.

"So, Jiraiya sensei, why are you called the toad sage?" Naruto asked his teacher as the boy watched his clones creating his new seals and learning how the multilayered seals worked.

"Hey, Naruto, do you remember the time when you first drew out your chakra?" Jiraiya asked. Taking the boy's nod as a yes, he continued, "Do you know how to do it again?"

"I don't know, I'll try." Naruto said, as he shut his eyes and sat down in the meditative pose with the ram sign formed. He focused on the warm sensation and tried to draw it out, he concentrated on the Kyuubi's image that seemed to be fading in but was not moving. He then felt a strong malevolent energy enveloping him, growing with every second. The young Uzumaki's ear started twitching; his claws and fangs started protruding out and the whiskers getting bolder.

Jiraiya looked at the boy, he readied himself in case anything happened but from the looks of it, Naruto seemed to have complete control over his power. The toad sage watched as the chakra started forming the head of a fox, then a snout came out. Then, the chakra started to take shape of a fox standing on two legs with nine tails waving behind it. The chakra grew denser and denser until Jiraiya could no longer see his student's face. For eyes, a pair of white fox eyes had already formed and whenever the mouth moved, areas of white could be seen indicating the inside of the mouth.

"Disperse." Jiraiya said. Immediately, the chakra started retreating back into its owner.

"I guess, my chakra control had improved massively." Naruto mumbled.

"What was that?" The sennin asked.

"I uh, have been trying to do this every night, but I couldn't." Naruto confessed, doing the infamous scratching the back of the head that had been carried in their bloodline. "Hey, wait a minute, where did all the clones go?" Naruto asked as he found the room very quiet.

"I guess the chakra intensity must have caused them to dispel." Jiraiya concluded.

Naruto created the same number of clones as before and yelled "Come on, no more slacking off, coffee break is over." The clones groaned before going back to their seal productions.

The remaining weeks of the month was spent with getting Naruto up to level four in Fuinjutsu and training him to access his Kyuubi form quickly.

"Well, Naruto, good bye for now, I'll see you back in a few years. Hopefully, you can test read my new book my then, how does that sound?" Jiraiya joked. Naruto's face morphed into a disgusted look.

Kakashi had just arrived in the gigantic den of Kuroinu, he saw a huge pack of dogs probably about a thousand going around busily. The copycat ninja's familiar, Pakun snapped him out of his observations and lead him to a temple decorated with many dogfaces sculptured out. He entered the dim room and saw two old hounds losing patches of fur missing from the dogs, representing their old age.

"Ah, young Kakashi Hatake, son of Sakumo Hatake, our last canine sage." One of them spoke; the voice seemed to belong to the female hound.

"My father was a canine sage?" Kakashi asked, his visible eye slightly widened.

"Of course, young Hatake, how do you think he got his name of the White Fang?" This time, the male hound spoke. "So, are you going to be following his footsteps?" He continued, earning a nod as an answer.

"Unlike most sages like Jiraiya the toad sage and many more that gathers and uses nature energy, our canine sages use the waste of physical powers. For example when you are in sage mode, an enemy hits you and you block it, you can gather those energy and turn it into chakra and uses them to replenish your chakra or just cast a jutsu with that." The female hound explained.

Kakashi barely blocked a hound biting him, using the canine's momentum against itself, Kakashi spun, tossing the dog away. Even with his sage mode activated, Kakashi couldn't feel chakra coming to him, before he could see what was wrong, the dog pounced on him again, going for a body slam. The copycat ninja predicted his and dodged to the side.

"Stop!" A voice interrupted. It was his supervisor and the elder of the canine clan. "You shouldn't have dodged that, if you had blocked it, you could absorb its physical power." Kakashi nodded and continued his sparring.

The dog came in for another body slam, but Kakashi had barely blocked it on two reasons, one being he was used to dodging and that was what his instinct was telling him to do and two being that the dog's velocity was high enough to force the ninja on his back.

"Stop, Kakashi, I think it would be best if you practice and learn the katas of our style first." The male hound suggested.

Kakashi created four clones and started going through the kata of the canines, it took him a week to fully get used to it. During that time, he learned that striking at the enemy allows him to absorb physical energy.

After a month of staying there, the prodigy of the Hatake family was finally able to detect and absorb physical energies without much concentration when in sage mode.

"Lord Hokage, I've mastered the sage mode of the canines. I also shifted my taijutsu a bit to go together with it." Kakashi said, his report too short to be one.

"Kakashi, its November now, I was thinking of enrolling Naruto into the academy the coming year. He had been training too hard and doesn't get out except for meals. He also doesn't have any friends around his age." The Professor pointed out, as the leader of the next generation needs reliable and trustworthy friends and comrades.

"Well, its ok with me, I just need to teach him some jutsu for his other affinities and I can let him do his own trainings. He knows what to do." Kakashi responded, trying hard to hide pride for his student. "If there isn't anything else, I'll take my leave." Kakashi continued before bowing and headed out the door.

It was time for Naruto to join the academy, although Naruto's overall skill was high Chunin without the Kyuubi's power, the Hokage and Kakashi insisted on it. Naruto now knew how to use, Water Release: Water Bullets, Water Release: Water Dragon, Water Release: Great water Vortex, Water Release: Water Prison jutsu, Water Release: Water Wall, Lightning Release: Static Shock, Lightning Release: Thunderclap, Lightning Release: Lightning Bolt, Lightning Release: Storm Strike, Earth Release: Earth Fist, Earth Release: Rock Thorn Forest, Earth Release: Earth Wall, Earth Release: Shrapnel bullets, Wind Release: Great Breakthrough, Wind Release: Air Sword, Wind Release: Gale Palm, Wind Release: Air Drill, and the Fire Release jutsus he had learned before Kakashi took his break.

The students and their parents were busily chatting with each other in the auditorium room in the academy. They were too inattentive that they didn't notice a hooded dark cloaked boy slip into the room and watching everyone chat with each other.

The boy's cloak was black with crimson flames rising up from the bottom, just like his clothes.

"Order! A Chunin yelled, drawing attention at himself. "If I call your name, line up here, follow me, you'll be in my class." And with that, one by one students started to line up behind him.

"Naruto Uzumaki." He called out, many people flinched at this name, both teachers and parents alike. The boy took off his hood and joined his classmates in their line. Many parents had thought this was a different Naruto Uzumaki. The reasons being the different hair and eye colors; The old Naruto has blond hair and blue eyes, this Naruto Uzumaki has red hair and red eyes. The other Naruto was loud and rude, but this Naruto was silent. The main thing that was different between the two was the fact that the old Naruto would instantly get killed on a mission because of his clothing but his Naruto wore common shinobi colors. Having made these comparisms, parents and students went back to their jobs.

Naruto analyzed his classmates; he had several heirs of the famous clans in his class. Hinata of the Hyuga clan, Shikimaru of the Nara clan, Choji of the Akimichi clan, Shino of the Aburame clan, the Yamanaka clan's Ino, Inuzuka clan's Kiba, and the arrogant Sasuke Uchiha, coming from the clan whose members were worshipped by everyone. There were still students whose parents were well known in the civilian council, which had recently lost most of its power and got ripped off the chain of command, such as Sakura Haruno.

Naruto sat at the back of the class alone, most of his classmates were two to three rows in front of him, trying to find the perfect weapon for them to use and a taijutsu style to fit them, but due to the crimson-eyed boy's enhanced senses, he could easily see the board and hear what his academy teacher was explaining.

Naruto just sat at the back, mentally chuckling as he saw many of his classmates practice, his musings were cut short when his Chunin instructor threw a chalk at the red haired boy who easily caught it, gaining the attention of most of his classmates.

"Why aren't you doing what the others are doing?" The Chunin asked. Naruto shrugged and replied, "What, am I actually supposed to do something? But they are barely doing anything other than fooling around." Sasuke Uchiha glared at him on the comment before continuing through the katas of the Uchiha Interceptor fist.

Naruto sighed and walked over to the open area with sparring mats spread across the area to prevent injuries. Naruto threw a powerless punch before jumping to give an effortless kick, what he was doing was an image of what he saw while looking at his classmates.

Naruto mentally cheered when the class was over and joined the crowd stampeding out of the room. He could see Kiba challenging Sasuke to a fight when the Inuzuka saw the Uchiha being fawned over and worshipped by his fangirls.

The fight was rather quick. Kiba charged at the Uchiha, bringing his fist back to maximize the power of his punch. Sasuke stepped to the side and brought his palm down on the Inuzuka's fist, intercepting it before countering the attack with a punch of his own at Kiba's face, the force, knocking the boy onto his butt.

Naruto could no longer hold his laughter in and roared out as the fight he just witnessed looked like a baby fight.

The crowd of students that gathered around them turned to the direction of the voice. They pinpointed it to the hooded boy standing upside down from the tree branch.

"What are you laughing at?" Kiba grunted in frustration.

"Oh, nothing, the fight wasn't even a fight, it looks more like baby brawling, you guys were everywhere, there wasn't any specific style to it, maybe except the intercepting move Sasuke did at the end." Naruto chuckled, his hands holding tight around his belly.

"What, like you could do better? We just started the shinobi academy after all." Kiba said.

"I can't, sorry for insulting you." Naruto apologized, throwing his conversation off track to hide his abilities.

The break was concluded when the bell sounded, the students knew of its intention and headed back into class.

A certain pale-eyed boy looked at Naruto and said to himself "Naruto Uzumaki, we fight one day, and it will be fate declaring me the winner with you lying broken on the ground." Naruto heard this with his enhanced hearing and chuckled to him self.

'We will indeed.'

The five years passed rather quickly with Naruto acing every single test he was given.

The academy standard were raised extremely high that it almost go to the level of what they might say Chunin before the change.

During the first year (grade one) the first two hours were for taijutsu and weaponry training, unlike the previous system, the students were able to choose their own styles and train with it. After that came a fifteen-minute break. Then came ninjutsu class for an hour and half, and Genjutsu class for another hour and half. For ninjutsu, the students would learn basic jutsus such as the Transformation Jutsu and the Substitution Jutsu and other low ranked ninjutsu that are in their curriculum. In Genjutsu class, the students learn how to create illusion clones and low level Genjutsu. After that is lunch break for forty-five minutes. The last hour and half is studying level one Fuinjutsu, creating traps, strategies, and the history of the Shinobi wars. But the academy time still isn't over, the last three hours from three till six is to train in your specialty, such as medics, sensory, tracking, etc. But clan members are allowed to return to their compound to train in their clan techniques. The final test to go to the second year were performing the Substitution Jutsu, Transformation Jutsu, sparring against a Water Clone of their Chunin instructor, performing two Genjutsu of their choice, getting an average of seven bull's-eyes out of ten, performing a level one sealing their Chunin instructor requested, passing a written test, and showing something they learned in their own time.

The second year would be the same as first, except that they had to study harder things. In the taijutsu class, the students would try to add speed after learning all the katas from the first year. Then came learning about all weapons and their specialty and weaknesses, which would take a quarter of the year. For the rest of the year, they would learn deflecting shurikens and kunai and pick a weapon and train with it. In ninjutsu class, they would learn about chakra control exercises and practice them. In Genjutsu, they would learn higher ranked illusions. As for Fuinjutsu, they would learn level two Fuinjutsu and start learning calligraphy to draw seals of their own. The last period of the class no longer included histories of the world. Instead, for half of the year, they would learn more advanced traps and stuff. The next half of the year would be learning about anatomy that would prove well to integrate into their taijutsu. And then came the individual training, which they had to do for three hours each day. The tests were about the same but the things that had previously learned were upped and the things they that they had learned must have at least sixty percent chance of success rate when tested.

The third year was similar to the second year but the fourth had some improved changes. In taijutsu class, they must learn how to tweak the style to be more of their form and comfortable. And then would be the weaponry class, which they also had to start tweaking to fix any errors in them and learn how to fuse their chakra into them. As for ninjutsu class, the student had to learn how to make Solid Clones, which were a bit different from Shadow Clones. Solid Clones' memories do not transfer to the user when dispersed, unlike the Shadow Clones. As for Genjutsu class, they started learning how to detect and dispel illusions. The sealing classes were just upped a level, and during the last period, the students had to learn what to do in different dangerous situations.

The last year were doing mock missions and D-ranked missions. The teams alternate every mission to see the best combination and teamwork.

Naruto soon understood the purpose of this academy system; it was to filter out fan girls and those who didn't take their shinobi training seriously or for those people to start training for real.

The academy years had allowed him to form friendship among his fellow classmates. He was among the Prank-S-Quad, that was what Shikimaru, Choji, Kiba, and himself called themselves as they went around pranking people and escaping the boring lectures that took place at the last period.

Naruto had also grown in skills that he had acquired during his individual trainings. He had added a lot of elemental jutsu, ranging from B to A rank into his arsenal. The foxlike boy had also unlocked his strongest bloodline.

Start Flashback

Naruto parried a punch Kakashi had thrown at him with his vambraces. The red hair boy then spun to the right before unleashing three palm strikes at his sensei's arm, disabling them if the copycat ninja hadn't leapt to the side.

The Cyclop took advantage of Naruto, whom had thought he had disabled Kakashi's arm and waited. Kakashi unleashed super fast punches at the blond, overwhelming his defense before kicking him away. The copycat ninja with experience didn't allow Naruto to think of any strategies and immediately leapt at the boy before he stopped from the momentum of the kick. Naruto couldn't do anything about it and clasped his two hands together on instinct, bracing for Kakashi's strike to land.

Naruto looked up to see what made the attack to not land on him yet. He saw a large wooden wall in front of him with a dent in front of him indicating where Kakashi's fist had landed.

End Flashback

The room was buzzing with excitement as twenty-seven students chatted with each other around the room. They were waiting for their Chunin instructor to arrive with their teams, which the man did after fifteen minutes. As soon as the students saw the green Chunin Flak jacket, they grew silent and paid him their attentions, normally, it would be a miracle but considering that today was their team selection day, the students were excited.

"So, lets start with the teams… Team seven, Naruto Uzumaki, Kiba Inuzuka, and Sakura Haruno, your sensei will be Kurenai Yuhi, you'll meet him upstairs after lunch. Team eight, Sasuke Uchiha, Hinata Hyuga, and Shino Aburame, your sensei will be Anko Mitrashi. Team nine is still in service, Team ten are Choji Akimichi, Shikamaru Nara, and Ino Yamanaka, and your Jonin sensei will be Asuma Sarutobi." The instructor announced.

Naruto was very happy with his team as they were well rounded. Kiba was the heavy hitter with his destructive close combat clan jutsu fused with his lightning and wind chakra. Naruto was the mid range that can use jutsu to support Kiba or even assist him with his own close combat taijutsu. Sakura was their medic with good knowledge of anatomy and had good accuracy with senbons. Kurenai was their leader and she had good Genjutsu skill to confuse their enemy in case their outmatched or outnumbered that they had to make a retreat.

Team eight's specialty was capture and interrogation. Shino's bugs can wear out their prey while Hinata's Byagugan can check for signs of traps and ambushes while chasing. Sasuke and Anko could engage their weakened prey if they had not succumbed to chakra exhaustion or if the prey had called for backup.

Team ten had members that were great with infiltration and assassination. Shikimaru can use his shadow manipulation jutsu to kill any guards while Ino can use her mind jutsu to take over the mind and learn any valuable information or just use them to infiltrate the city. Choji and Asuma are there in case their infiltration fails and use their heavy hitting attacks to take care of large numbers of ninja.

Naruto sat down under a tree with his best friend Kiba for lunch. The two were really happy about being on the same team started talking about tactics in missions while they ate their food. Their female member soon joined them and the three of them started conversing on their trainings.

After their lunch break was over, the trio headed to the roof, meeting a tall and light skin toned woman with a slender body type. Her long black shoulder-length hair was untamed, and she possessed a pair of very unique eyes that are re, with an black ring in them. She wore make-up consisting of red lipstick and purple eye shadow. Her clothing consists of a red mesh armor blouse with only the right sleeve exposed to the human eyes. Over that is very wide material that looked like bandages with thorn like patterns. Her hands and upper thighs were also wrapped in bandages and her outfit was completed with the Konoha forehead protector and regular shinobi sandals.

"Hello guys, it's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Kurenai Yuhi, your sensei." The Jonin introduced.