The Sharpness of an Edge

2 Years Later

For the next two years Naruto was trained by the Sandaime Hokage every day till he was exhausted to the bone. In these two years, Naruto's abilities as a Shinobi had grown far more than the Sandaime had hoped or thought possible. Now, the young jinchuuriki was able to make his own explosive tags and storage scrolls. His skills as a sealer had moved on from novice to intermediate. His ninjutsu arsenal had grown more than that of any genin's and the Hokage deemed that it was now time for him to learn some elemental manipulation because he was sure that with Naruto's mature chakra coils, he had developed one elemental affinity at least. His ability to predict attacks and his perception had also grown immensely since he could dodge almost all of Sarutobi's attacks even when he was using that massive Bo staff of his, and he has mastered all the basics of Gouken by none other than Maito Gai himself. His physical strength was far above kids his age, whether it was due to training or because he had inherited his mother's traits was hard to tell. What most surprised Sarutobi was Naruto's physical growth, he was short when he was five for boys his age, yet in the last two years he had grown more than a full foot in height now standing at exactly four feet seven inches tall.

Naruto was finishing his twelfth lap around the clearing in the forest when the Hokage walked in with Kakashi in tow. They were talking amongst themselves and it seemed that they were arguing about something because Kakashi kept insisting that there was no way that a seven year old had chakra coils with elemental affinity yet, but the Sandaime insisted that they still see whether he has developed even one, because his chakra reserves were now as vast as that of a low level Jounin. As Kakashi stopped to survey the clearing, his visible eye nearly popped out of his skull at seeing three Narutos meditating, while three more Narutos were walking up and down a tree, another three running around playing tag on the nearby small river, and the last three practicing target with various projectile weapons.

"Hey Jiji!" shouted the real Naruto as he finished his laps and headed over to where the two men were waiting for the young ninja.

"Hello Naruto, it looks like your training has brought some very impressive results," said the silver haired Jounin as he surveyed the clearing once more, just to make sure that he was not hallucinating before. "Do tell how you learned the Shadow Clone technique though?" inquired the former ANBU captain because he was sure it was one of the forbidden techniques of Konoha village.

"Ahh, I can answer that for you," said the Hokage. "I was trying to teach him the regular Clone technique but he kept applying too much chakra resulting in poor and sickly looking clones. So I asked him to make the seals for a shadow clone and he produced eight perfectly usable clones with chakra distributed equally among them, and he used them for a few hours but did not seem to be tired at all from using that many clones for such a long period. This gave me an idea, since clones' experiences and memories get transferred after the clone disperses to the original, he could accelerate his training exponentially, and that is what he is doing right now. Due to this his chakra control has become first class, his already vast chakra reserves have tripled, and he has been able to learn more jutsus than just the academy ones. Oh and his ability to use mass amounts of clones in coordinated attacks produce devastating results." Hearing the speech from the Sandaime, Kakashi pouted inwardly. Hiruzen had never taught him all this stuff when the Yondaime's apprentice was seven; in fact the third had showed his dislike towards the White Fang's legacy quite openly for some unknown reasons. Naruto gave him a toothy grin before turning back to his teacher.

"So wha'cha gonna teach me today sensei, or are you going to be teaching me Kakashi sensei?" he asked excitedly because the Sandaime had told him that he might learn a new jutsu if everything went according to the Hokage's plans.

"We will get to that a little bit later, I want you to do something for me first," said the Hokage before looking at Kakashi meaningfully. The Jounin sighed exaggeratedly but pulled out a plain looking square piece of paper and handed it to Naruto. "Now, I want you to insert a little bit of your chakra into this paper to see if you have developed any elemental affinities." Naruto shrugged but did as he was told. Instantly the paper split in two before one half became wet and soppy while the other burst into red hot flames. With a yelp Naruto let go of the flaming half, not understanding why the paper did what it did. When he looked at the two grownups for answers, he was surprised because Kakashi looked like he was ready to wet his pants while the Sandaime just looked on tiredly. Nothing about the young jinchuuriki surprised him anymore, but still, three affinities at the age of seven? Unheard of in all the elemental nations, as far as the Sandaime knew.

"Say, what do you make of that Kakashi?" asked the Sandaime proudly though it also said 'told you so'.

"Umm, how do I cannot believe this is happening sound to you?" replied the stunned Jounin in an awed voice making the Sandaime chuckle.

"Good answer, but how the heck does he have two secondary affinities? It does not make sense," muttered the old man which Kakashi did not miss. In fact he had a theory as to why the blonde might have an affinity towards a third element.

"You do remember that many of the Fox's attacks were fire based right?" asked Kakashi as the Sandaime's head snapped up in comprehension. "Well the seal allows a little of the Fox's chakra to constantly mix with his own, as a result his coils must have…generated an affinity towards the fire element," theorized the masked Jounin.

"Genius," breathed the Sandaime in wonder and Kakashi could only agree silently, yes it was no doubt that Minato Namikaze was a genius.

"Oi who is a genius?" asked Naruto irritated at being completely ignored by the other two.

"Nobody Naruto," said the Sandaime hurriedly before continuing more calmly. "Well it looks like you get to learn more than just one jutsu eh?" said the Sandaime with a smile as Naruto's mouth opened a little bit and his eyes got glazed over.

"Hey, hey, are you all right?" asked Kakashi concerned about the boy's sudden loss of words and more importantly the vacant look that came over his eyes. The Sandaime chuckled; he was used to this behavior by now.

"Oh don't worry Kakashi; he gets like this whenever he hears that he is going to learn new jutsus," clarified the Hokage making the Jounin sweat drop.

"But why?" asked the Jounin clearly confused by the unorthodox behavior of the blonde boy.

"Because for some unknown reason Naruto finds training to be fun," replied the Sandaime.

"Oh dear," muttered the silver haired man as he was clearly seeing the traits of his Sensei's wife in the boy. It was not considered a good thing that she loved training as much as she loved Minato; and it understandably always put his sensei in a bad mood whenever he was reminded of that little fact about his girlfriend and then later his wife.

"Well it's good to see that the training is paying off quite well, he seems to be growing faster than I thought given his height when he was younger," said the Jounin, he could already tell that the boy was going to be taller than his father, probably because he had also inherited his mother's genes as far as height was concerned. Minato Namikaze was exactly six feet tall, while Kushina stood at five feet and ten inches, impressive height for any woman in Konoha. If the young blonde had inherited his mother's genes for height he might just become a big man like Jiraiya or that Raikage (Kakashi hoped it was not the latter). Naruto finally snapped out of his trance like state and looked at the Sandaime.

"Oh yes it was surprising indeed at the sudden growth spurt that we observed after my daughter-in-law set a strict diet plan for Naruto. The boy was quite malnourished, and given his infatuation with Ramen it was not surprising that his growth was stunted, but still it was surprising that the boy could grow this much in such a short time," agreed the Hokage though he knew more than anyone just how long the last two years had been for him being the young Uzumaki's first sensei.

"Well what are the names of the jutsus I will be learning?" he demanded as he realized that he was being ignored again.

"Oh yeah, Kakashi can you give him the scrolls," asked the Sandaime and the Jounin pulled out three scrolls from the inside of his dark leaf colored vest.

"In each scroll there are two jutsus from each element that you have an affinity for. These jutsus will help you increase your control on your elemental chakra as well as give you something that is easily stronger than any regular D-level jutsus. But be careful, they can also harm you if you do not take caution while practicing these," lectured Kakashi as he handed the scrolls to the blue-eyed ninja.

"So sensei, which one first?" asked Naruto as he turned to look at Hiruzen excitedly. Who cringed slightly, he knew Naruto was going to give him a good berating when he said that he won't be able to train him for the rest of the day.

"Well you see Naruto, I will not be able to train you today," said the Sandaime, waiting for the blonde in front of him to burst.

"WHAT WHY?" shouted the jinchuuriki as expected and the Hokage sighed, but at least he had a good reason.

"Well the council has put up a huge meeting that will take most of the day and then there is your test that is coming up later today," reminded the Hokage because he was sure that the young blonde had probably forgotten all about it.

"Oh yeah, I have to take that dumb test today," muttered Naruto as he remembered his sensei had told him about it only the day before yesterday.

"Be present at the council chamber at four and don't be late," said the Hokage and got an impatient nod from the blonde boy. If he was having a free day, he might as well have fun that did not involve training, but he needed to clarify it with his sensei, or he would get punished severely. The last time he decided to go into the village without taking any cover, the Sandaime was furious with him and had made it clear that he was not to show himself to the villagers until he was old enough to go to the academy, and that was not before he turned twelve years old.

"Hey, hey is it okay for me to go to the village? I promise I will be careful and not show myself to anyone," said the blonde with a pleading look in his eyes, and for some reason his blue eyes were three times their original size and his foxy face became more and more like a lost puppy's.

"Oh alright but make sure to stay out of the villagers' eyes," said the Sandaime with a sigh, it wasn't like he could deny Naruto anything if he made that face anyways.

"ALRIGHT!" shouted the blue-eyed mass of energy happily jumping around while the two older shinobis sweat dropped. Sometimes they forgot that no matter how experienced Naruto was at being a shinobi, he was still only a seven year old.

"I will be leaving then Naruto," said the Sandaime and got a distracted nod from his pupil.

"Later then Naruto," called Kakashi and then both the Ninjas sushined out of the happy blonde's sight.

"Hmm, I have to learn that neat trick," muttered Naruto, and decided that he will talk about it to his sensei later. With that he quickly took to the trees heading towards the village, now that he thought about it, he hadn't been inside the village for nearly two years, not while the sun was up anyways. Since Naruto was told that he couldn't go into the village during day time, Naruto had made the forest his play ground and had come to know the place and its inhabitants quite well. Naturally the animals have also learned of the blonde and many held respect because for one so little, the young human held a lot of ferocity that impressed even the fiercest of beasts in the forest, while many animals had learned the hard way not to ever make the blonde get mad at them. Naruto finally reached the outskirts of Konoha proper and observed the village silently from his spot at the tree. Yes the village indeed was beautiful when the sun was shining upon it, as everything looked brighter, pure, and livelier than Naruto had seen the village in a long time.

IN THE HOKAGE TOWER

"So Kakashi what did you want to talk to me about, it is unusual for you to actually accompany me when I go to see Naruto, what made you change your mind today?" asked the Sandaime, mildly interested in Kakashi's answer, knowing his connection to the blonde because of Minato.

"What do you mean?" asked Kakashi a little self consciously, had his little ploy to see Naruto's growth was already caught?

"Do not intend to play around with me young man," said the Hokage in a stern voice before continuing back in a normal tone. "You could have just as easily given me one of your elemental affinity papers and the scrolls when I asked you to come along but unlike the other times, this time you barely pit up a fight. I want to know what made you want to come and visit Naruto this time while you tenuously argued the other times that I asked you to accompany me to see my young pupil."

"Fine, you got me," said Kakashi with a sigh as he plopped down heavily in one of the chairs facing the Hokage. "Yes, I wanted to see Naruto because till now I have been avoiding my past but I knew that one day I will have to come to terms with it. Since that mission, I have never been able to forgive myself. Not for Obito, not for Rin, not for Minato sensei, and definitely not for Kushina nee-chan." The silver-haired nin stopped for a minute and for once Hiruzen was looking at the same scared eleven-year old boy rather than the strong and aloof former ANBU captain, one of the most famous and renowned Jounins of Konohagakure. "But after seeing the way Naruto used to handle being shunned and alienated by villagers and never losing his smile, I always wondered how he was able to keep that smile through all that pain, it was quite clear how he felt in his eyes but he tried his best to never show it. Now I know that he never really cared what people thought about him, he only cared about how he could give others what he never got. I finally figured out the answer to my question and it made me realize just how big of a coward I was, and just how strong the boy is and one day will become with the right guidance."

Inwardly, it seemed that a heavy weight had been lifted off the Sandaime's shoulders upon hearing such words coming from Kakashi Hatake. Even though Sarutobi had tried to make Kakashi realize that it was not his fault that his sensei, and the one he considered to be his older sister, had left the world, he still thought that if he was there, he would have at least been able to save at least one member of his family. After the death of Sakumo Hatake, Minato and Kushina had taken him in, given him a family and anything but adopted him as their elder son. It was understandable that he would take losing his family once more quite hard, but to blame it on himself, must have been much harder than Hiruzen thought. "I have told you before and I am telling you again Kakashi, it was not your fault that Rin and Obito are dead, and it is not your fault that you were not in the village when the Kyuubi got released. I know that Minato and Kushina would not have named you and Jiraiya as guardians of everything they had, including Naruto until he came of age, had they not loved you and that perverted student of mine had they not considered you both as family." Kakashi nodded, Minato-sensei always thought of the old pervert like a father, why the hell did he leave was still a mystery to the silver haired Jounin, but he knew that Jiraiya-sama had his reasons and it was not his place to question the great Sannin.

"Have you heard anything from Jiraiya-sama?" asked the masked Jounin. "You know he is legally Naruto's guardian now, I wonder what they will do to him once he goes over to the other side for ignoring Naruto and disregarding their last wishes so blatantly." Even the Sandaime shivered at the thought of the combined wrath of the Yellow-Flash and the Red Habanero.

"No I haven't heard anything from him in a long while. If Jiraiya had not given thought to that, he is a greater fool than I ever was," replied the Sandaime as a small smirk crossed his face. It had been nearly seven years since he had last spoken to Jiraiya or heard from him, not after Minato's funeral.

"Well, you are his sensei, I want to hear from you how much exactly Naruto has improved in the last two years?" asked Kakashi curiously, the boy's incredibly large chakra reserves and his infinite amounts of stamina could make him very strong at a young age.

"His acuity in ninjutsu and taijutsu is very good, and due to the fact that he is an Uzumaki and a Namikaze, his body is built both for power and speed. He received the best genes from both sides of his family and with the Kyuubi inside him; his healing rate is off the charts." Hiruzen said and smiled when he revealed the Kyuubi's effects of high healing and recovery rate.

"Hmm, no wonder Gai is so enthusiastic with Naruto. He says that he had never met a taijutsu genius as amazing as Naruto to have mastered all the basics of his Gouken style in only a year, and to top that off, he is teaching Naruto two of his most famous moves, the advanced techniques of Konoha Whirlwind (Senpuu) and all the forms of Lotus," said Kakashi making the Sandaime sit up straighter in his chair.

"I hope he hasn't been teaching the boy to open his gates?" asked Hiruzen in a dead serious voice, a jinchuuriki should never open all their gates.

"Hokage-sama, Gai might be over-enthusiastic and maybe dense at times but he is no fool. He knows the restrictions that a jinchuuriki always faces plus he knows that Naruto is only seven, nobody in their right mind will teach a seven year old how to open their chakra gates," said Kakashi, assuring the Hokage that he had not made a negative choice when he appointed the spandex clad Jounin as a teacher for Naruto. "So what are your plans for the boy next? His Fuuinjutsu skills are quite impressive, are you going to work on that along with elemental chakra or are you going to focus more on taijutsu because his aptitude for that is beyond amazing?"

"Oh I do not intend to slow down on the boy, not by a long shot," assured the Hokage making the Jounin snap his eyes open. "Yes Kakashi, I am going to expand his jutsu arsenal with elemental techniques, and his Fuuinjutsu practice is going to go on because he understands fuuinjutsu quite well. His taijutsu is also something I am going to work on. Up until now he only knows the basics of Gouken and his perception for oncoming attacks is quite good since he can dodge almost everything I throw at him, so I am going to teach him to return the moves that he has been dodging for so long…" Sarutobi would have continued but stopped when Kakashi held his hand up.

"Exactly what moves have you been teaching the boy to dodge?" asked Kakashi, he knew that dodging attacks is very important for a ninja but if one can dodge just about any attacks then he is more suited to become an assassin or an ANBU rather than a regular ninja.

"Everything I could think of," replied the Hokage making the Jounin sweat-drop.

"Can you elaborate a little Hokage-sama?"

"Well I have throwing ninjutsu, taijutsu, and combinations of both at the boy and he has become an expert at anticipating and dodging most of them. I have also been using Frog Katas, and Monkey Fist Katas to teach him how to dodge both subtle and powerful attacks. Now I am going to teach him the basics of both and go from there. I know that I am a master at both the Frog Katas and the Monkey Fist so I should be able to make Naruto quite good at each. I have also asked Hayate to help out with his perception training a few times and Naruto is able to dodge most of his strikes unless he uses one of his chakra infused moves that he calls 'dances'," replied the Hokage.

Kakashi's only thoughts at that were "Dear Kami, I am lucky I did not get this slave driver as my sensei." After regaining his composure enough to trust his voice, he asked the Hokage his last question regarding Naruto. "How strong is he?"

"Accumulating all his skills and his chakra reserves he is standing at Chuunin level, quite a feat if you ask me only at the age of seven. But I am going to make him better than that by the time he is ready for graduation at the academy. Oh, and Kakashi, I want you to teach Naruto stealth, espionage and assassination techniques after he turns nine." Hiruzen stated more than asked but still the Jounin nodded, it would be nice to have a young and energetic blonde at the ANBU HQ rather than just masked shinobis who barely talked unless they needed to, and it was driving Tenzo up the wall that he was the squad leader of the worst group possible.

KONOHA CENTRAL PARK

Naruto was in a tree hiding as usual as he looked at the many children that were his age, younger and older all playing in groups at the park. It made him feel a little jealous that all these people had so many friends while he had none but their smiles and joyful faces always made him forget his own worries and just observe the nice atmosphere that the park had. The blonde, quietly but swiftly jumped to the next tree bringing him closer to the park and then after another jump he was inside. Nobody had noticed him so he continued to observe until his sharp hearing picked up soft sobs coming from a nearby tree. He quickly went to investigate and found a…pink haired girl? He had never seen anyone with that kind of bright pink hair but that was not what caught his attention. It was the fact that she was sitting there alone and crying. He was about to jump down and ask her what was bothering her when he saw three guys walking towards her.

"Huh, maybe they want to play with her," thought the blonde as he stayed in the position he was hiding in on the tree. But after seeing them, the girl shrank back even farther, her eyes darting this way and that as if looking for the quickest way to escape but the boys were already upon her, so she just gave up and hung her head low, trying to hide he forehead as much as possible.

"Hey look it's the girl with the huge forehead," called one of them as he pointed at her and laughed.

"Yeah, it's so huge one could use it as a board for a presentation," said another as all three howled with laughter. How could they not see that they were hurting the girl with their comments? Naruto was about to jump down to make them realize just how much they were hurting her when one of the boys cried out in pain clutching the back of his head. The other two boys whirled around to see a blonde girl staring at them with an angry frown on her face, and she was tossing another pebble with her right hand.

"What did you do that for?" asked one of the boys as he pointed at his hurt friend.

"Why did he start teasing that girl for?" replied the blonde angrily.

"Because she has a big forehead," replied the other boy as if that was a good enough reason to tease another person.

"Yeah, well your friend has a huge nose and I did not like it so I threw a stone at him," said the blonde girl, playing their own game on them.

"Wha…no he doesn't!" replied the boy furiously as he defended his friend who looked hurt more by the girl's comment than the pebble she had thrown.

"And I say that my friend over there does not have a big forehead," she said just as vehemently and the crying girl's head snapped up, her forest green eyes wide. "And if you say one worse thing to her, I will throw even more stones at you." Naruto was impressed at the blonde girl's bravado at the face of danger. There she was defending her friend against three boys that were bigger and looked much meaner than her, yes she deserved some applause for that alright. The boys looked at each other before they backed off from the blonde cautiously.

"Whatever," said one of them before the three of them ran off away from the scary blonde girl.

"So," said the blonde as she walked to the pink haired girl and sat down next to her.

"Why?" asked the green eyed girl as she looked at her blonde haired savior.

"Why what?" asked the other girl slightly confused.

"Why did you tell them that I did not have a huge forehead? I obviously have a very big and ugly forehead," she said as more tears welled up in her eyes before sliding down her already tear stained cheeks.

"I don't think so," said her companion in a small voice, but to her it meant so much more.

"Really?" asked the pinkette as a little hope blossomed in her at the words of the attractive blonde girl.

"Of course!" she replied enthusiastically as she gave a huge grin that made a small smile come to the tormented girl's face.

"My name is Sakura, what's yours?" she asked shyly as she looked at her new friend.

"Ino Yamanaka," she replied in a confident voice.

"Whoa, they didn't even know each other and still that Ino girl drove those bullies away?" thought Naruto as the respect he was already holding for the electric-blue eyed girl rose even more.

"Wanna be friends?" asked Ino as she extended her pinky towards Sakura, who wrapped her own pinky around it.

"Yes, best friends!" she said with a bigger smile.

"You know, you shouldn't hide your forehead with your hair, it makes it look all messy and uncared for," pointed out Ino making Sakura blush a little in embarrassment.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly.

"No worries," said the blonde haired girl brightly as she pulled out a red ribbon from the pocket of her pants. She quickly tied it around Sakura's hair, as she fixed her new friend's hair so that it did not spill all over her forehead. "There, now you look a lot better."

"Thanks," said Sakura earnestly before both girls smiled at each other broadly. Yes they were going to be good friends no matter what. As the girls got up to leave, Ino looked up as she had a sudden feeling that someone was up there. When she did, all she saw were a pair of sparkling dark blue eyes. As their eyes locked, Ino gave a soft smile. She had no idea why she smiled but it seemed like the right thing to do. Naruto scratched his head confused.

KONOHA COUNCIL CHAMBER AT 4:00 PM

The Konoha council convened again as was scheduled exactly two years ago when the council had said that they wanted to test the young jinchuuriki's progress under the Sandaime Hokage as his apprentice before making his title official. They had invited two proctors in the test as well. One was a new and quite popular teacher known as Hiraki and the other was Iruka Umino, who had gained his reputation as one of the harshest graders in any test were also in the council room waiting for the Sandaime Hokage. As the four tolls were sounded that alerted the current members that it was time for them to begin the council meeting, the Hokage strode into the room. He was followed by four ANBU, Kakashi Hatake, Maito Gai, and the newly promoted Jounin Kurenai Yuuhi.

"Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure, today we have convened here in this meeting to test your apprentice and see if he is as capable a shinobi as we had hoped for him to become under your guidance," said Homura Mitokado before retaking his seat. The Sandaime nodded as he stood up.

"I too hope that you can see the growth of my apprentice as a respectable shinobi under my guidance. I also hope he meets all the requirements that he is requested today by our most eligible academy instructors present here," the Hokage retook his seat. With a wave of his hand the guards at the door opened the council chamber's doors to permit a seven year old boy into the room. He was impressively built for someone for who is only seven years old.

"Damn that boy is going to become a lady killer," muttered Chouza next to Inoichi while his two friends chuckled at his comment. Yes, the boy was tall for his age, quite lean and athletic. His golden hair which was a tad bit taller which suited him perfectly and his dark blue eyes still held the sparkling quality which showed his mischievous and care free nature all too clearly. The whisker marks on his face were lighter but still very much noticeable because they seemed to have grown with his face. His sleeveless orange t-shirt showed off his defined arms quite well, and his dark cargo pants made a killer combination with the muted shade of orange.

"I just hope he does not meet my daughter anytime soon," said Inoichi in a low voice which elicited more laughter from his friends.

"But why?" asked Shikaku playfully. "They would look great together. Don't you think so Chouza?"

"Indeed, they look like they were made for each other," replied Chouza and they both chuckled when they heard the grinding sound that was coming from Inoichi's mouth as his jaw muscles seemed to be clenching and unclenching rapidly.

"Hello Naruto how was your day?" asked Iruka as Naruto marched up to the instructor's table and waited patiently for them to tell him what to do.

"Awesome, Iruka sensei! How was yours?" asked Naruto with a big grin.

"Busy as usual," replied the academy instructor.

"Okay, your first test will involve your skills with targets. As you can see we have three shurikens on this table, and you can also see the targets to your right. Take your aim from twenty feet of distance and try to his as close to the bulls-eye as possible," said Hiraki as he slid the three shurikens on his desk forwards towards Naruto. The blonde swept them off the desk and threw them in one swift motion; without even looking at the targets, but each had hit their targets dead in the bulls eye mark all right. The civilian side gasped while all the clan head nodded impressed at the blonde's skill with targets. He had shot all the projectiles from more than twenty five feet and he got it bang on.

"Impressive," muttered Inoichi and his friends agreed whole heartedly.

"Next we will test your genjutsu skills. We only test for the basic Transformation (Henge) technique," said Iruka.

"Who do you want me turn into," asked Naruto.

"Anyone in this room will be fine."

"Transformation technique!" said Naruto and was quickly engulfed in smoke before there stood the exact replica of the old war hawk Danzo Shimura wrappings and all, but there was one small difference. Instead of the regular robes that the cane wielding shinobi usually wore, Naruto was wearing a pair of gym shorts, a sleeveless white t-shirt and had the expression of utmost boredom on his face. It was all, most of the clan members could do to not laugh openly, but the civilian members were not so graceful and many of them got a good laugh out of this including the Sandaime Hokage, though he was smiling quietly.

"What is the meaning of this Hiruzen?" said the old war hawk in his grating voice but the anger behind it was so clear that all forms of amusement and laughter instantly died. The room fell in deadly silence as everyone looked expectantly at the Hokage for an answer.

"What is your meaning?" asked the Hokage innocently, but he knew he was only making his old teammate angrier than he was, and that usually was never a good idea but he couldn't help it. It was too tempting, and he hadn't had any good fun with his old friends for far too long.

"Tell your apprentice to stop this foolish and disrespectful behavior at once," demanded Danzo as he pointed at his replica with the cane.

"Ahh, but he is only doing what he was asked to do," replied Sarutobi just as innocently.

"Yes but that behavior defeats the purpose of the test. If he intends to turn into someone, their clothes and outwards appearance is very important when trying to fool their enemy's eyes. In this case anyone can easily discern that even though he might look like the delegate Danzo from Konoha, he definitely does not wear clothes like a teenager. Therefore they will easily be able to detect that this person is not me and won't at all be fooled by the attempted deception," countered the war hawk and his reasoning held much weight making the Hokage realize that his student might end up failing the test and gave his apprentice a meaningful look which he immediately understood. With another poof of smoke there stood the old war hawk this time with the same robes, the same blank and expressionless face, and the cane that he always carried with him.

"Very good Naruto, now onto the next part, the ninjutsu section," said Iruka hurriedly. "In this part, we test for two jutsus. The Replacement technique and the Clone technique, so let's get on with it."

Naruto nodded and made the hand seals rapidly and there were ten perfect clones standing next to them with lopsided grins on all of their faces. "Yep, he is the third's pupil alright," said Shikaku in a voice that said he-is-too-damn-good-hands-down. Then the clones all dispersed and Naruto performed the replacement technique with an empty chair perfectly.

"Impressive Naruto, that was undoubtedly one of the best displays of the Replacement technique I have seen," said Hiraki with a warm smile and Iruka agreed, the boy's skills were undeniable. "Now let us see your taijutsu." A man carried a moderately large and thick stump made of wood into the room. He placed it in front of Naruto before leaving.

"Naruto, we would like to see your hand to hand combat skills, you can perform all the moves that you know on this stump and we will decide how good your taijutsu is depending on the moves you use. Don't worry, that stump won't move at all, a binding technique has been placed on it," said Iruka and Naruto nodded in understanding before facing the wooden post once more. "Ready…start!" The blonde did something quite unexpected. He just cocked his arm back like he was going to give the stump his hardest punch, and that's exactly what he did, yet the results were very different from what most in the council chamber were expecting. With a loud rapport the top half of the stump exploded out showering everything in the room that was close to the boy with shrapnel and splinters. Many jaws hit the floor at the simple display of raw strength.

"Yosh Naruto, what a youthful punch!" shouted Gai ecstatically. The boy just gave a large grin as he stood there picking splinters off his arm like it was no big deal that he broke a solid wooden stump in half.

"Chouza, please tell me I am dreaming," said Shikaku as he blinked rapidly, but his large friend just shook his head.

"What I want to know is how Hokage-sama hardened that boy up so much. I know Ino would have thrown a tantrum if she had even got a prick on her arm, and here he is just picking off pieces of wood off his arm like they are just a minor inconvenience!" said Inoichi, his tone almost complaining.

"Uhh, do we pass him?" asked Iruka uncertainly but smiled when he heard two affirmatives.

"Absolutely," said two voices simultaneously. It was Chouza, patriarch of the Akimichi clan, and Tsume, matriarch of the Inuzuka clan. Both the clans were taijutsu experts so no one could really deny the boy's skill as far as hand-to-hand techniques were considered. "Even our pups that can perform the clan's Fang techniques aren't as effective as his punch was against that wooden stump," replied Tsume in her rich deep voice and her nin-dog barked in agreement.

"Well, in that case Naruto passes, and by the looks of it with extremely high marks!" said Iruka with a bright smile as he looked at the young blonde ninja in front of him, whom he had come to like very much over the past couple years.

"So does this mean that he can remain my apprentice?" asked the Sandaime Hokage as he stood up and addressed the whole council room. Choruses of 'yes' rose from most of the clan-heads with the exception of only Haishi Hyuuga, but no answer came from the civilian part of the council as they started whispering and discussing the matter among themselves. Finally after a long discussion Koharu stood up.

"It seems," she said in a grudging voice "that after discussing the issue thoroughly, we have come to the decision that the progress of Uzumaki Naruto has been undeniable as a shinobi and therefore he is now the official apprentice to our esteemed Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi." Her declaration brought quite a few smiles from the people present in the room and a very loud "Yosh, what youthful display of love in teacher and student!"

The meeting after that wrapped up very quickly and in a few minutes Naruto and Hokage were on their way back towards the Hokage tower. The young blonde had been promised ramen for dinner today, and the Hokage knew that he had earned it. "So sensei, I have a question for you," said the blonde as he happily jumped over the rooftops towards the Hokage tower. He and his teacher were nothing more than indistinguishable blurs.

"Hmm, what's that Naruto?" asked the Sandaime.

"Why are girls so weird?" Hiruzen stumbled but caught himself before falling.

So you guys must be going like 'overpowered much?' Hell yeah, Naruto is a beast in my story and he will only get stronger, but still it shouldn't be that much of a stretch because by the time he is twelve his chakra reserves were twice the size of Kakashi's. Just a heads up there. But don't worry I don't intend to make the other shinobis weak either. You will understand my meaning once you read the next few chapters. Next chapter will be after a massive time skip, and the story is actually going to start from there. One question, what do you guys feel like when you picture Naruto and Kubiriki Bocho (Zabuza's sword) together? Let me know, majority vote wins. Ideas will be taken into account and any critical reviews will be welcome.

Thanks,

Tanneal.