Sorry I haven't uploaded anything for a while! I've just been so busy and my laptop decided to explode… -_-

Anyway, back to the story!

I'm pretty much making this up as I go along lol

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Chapter 4

The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock and the impatient sighing every two minutes. Sasuke was sat leaning against Iruka's desk looking as bored and uninterested as ever, occasionally shooting annoyed glances at the clock. There were only the three of them left in the room. All the other classmates had already been picked up by their sensei, it was unfair! Why did they have the only jounin with no sense of time keeping?

Sakura was pacing up and down, one eye always on the clock. Time seemed to be going slower than it usually did. She sighed again.

She was definitely grating on his nerves now. Naruto watched her from under his nearly closed lids, as he pretended to be asleep. He had discovered that this was the best way to observe people without them realising it, no wonder Shikamaru was always doing it! Although… Shikamaru was probably really sleeping, it was hard to tell.

They'd been waiting there for three hours now. Naruto was beginning to believe the sensei wasn't coming. He wouldn't be surprised, who wanted to spend the next few years training the monster?

He scratched absentmindedly behind his ears before realising with a jolt that he was using his leg. Stopping quickly he stole a glance at his teammates. Their attention was completely taken by the clock, he sighed with relief.

They both turned to him, glaring.

"SHUT UP!"

He blinked in surprise. Both went back to watching the clock and Sakura resumed her pacing. He resolved to pay more attention to his own body parts from now on.

It hadn't been difficult. He'd gone through every book on illusion and disguise techniques until he found one that was simple enough to maintain with limited concentration. As soon as he'd left the Hokage's office he had returned to his apartment to perfect it.

Now nobody would notice his abnormal appearance. All they would see was an ordinary human boy, albeit one with no shoes. He'd managed to mask his chakra too, so the jutsu would be hard to detect.

All in all, he was pretty pleased with himself.


A figure watched the three students from a vantage point in a tree outside, a small orange book in one hand.

They seemed ok, if a little restless and impatient. That would change soon enough. The pink haired one would need training in controlling her emotions of course and the dark haired boy in teamwork most likely. He seemed the most solitary of the trio.

And the blond… well he would just have to see. Too much was kept hidden. He narrowed his eyes. There was even the faintest trace of a disguising jutsu!

Kakashi shut his book with a snap and straightened up. Time to meet his team then.


All three of them jumped a foot in the air, as the door was suddenly swept open. A tall figure stood in the doorway. He was dressed in typical jounin gear, with his forehead protector covering one eye and a mask concealing the lower part of his face.

"Yo," he said.

This was met with several agonising moments of silence before…

"YOU'RE LATE!"

"HOW DARE YOU…!"

"THIS IS A SERIOUS BR…"

"WE'VE BEEN HERE FOR THR…"

"…IN MY TRAINING!"

Sasuke and Sakura were both screaming at him at the same time. Naruto remained where he was, trying desperately not to burst out laughing. The expression on the jounin's face was just so funny as he waved his hands in an attempt to calm them down.

"ALRIGHT! Alright!," he finally shouted. They fell silent.

He let out a sigh of relief. "Good. Well I apologise for being late, there was a lame donkey in a well that I had to rescue."

The three students stared at him in disbelief. He appeared not to notice.

"My name is Hatake Kakashi but you may call me sensei, boss, master etc," he said, probably grinning from beneath his mask. "Names?"

"Haruno Sakura"

"Uchiha Sasuke"

Kakashi turned to Naruto and waited expectantly. Naruto couldn't quite believe the jounin didn't know his name, everybody did. He was just being polite then.

"Uzumaki Naruto," he replied.

"Excellent," Kakashi clapped his hands together. They watched him nervously, wondering what was to happen next. "Well since we're all acquainted now, lets find out a bit more about each other shall we?"

He took a seat on the edge of Iruka's desk. Sasuke and Sakura brought chairs nearer, Naruto decided to remain where he was.

The next hour was an interrogation of personal life and aspirations, where the jounin somehow managed not to give away anything about himself. Naruto answered his questions briefly. He only had one aspiration. To become a top class ninja. They didn't ask about his past, 'probably not interested,' he mused.

He payed more attention to Sasuke now. The boy's past was most definitely interesting. All his clan were murdered? How had he never heard about this. He knew they were dead, but obviously that part had been left out. Sasuke was now determined to avenge them, by killing his older brother.

Naruto shook his head. He just couldn't understand it. Humans were even more bloodthirsty than he was!

Sakura's past, however, was a lot more dull and ordinary. He stopped listening half way through, knowing she could talk for Konoha and there was little he could do to stop her. She would stop when she found nothing else to say.

"….Naruto?"

He was brought out of his daydream with a jolt. That last question was directed at him.

"What?" he said sheepishly.

"Why aren't you listening? You could learn valuable insights into your team mates," Kakashi chastised him.

Naruto couldn't believe that. When would he ever need to know about the time Sakura lost her favourite hairbrush? He remained unconvinced.

Ramen found its way back into his thoughts and his stomach began to grumble loudly. Was it time to eat yet?

Eventually Kakashi let them go with instructions to meet again the next day for their first training session. Excited, Naruto happily ignored the cold shoulder he received from his two team mates and went looking for food.


That night it happened again.

The creature was content with its victim. A woman of perhaps 40, with plenty of flesh on her. It didn't notice the two ANBU stationed on the roof above it, keeping watch.


Morning came and with it a growing sense of impeding doom. Naruto rolled out of bed and padded into the bathroom. At least this time he hadn't woken up on the other side of town.

Not for the first time, he wondered about his other self. Was it true? Did it really exist and take control in his sleep?

Frowning, he probed around in the back of his mind. He could feel a presence certainly, but it dodged his every effort to corner it. It wasn't an alien presence either. He remembered once his encounter with a mind jutsu. That had felt completely different. This was a part of him.

Frustrated he glared at himself in the mirror and blinked in confusion. He laughed as he realised he'd forgotten to put on the disguise jutsu. Turning to admire himself from every angle, he played around with his facial expressions. Pulling a variety of faces that put him in a much better mood.

In high spirits, he left his apartment to meet his team and begin his training.


The presence in the back of his mind stirred. If it had a physical form it would have yawned, stretched and blinked groggily as it looked around.


Kakashi was late again.

"Sorry, sorry! There was a small horse stuck in the second Hokage's nose."

They didn't question this. Soon they were set the task of walking up trees. This required considerable chakra control, which was unfortunate for Naruto. For the hundredth time he landed on his backside.

"C'mon idiot! You're going to let the team down at this rate!" said Sasuke.

Naruto grimaced. It seemed Kakashi had drilled him in the benefits of teamwork after they'd left yesterday and he was, if possible, even more annoying as a result.

Sakura had mastered the task within a couple of hours and was sat next to Kakashi, filing her nails. He was reading his little orange book. Neither were paying them any attention whatsoever.

In a valiant effort to reach the top, Sasuke was literally tearing holes in the bark of the tree and, as always, never quite managed it. If anything, Naruto was enjoying the other boy's failed attempts, despite his own failures. Just then, he succeeded in touching the very uppermost branch, far above anywhere Naruto had succeeded in reaching. It just wasn't fair!

He just couldn't seem to make the chakra do what he wanted. Every time he tried to direct it around his feet it was blocked by something. He tried again. He could almost hear a small sniggering in the back of his mind. It was laughing at him!

Furious now, Naruto almost let the disguise jutsu waver, but managed to steady it just in time. If it broke now, Sasuke would see what he really looked like. Not a conversation he was looking forward to.

He moulded his chakra again with such force that he started drawing in more than usual. All his stored emotions began to leak back in. All the hatred and fury and jealousy. The chakra took on the blood red colour and everything went red.


Kakashi was distracted from his book by an intense feeling of bloodlust. Suddenly on guard he cast around for the enemy. There was no-one around.

Frowning he checked on Sakura. She hadn't noticed it, though she huddled down a bit and rubbed an arm as though cold. Sasuke was still intent on mastering the task, determined not to fail in the first training session. He hadn't noticed it either.

It sent shivers up the jounin's spine. He hadn't felt something like this for a long time. But what could it possibly be?

Finally he looked across at Naruto.

The boy had his back to him, facing the tree he'd assigned to him, but his whole body was rigid. He stood still, unmoving and silent.

Kakashi slowly closed his precious book. This was not good.

Red chakra began to leak from the boy. Not. Good. At. All.

He stood carefully, storing the book in one of his pockets and pushed up the forehead protector to reveal his left eye. Using the sharingan, he immediately picked up on the enormous store of demon chakra around Naruto. It had seeped into every inch of skin and was picking apart the disguise jutsu he could now plainly see.

This was getting dangerous. He'd had no idea the boy could use that sort of power. 'Why didn't my superiors inform me? Perhaps they didn't know… no they must do…'

He had to get the other two out of harms way so he could concentrate on Naruto. Turning to Sakura, he put on a calm and unconcerned façade.

"Sakura," she looked up at him, "I think that will be all for now. Collect Sasuke and both of you take a break, we'll meet back here in a couple of hours."

He hoped he sounded convincing enough. Sakura nodded and happily skipped over to Sasuke's tree. Kakashi watched Naruto with one eye and mentally urged them to hurry. Already the boy was starting to lose control of his chakra. It surged and spiked randomly, creating currents that flowed in different directions and whipped the wind up around him. The grass beneath his feet was burnt to cinders and the very earth was beginning to char; evidence of the heat it was giving off.


Kyuubi was happy. He couldn't believe his luck, it was his turn and it wasn't even dark yet! He played a bit more with his chakra. To anyone it would seem undirected and out of control, but it wasn't. He enjoyed the chaos, the turmoil he could cause.

On the edge of his senses he perceived a movement. Someone was closing in on him from behind. A human.

He snarled quietly. He detested humans. They were vile, murderous, evil creatures. Even he wasn't that evil, despite being a demon and his love of destruction.

Fangs bared, he turned on the approaching human and unleashed a burst of raw chakra, hoping to eradicate the pest. It dodged and sped around to come at him again from the side.

Kyuubi braced himself. He didn't like the strange red eye with the little black dots. He'd seen it somewhere before, but for some reason the memory eluded him.

He gathered chakra again, ready for the next attack.


Kakashi was fast, but only just managed to avoid the blazing ball of demon chakra shot at him. The damn monster was shooting raw chakra at him now! The ball hit a tree and exploded into bits of burning wood that rained down on the forest floor.

Changing direction, he sprinted around to the boy's side, hoping to catch him off guard, but the demon-boy was ready. His sharingan picked up on the chakra gathering again inside of him.

Deciding on a course of action, he formed a ball of lightning in his hand. Chakra ball against chakra ball.

He didn't want to hurt Naruto, but there was very little he could do in these circumstances. He needed to calm him down and stop the flow of demon chakra. The best way to do that was to hit him in one of the main chakra coils, hopefully shock him enough to snap him out of this.

Throwing every last ounce of strength into his stride, he leapt at him, arm outstretched and sank the Chidori into Naruto's shoulder. Face to face now, it seemed as though time had slowed right down. He hung in the air, horrified at the expression on the young boy's face.

His eyes were glowing bright red and the pupils dilated to mere slits. His lips pulled right back from his teeth in a snarl. He barely looked human.

Soon time caught up with them again and the red chakra receded back into Naruto. The boy seemed frozen in shock and pain, and then slid into unconsciousness. Kakashi caught him and gently lowered him to the floor.

All traces of the blood thirst had gone from the atmosphere. He sighed with relief and looked around the clearing. There was a circle of damaged earth about 3 metres wide around where Naruto had been standing. The boy himself seemed remarkably unchanged, despite the level of burning chakra that had enveloped him just moments before. His shoulder would heal, and quickly too if what he'd been told was true. He hadn't hit him too hard, a few days in hospital and he'd be right as rain.

It was the other things which worried him. Where normal human ears should be, there were large furry orange-red fox ears. He rubbed his temple. This was getting out of hand. He would have to inform the Hokage of course.

He picked the boy up in his arms and carried him out of the forest.