Naruto stood stock still, waiting for Sasuke to make his move. His fingers twitched in anticipation. This was match number sixteen between him and Sasuke, and it was Naruto's chance to finally tie Sasuke in the standings. Sasuke had won the first six easy, but underestimated him the next three, and by then, Naruto had almost caught up to the genius of the Uchiha.

The setting was a training ground 32, a flat expanse of dirt and many patches of short, thick, coarse grass. It also happened to be the favorite training ground of everyone's favorite academy students. Then, Sasuke moved.

Naruto quickly adopted the Academy Standard taijutsu style, seeing as it was rather more... Defensive, the best word would be, than the style Kyu-sensei had been teaching him over the past two months. Sasuke lunged forward with a right hook, and Naruto blocked with his forearm.

Naruto really had to thank Sasuke for fixing up his taijutsu-apparently; his form was "so bad, a piece of Swiss cheese had less holes to exploit." Now, it wasn't anywhere CLOSE to perfect, but it sure as hell wasn't as bad as it was.

The black-haired student followed up with a roundhouse kick that Naruto ducked under. The Uzumaki quickly swung an uppercut at the Uchiha, but missed completely as Sasuke completed his rotation and bent down, moving directly into a low, sweeping kick. Naruto jumped over Sasuke and jabbed an elbow, cracking the dry ground where the Uchiha was not two seconds ago. Naruto felt his elbow pop, and then almost immediately it popped back into place without any prompting. Instant regeneration, gotta love it. It's just. So. AWESOME.

Sasuke had dodged by doing a somersault forward, but that put him off balance for just a moment. Naruto saw his chance. Immediately his entire form changed. The bulky, adaptable stances of the Academy Standard melted away as Naruto lunged forward at the speed of a B-rank genin, much faster than he should have been able to, seeing as he wasn't even a D-rank genin... Yet.

Sasuke's eyes widened right before Naruto planted his fist in his jaw. Sasuke stumbled backwards, but Naruto was already on him, combining side-strikes and hooks, uppercuts, and a variety of kicks, always moving forward, pushing Sasuke back.

The Demon Arts of taijutsu were designed specifically to resemble the attacking type of a devil, or of a being possessed. The relentless offense was what one would likely picture as anger incarnate; anger wasn't necessary to use it, but it did act as a loci to focus anger onto, thus making the user far more deadly when influenced by bloodlust-or so the Kyuubi said. Naruto hadn't actually been very angry when using it thus far, so he couldn't attest to that himself. The main drawback of this style was that it only worked effectively in one-on-one fights, as it left the user's guard wide-open to other attacks. The only reason it worked on its target at all even in one-on-one matches was because it never gave them time to recover. Using the style effectively required speed and stamina of the highest caliber, and to a lesser extend, power.

In some ways, Naruto thought, the Demon Style was a great equalizer. If he could master this style, it would boil the entire fight down to who had better basic ninja skills. It minimized the role of the thinking mind and maximized the role of primal instincts and muscle memory to win.

That didn't stop Sasuke from getting used to said style, though. He was the one who Naruto had LEARNED on. At first, Sasuke had been skeptical as to what a four-legged beast could possibly know about hand-to-hand combat, but it was apparently a lot. And what Naruto learned, Sasuke learned. He knew all the strengths and weaknesses if the style, and even had a rudimentary grasp of its usage, although he preferred the "obviously superior" style that was traditionally passed down by the Uchiha clan.

Then, a sandaled foot connected with his face and he flew back ten meters (about ten yards) before landing. On second thought, maybe I shouldn't underestimate him.

While Sasuke still disliked Naruto on a social level to the nth degree, it was becoming increasingly impossible for him to disregard his skill on the battlefield. In fact, he watched as Naruto turned himself from nothing to everything in two months. His progress was... Scary. For one boy to train that much, training so much it even made Sasuke green... It hit the Uchiha hard, right in the pride. So he buckled down and joined Naruto for more than just two practice sessions a week.

Of course, Sasuke knew that the Dobe was jacked up on demon juice half the time, healing all his fatigue and any injuries he sustained, so it wasn't as surprising as it could have been, but it was still unsettling to see the dead last loser as a taijutsu dynamo.

And taijutsu was just the tip of the iceberg; already the Kyuubi had taught them one basic jutsu of each of the five basic elements: a Doton that summoned a small wall of earth to use as cover, a Suiton that condensed water in the atmosphere into a whiplike form to swing at your enemy, a Katon that shot scores of embers at the opponent (Sasuke had laughed at that one, until Naruto roasted his ass with the rapid fire that wasn't afforded by the single-shot grand fireball), a Fuuton that basically redirected the wind towards your opponent, making it harder for them to move, and a Raiton that gave a shock on contact, paralyzing the enemy for that crucial second or two that it took to finish him.

Naruto had been less than impressed at the "lack of bad-assery" involved, until he took two weeks to learn the Raiton, which Sasuke had picked up on in less than an hour. The tables were turned when the Uchiha had taken an equivalent amount of time to learn the Doton. After that, the Kyuubi had announced their chakra affinities were Fuuton and Raiton, for Naruto and Sasuke respectively. Sasuke had raised an eyebrow-there hadn't been an Uchiha who wasn't Katon-natured in recorded history-but the evidence spoke for itself.

Learning the jutsu themselves were easy, but figuring out the hand seals that went with them was not. The Kyuubi, being a beast that could mould chakra just by thinking about it, didn't remember the seals very well, often giving descriptions of "Oh, there were two tiger seals and a dog somewhere in there. Definitely a rooster." After all, what use were hand seals when you jut molded chakra directly?

It made learning a measly five jutsu a chore-while it DID only take Sasuke an hour to actually go about learning the Raiton, he had first taken a day to figure out the correct hand seals to activate it. It slashed their progress immensely. Still, Sasuke was surprised how easy it was for him and Naruto to learn jutsus of different elements, and how quickly they did so. From what he had been taught, it was nigh impossible to use more than two or three elements effectively. When Sasuke had asked Naruto, he replied in what could only be a mockery of the Kyuubi's real voice: "Bah! Those idiots have no idea. It's harder, yes, but only if you don't keep yourself balanced early on. It will always be easier to use your affinity, and harder to use the element you're strong against, but as long as you don't over specialize at first, your body won't get used to producing only one or two types of chakra, and you'll have no trouble later on down the road." It had been highly amusing, from both sides-Although, Naruto had immediately doubled over, claiming a headache directly afterward.

Of course, the ease with which they learned the techniques were all mere upper D-rank. When they started learning stuff that was worth knowing, Sasuke had no doubt that it would take them up to a month per jutsu.

In addition to that, they had learned how to do the Academy three, but with a little twist. Those techniques, E-rank, were so basic, the Kyuubi was confident that even "low-life, puny mortal pests" could learn to do it without the seals. And they did. It had taken the rest of their ninjutsu training up to this point, but Sasuke could now do, seal-less and smokeless, the Kawarimi, Bunshin, and Henge.

Naruto even now still couldn't do the Bunshin technique, no matter how proficient he was at the other two. The Kyuubi had, after some rigorous chakra control training, determined that Naruto's chakra capacity was simply too big to do the normal clone technique, unless he made thousands at once. Naruto didn't see the problem with that, but Sasuke had (not very) patiently explained that a clone's purpose as a distraction wouldn't work if the swap was obvious; having a thousand clones was all very well, but when the target knew all of them were fake, he could rely on something other than his vision to avert the illusion. A clone didn't impact any of the senses except the visual, so any more than one or two would be useless, as it would make it easy to spot the real one with scent, hearing, etc.

Naruto still didn't understand, but Sasuke and the Kyuubi (although they never directly conversed) agreed that Naruto was too dense to understand strategy. In any case, the Kyuubi had Naruto slated to begin an alternate form of the technique that he had learned about from the Nidaime, during his tenure in the soul of one Mito Uzumaki, who Naruto was impatient to learn more about. It was called the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, and it was apparently so chakra-intensive, making one shadow clone was the same as making a hundred thousand normal clones-Which, for Naruto, was exactly what the doctor ordered.

All in all, their training was going quite well, if not somewhat slow. Sasuke had thought there would be more to it when he signed up, but it had only been two months. He'd stick with it for a while longer to see if the training picked up to include something more dangerous. Speaking of dangerous… Naruto jumped back and chuckled a bit.

A red haze descended over Naruto's skin, and Sasuke cursed. It was still a new technique that Naruto couldn't handle that well, but the Kyuubi's chakra was a fearsome tool. From what the Kyuubi told Sasuke through Naruto, what Naruto was able to handle right now without any ill side effects was about a fourth of a tail, but his tolerance for demonic chakra was rising quickly. Given another two months, he'd be able to hold an entire tail's worth with little effort at all.

Naruto was on him in an instant, grinning in a feral manner. The attacks came quickly, and each time, Sasuke was pushed to the limits of his speed to block. It was still possible, of course, the blond youth wasn't THAT strong or fast, after all, but the tables had definitely been turned. Sasuke thought that the Sharingan would definitely come in useful right about now, if only he were able to use it. It would render Naruto's advantage moot, but it wouldn't exactly make it possible to dominate the fight, as he could've without Naruto's tailed form, but it would have put Naruto at a slight-very slight-disadvantage. Right now, though, it was a struggle to block, let alone counterattack!

There! Sasuke suddenly saw a hole in Naruto's guard, and ducked under a lightning-fast strike, bringing up his arm to deflect the other punch upwards. Naruto stumbled back, and the Uchiha capitalized. Sasuke felt himself slip into the Demon Style, surprised at how easy it was to use anything that wasn't the Uchiha clan's specialty. He wasn't nearly as good with it as Naruto, but that didn't mean he couldn't use it. He did, after all, demand to learn everything Naruto did, and he wasn't about to let his taijutsu training go to waste.

It was good, he thought, as he slammed his fist into Naruto's abdomen, that he wasn't becoming overly specialized. An overly specialized ninja is a dead ninja, especially when still on the genin level when practically everything is a threat. If someone knew how to counter his family, he wasn't going to be helpless anymore. And the Academy Standard was a joke, really. Anyone could counter it-hell, they were even taught counters to it IN THEIR TAIJUTSU CLASSES. It was as if they wanted the style to be useless. The Academy standard was very defensive, with little to no offensive capabilities. It was more about staying alive than winning, and that was not ok.

In any case, Sasuke slammed the heel of his palm into Naruto's upper chest with finality, and he definitely heard a cracking noise, but it was faint. Naruto didn't exactly fly backwards as Sasuke had expected, but he did fall flat on his ass, and the red chakra amassed at the point of impact, healing the damage, before completely dissipating. Naruto stood slowly. "Damn, Sasuke, that was a good job. I thought I'd finally get the lead!"

Sasuke turned up his nose. "Hm. As if I'd ever let that happen. Like I said, even with an ancient demon, you can't stop me."

"He's got a point, brat. You need to learn how to use more of my chakra. Maybe get yourself to two tails before your third year at the Academy is over."

Naruto scowled inwardly, but grinned jokingly to his friend. "Yeah? Say that to my face, Teme!"

Sasuke played along and smiled, eyes closed. "I just did, Dobe." He opened his eyes, suddenly serious again. "So, the third year begins in four days. Ready?"

Naruto pumped his fist. "I'm excited as hell! No way anyone else can keep up with me now!"

Sasuke frowned. "Only problem is that you won't be able to use any of your new techniques. You said that you wanted to keep your training a secret? We're lucky no one's stumbled upon us already."

Naruto's grin faded quickly. He hadn't thought of that. Would he have to hide his skills forever? "Not forever, brat. Just until you're strong enough to beat down anyone who would try to stop you from training with me. Which shouldn't take more than a year or two. Even now, it'd probably be safe to tell the more tight-lipped of your brood-mates, although I wouldn't suggest doing that unless you're willing to make some threats to their health."

"What're you gonna do, Uzumaki? It's always possible that you take your place as the second best in the class."

Naruto, despite how much he wanted to listen to the fox, could not ignore his rivalry for the time being. "Who're you calling second best, huh?"

Sasuke crossed his arms. "Scoreboard," he said, referring to Naruto's current win-loss record.

Naruto growled. "Yeah? When the Academy comes back into session next week, we'll SEE who's second best!"

Sasuke waved a flippant hand. "Whatever, Dobe. I'll see you at the Academy." Sasuke left the boy alone with his fox.

The Kyuubi moaned in frustration. "Brat, this is exactly what we're trying to avoid! If you rise to the top, people will grow suspicious of you! You will be investigated!"

Naruto huffed"Kyu-sensei, why do you need to keep quiet? I still don't see the reasoning behind it! I mean, I'll keep our secret if you want me to, but…" He trailed off.

"Boy, imagine what it's like to be trapped in a cold, dark room. You cannot die. You can hardly move. You cannot even perceive the world around you unless someone else allows you to. You have no voice. You have no will. The most you can do is scream, and no one is listening." Naruto shuddered at the description. It was horribly discomforting.

But the Kyuubi wasn't done. "Then, someone comes along, four hundred years later, to your dark, dank prison cell. He doesn't let you out, no, but he carves a window in the wall, enough to let the light in. Enough to make you feel not free, but just a little closer."

Naruto realized that the Kyuubi was talking about himself. "Then, the jail warden comes along and finds that a window, a potential path for escape has opened up. He doesn't want the prisoner gone. He wants every avenue of escape closer off forever. He hates the prisoner's freedom. He fills in the window, but also replaces the prison bars, reinforces the walls, the entire jail is remodeled. Escape is farther than ever, and it's even worse because you had remembered what it's like to hear birds chirping."

Naruto felt moved. He couldn't think of what to say. He had never thought about it like that, but when it came down to it, the Kyuubi was telling the truth; he couldn't perceive anything beyond his prison cell in Naruto's soul unless he could get enough chakra out through that window that Naruto had carved by accepting the training. The Kyuubi was truly alone.

"Don't get the wrong idea, boy. I still hate your guts. You carry the key to my freedom, yet you refuse to use it. But you… You make my imprisonment slightly less unbearable. Slightly. Although, it's not enough to make up for this god-forsaken mindscape. A sewer, really? You couldn't have had a royal palace, filled with cushions?"

Naruto replied with a smile. "I thought it would be easier to bathe in." It was a joke, but the Kyuubi had set Naruto's mind running.

The Kyuubi sensed Naruto's spinning emotions, and snorted. "Don't think I care about you. It's like you're the fifth layer of hell, while if you get found out, I'd get sent to the eighth. If you give me the chance to do so without killing myself, I WILL kill you." Seeing that Naruto was too distracted to listen, the Kyuubi sighed. "Hey, brat, it's time to start your ancestry lessons."

Naruto's mind suddenly stopped its turmoil. "Really?"

The Kyuubi sent the impression of a head nodding. "I did promise you, didn't I? I imagine if I start back far enough in your lineage, we'll reach your parents by the day of your graduation, perhaps a little sooner or later."

"Ne, Kyu-sensei, that's not exactly fair! I don't care about some old crusty guy who's been dead for four centuries! I want to know about my close relatives!"

"But without background knowledge, what you learn otherwise will not carry the same weight. You want to know how you came to be? We will start as far back as we can, to paint the most accurate picture possible." Naruto protested, but the Kyuubi continued regardless. 'It all started when Ieyasu Senju, the great-great grandson of the Sage of Six Paths and your own great-times-ten grandfather, grew disgusted with the clash between the Uchiha and the Senju. He took his son, Hideyoshi, and founded Uzushiogakure. For the rest of the warring states period, it was nothing more than a massive clan compound, but Hideyoshi loved the place. In fact, it was the inspiration for the Hidden Villages of today. Without The Hidden Whirlpool, Konoha might not exist.

"Hideyoshi took the last name Uzumaki in order to better express his love for whirlpools, as well as to show how proficient he was in the usage of swirl-seals. He showed the world his prowess by creating the world's first Jinchuuriki: himself."

The fox paused to let the information dump process. "I have been with the Uzumaki clan ever since. If you want to know more, come to your mindscape. We'll talk there."

Naruto nodded, and sat in a meditative position, and closed his eyes. And he listened.

END OF CHAPTER

Sorry for the two-week delay, but I have a couple of good reasons. One is that this entire chapter is not part of the pre-written stuff I have prepared. When it came down to it, I was going to skip the chapter completely, but then after hearing so many people want to see the progression of Naruto's character, I decided that my original pre-written part was too much info-dump, not enough character progression. And reading over what I wrote, you guys were right; I thank you a lot for telling me what you did. I like this chapter.

The second reason is that my Internet has been acting wonky. ALL. MONTH. I can write stuff fine, but I can't upload anything. I can't even access Fanfiction. If you're reading this, of course, it means the problem's been resolved, but rest assured I've had this done for twelve days before posting.

The final reason, and the best, is that I'm a high school student, and exams were last week-that is, for those of you reading this in the future, the third week of December. For all of that week and the week before, I've been studying my butt off, hoping to not suck on my midterms.

I think the next chapter I post is going to be another thing that's not pre-written; I'm suddenly overcome by a desire to tell you at least SOMETHING that happens in Naruto's third year at the academy… Although, once again, if you think going ahead with other stuff is the better option, let me know and I'll consider it.

So, I'll have another chapter for you in two weeks, assuming I don't encounter any problems. I think I'll write one more chapter for character development to slot into the third year, before I continue with what I had written already.

Happy holidays to everyone!

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next chapter!