Chapter 4

After an additional fortnight, the bridge was finished, being named the Great Bridge of Hi no Kuni, which would make the Daimyo very happy at both the name and extra trade.

The five returned to Konoha, four of the group conversing happily as the other was an outcast amongst them for failing the mission his team had been sent out to undertake. Naruto didn't mind the silence; however he was worried about the consequences of what would happen once his report was submitted alongside Kakashi's to his 'father' who would take this as another failure of his.

"Team 7 you did a good job, kept a cool head and obeyed my instructions, go and take a break you're dismissed for now, meet up tomorrow at the regular time and place."

The trio of Genin nodded, separating afterwards to go home and relax, sprouting off a tale about their awesome mission, needing no exaggeration about what had happened seeing as how dangerous it was.

Kakashi turned to the remaining 'Genin' looking at him condescendingly, hiding the suspicion within him at seeing Naruto collect the blood of the two missing nin during the mission and using a kinjutsu to do so.

"Naruto come with me, you must give a report on what happened before I arrived," the Jounin slowly made his way to the Hokage Tower, taking into account Naruto's slow pace and inability to travel quickly.

After they had arrived and made their way past the receptionist, a muted "Enter" came when Kakashi knocked on the door to his sensei's office. What awaited Naruto were chips of ice staring straight at him, allowing no reprieve from the unflinching stare of his 'father'.

"I will hear your report in a moment Kakashi-kun but I want a clear picture of what happened from the very beginning and from your preliminary report Naruto will know everything," Minato relented for a moment and gave a soft, kind look to his only remaining student.

"Genin, report."

Ice gazed at him once more, no emotions or worry present within their depths. Naruto returned the stare with the same eyes as he gave his report in a clipped tone of voice, revealing none of his emotions.

Afterwards the Yondaime asked Kakashi for his report in a softer tone of voice, asking questions along the way and praising the man for taking out the missing nin, also checking on the status of his daughter and Sasuke who had taken their first kill.

"Very well then Kakashi I shall talk with Natsumi today and visit the Uchiha later on, hopefully my words will somewhat calm them. You may remain as I decide Naruto's punishment."

"Hai sensei," the Elite Jounin turned his eyes towards Naruto, plunging the room into a stale silence, the tension rising like a coiled snake about to spring.

"You went on a mission which had clearly gone above your own level, endangering the civilian you were assigned to protect just for the sake of your own damn ego, you shame our village and the principles we were founded upon, the Will of Fire. You then disobeyed a direct order from a superior who had ordered you to stay with the civilian family, what if more of Gato's men had come to take the two after the first two had been killed? It would have caused the mission to be failed as a direct result of your stupidity! For this you will not be allowed to do anything except D-ranks for a period of 6 months, after which your case will be reviewed. Even after this you will only be allowed to go on a C-rank if you are with an Elite Jounin and their team. Furthermore you not be given the opportunity to become a Chunin for a minimum of four years.

"Finally I want the scroll with the evidence you killed the Demon Brothers now and I will hand over the bounty for said missing nins to Team 7 seeing as you aren't deserving of it after your foolish decisions. Now get out of my sight!"

With that order the seething boy exited the room, fuming at the ridiculously unjust punishment for what, continuing with the mission as his sensei had ordered, for nearly dying after fighting for his life?

On top of that the man had taken his bounty away from him, denying what was so rightfully his after his team had killed the former Chunins, not Kakashi's greenhorns.

As Naruto left the Hokage's office, Minato slumped in his chair, raising his hand to his forehead as a weary sigh left his lips, "Where did I go wrong with that boy Kakashi-kun? Sometimes it's as if he isn't even Kushina and I's child, he simply has none of our talent for anything. No matter, with this punishment I won't have to worry about him for a few more years and I can concentrate on Natsumi again, her training takes priority considering the destiny she has to fulfil."

"I agree Minato-sensei, there is little else you can do with Naruto and Natsumi-chan's training is more important. However I have something more disturbing to add to my report."

Minato sat up straight in his chair at hearing Kakashi's unsure and sharp voice, anything which could disturb a veteran ANBU and S-rank shinobi was nothing to half-heartedly listen to.

"What is it Kakashi?"

"At the end of the mission as I was listening to the report given to me by Sasuke and Natsumi, Naruto formed a kage bunshin and took some blood from both Zabuza and his accomplice, Haku."

A frown marred the Yondaime's normally smooth face as he began to speak his thoughts out aloud, "A kage bunshin? But the boy doesn't have the reserves for such an advanced technique, he can barely perform the kawarimi last I looked and how did he even learn that technique in the first place, surely that sensei of theirs didn't teach them the technique?

"Why would Naruto want their blood? What could he even do with it? I don't have the time nor the resources to do an in-depth investigation of the boy for now, too much trouble with Rice and this shadowy organisation that Jiraiya-sensei is trying to find more about. Kakashi I want you to keep an eye out for any suspicious activities that Naruto undertakes as will I but the boy really can't do all that much with blood from two people, although the kage bunshin worries me slightly, we'll confront him when times are less tense."

Kakashi nodded at his sensei to acknowledge the informal command and headed back home to rest after the excursion to Wave.


Naruto sped to Training Ground 23 in a blind rage and released all of his anger on the environment around him, pummelling everything into dust using his taijutsu and nothing else, practising for hours as the blur of anger began to subside after hitting something for so long.

After many hours Naruto slumped down in defeat which left his mind wondering on the events that had transpired.

He found that he was genuinely sad for the death of his sensei and comrades, they were nice individuals and good shinobi who had never bothered him or asked about his past. Naruto held the most respect for Kage who knew he was the son of the man he resented but had just treated him as another reject like himself.

The True Uzumaki vowed to fulfil his sensei's final wish, to achieve his ambition of becoming greater than any other shinobi in existence. To do this he would immediately work on his fuuinjutsu whilst he continued training in his other skills so that by the time the Chunin Exams for everyone else came along, he would be a low Jounin level opponent with his current skills.

As such Naruto only engaged in solo D-ranks and training for the next few weeks until the Chunin Exams. Said training was gruelling, leaving Naruto completely exhausted as he trained the innate abilities he had absorbed to their fullest potential, enabling Naruto to call himself a solid Tokubetsu Jounin in terms of ability.

However just two months before the Chunin Exams Naruto had the biggest breakthrough in fuuinjutsu that had been made in decades, if not centuries.

He had managed to merge two bloodlines together.

Naruto discovered that bloodlines were primarily made of raw Yang chakra and therefore was breathing more life into a form which already had it and was unable to hold even more life within itself, it resulted in the breakdown of the DNA itself. However if one supplied the body with huge amounts of Yin chakra, giving form which said life could merge into, making imagination into reality, it allowed the body to accommodate multiple bloodlines, although you would be left weakened for a couple of weeks as your body adjusted to these pure expressions of chakra.

He conducted further tests, checking for any decomposing of the body tissue or other side effects, but nothing happened, the cells remained stable.

So it came to pass that Naruto once more returned to the genjutsu hidden house in the red light district. He had carved seals across the training grounds of Konoha which picked up any excess Yin chakra, a task which he had been forced to devote a week's worth of Kage Bunshin to, channelling it into reservoirs of said chakra that Naruto had created to accumulate it in preparation for this day.

Naruto once more sat in the centre of a cacophony of seals which were even more intricate than before, connecting to the reservoirs of Yin chakra to feed into his body as he absorbed the bloodline of Haku.

Naruto began drinking the blood of Haku, activating the seals and hoping for the best as the moment of truth came to pass.

Pain, Naruto knew of it, experienced it every time he grafted new abilities onto himself but he nevertheless had grown used to it. This was a whole new level of pain as his body fought against the new chakra and what it was trying to implant into him, Yin chakra coursing into his body and combining itself with the Yang chakra that represented the bloodline.

Here came the crucial part, for Naruto had to take part in the process he created, he had to force the Yin chakra to obey his wishes to force reality to combine two incompatible bloodlines into a body that wasn't naturally meant to contain it. If his concentration faltered for even a moment, even with the agony that was coursing his body, Naruto would go insane from said pain and would soon die, his chakra system rupturing with the yang influx coming from a second bloodline.

Naruto's will took shape, slowly making the Yin chakra that was attached to the Hyoton chakra merge with the rest of his chakra, mixing the two and then spreading said mixture throughout his body.

The process took a long time and Naruto felt a variety of weird sensations that he figured came with the assimilation of Hyoton. His body felt as if it was being sliced to pieces and then drowned before it finally felt as if an arctic tundra had made its residence within his veins, but after hours of it Naruto finally felt the pain subside so that he could open his eyes. His body was stuck on the floor, he didn't have enough strength to move and would remain on the floor of the abandoned house for the rest of the day, sleeping.

When he woke up the next day, the blond-haired child was ravenous and pigged out with a huge breakfast at Yakiniku Q's. Afterwards he slowly made his way to his own training grounds, his desire to see if his experiment worked too great to allow his body to heal completely.

Naruto had no real idea as to how to form Hyoton chakra, but knew it involved the usage of both wind and water chakras, although said ability should come somewhat naturally to him now.

Naruto formed the ram sign to help focus his chakra and mixed the chakras of wind and water together in a way that felt natural. It exhausted Naruto, who fell to the floor because his body was still so weak after conducting this experiment on himself, but in the middle of his hand lay a shard of ice that had been formed by him.

Naruto gazed at it in wonder and accomplishment, knowing he had surpassed his ancestors and could mix any bloodlines he wished together, giving him access to powers far beyond anyone else.

But firstly Naruto would train in the powers he had to advance to a level beyond his peers, including his sister and her pathetic rival, Sasuke. He made a new goal to make himself a mid-level Jounin in skill by the time these exams came around and would continue advancing so that he would never feel the humiliation of being so scared by someone like Zabuza ever again.

Naruto returned to his training for the next month and a half, advancing both his genjutsu and ninjutsu abilities to that of an advanced Jounin, the latter due in major part to the blood of Zabuza which helped to enhance his body even further than what it had previously been at, granting Naruto an increase in strength as well as his new bloodline which gave him access to unique jutsu that he could utilize and implement into battle plans. Naruto paid particular attention to both his base speed and reaction speed, having had his eyes opened by both Zabuza's and Kakashi's speed he now knew that a huge factor in all shinobi battles was the speed with which you could move or react to an opponent's attack. Hence why the blonde outcast applied special gravity seals to his body which he only took off when he went to sleep. Naruto's other abilities were that of a 'normal' but not 'experienced' or advanced Jounin.


On the day of the Chunin Exams, Naruto began his day like any other, completing some D-ranks and then disappearing off to his own training grounds to make it look as though he was participating in his daily routine.

But once Naruto had reached Training Ground 23 he used the hidden seals he had implanted within the academy to determine what actually happened in said exam. To be frank he was disappointed at the level of competency required to become a Chunin, not being able to count floors and seeing a basic genjutsu, this was Genin stuff.

Naruto was just as disappointed with Ibiki Morino, Konoha's resident torture specialist whose exam only consisted of spying on each other without being obvious and getting caught, Naruto was somewhat surprised at how many idiots actually failed at this point.

He was impressed with the psychological attack Ibiki placed on the Genin with the 'tenth' question, a test of leadership and courage to forge on into the unknown, a worthy test at last.

Naruto held no reaction for the eccentric entrance of Anko Mitarashi, but did react when he realised that they would be going to Training Ground 44, aptly named 'The Forest of Death', a place where he didn't have any seals to listen to the exams going on in there and thus could not find out any more about the exams.

Naruto cursed at his bad fortune, he never placed seals in the Training Grounds because despite how small they were, there was a tendency for them to be destroyed and it wasn't worth constantly creating and setting up new ones. Shielding the other seal with another one would make them detectable, meaning it wasn't a viable option for him.

Naruto decided to focus on his own training once more, hoping that this day would be the one where his kage bunshin would finally crack the secret to the eighth level of True Uzumaki sealing, i.e. being able to use dead tissue samples for bloodline grafting. This was not to simply advance his skills to the next level and become arguably the greatest fuuinjutsu master in existence, but also a part of a new plan he had been constructing.

Naruto theorised that with the influx of foreign shinobi and dignitaries in the Chunin Exam Finals, which he knew was a series of one-on-one fights, there would be a decrease of guards in particular areas to provide more security and support in other areas which would be more critical to protect at this time. Therefore the guard detail around the Hokage's tombs would perhaps be lessened to one or two ANBU, potentially allowing Naruto to slip by them and obtain what he needed, skin from each of the dead Kages.

Naruto could not afford to waste such a valuable resource, the things he could obtain from the dead shinobi made him shiver in anticipation. Sarutobi Hiruzen would greatly increase his affinity to all of the elements, Senju Tobirama would provide Naruto with a godlike suiton affinity which he could make use of, particularly for his Hyoton techniques. But the crème de la crème was Senju Hashirama, a man who would not only grant him a godlike doton affinity in addition to his suiton, but would also bestow upon him the legendary Mokuton bloodline, said to be the second strongest bloodline of all time, just below the Rinnegan itself.

If Naruto could claim this bloodline for himself he would be virtually impossible to stop once he had mastered it like the Shodaime had. Naruto had also hypothesised that he would gain what he called the 'True Senju' body, something which would grant him the perfect chakra control of the Senju, a body even stronger than his current Uzumaki one so he could handle even larger amounts of chakra and a predisposition towards using nature chakra.

Yes he had only recently found out about nature chakra and senjutsu, a unique ability to use the chakra of the very world around him to enhance his own capabilities. This was detailed in Uzumaki history scrolls which appeared alongside the next level of sealing, he had access to nearly all of the scrolls regarding the Uchiha and Senju now, which he had gotten when he became a level 7 True Uzumaki sealing master. However there was one scroll left detailing history left for him according to the most recent scroll he had read, which speculated on the origins of not only the Uzumaki, but also those of the Uchiha, Senju and even Hyuuga clans, insinuating that they all had a common ancestor. Naruto assumed he would get this final history scroll once he had mastered the transference of bloodlines via dead material.

The very thought of such a reward like using senjutsu thrilled the boy who was currently practising his taijutsu under the next level of his gravity seals to further enhance his body's strength. His taijutsu was at a good Jounin level now, primarily attributed to his mother's Uzumaki body and the speed obtained from his recent training and more importantly his father's chakra.

This also reflected in the style of his taijutsu, able to hit hard but at great speed, never committing himself too much into a strike as Uzumaki were wont to do because their body could take any hits in return.

The next day Naruto started his normal routine until he got an alarm from his fuuinjutsu tag in the Hokage's office.

See Naruto had placed a secondary function into his listening seals, they could also detect the intent and levels of chakra within the room it was in, thus telling Naruto how people were in the room, whether they had been in combat recently and give some idea as to their state of mind at that particular moment in time.

Well Naruto had a burning which indicated agitated/hostile emotions and multiple chakra signatures, lots of them. Naruto began to listen in to the conversation that was happening in the Hokage's office.

"-reports Orochimaru has infiltrated the Chunin Exams. Team 7 was able to hold him off but was ultimately defeated by him, Anko arrived just after having sent a message to inform you Hokage-sama."

"Reinforce all of Konoha's boundaries, I want eyes everywhere to find him and his accomplices. We changed the barrier seal so he either has his own way of getting in or is more likely to have someone informing him of how to get past it. Send out a general order to all shinobi about this, minimal guarding on everywhere that is non-essential.

"Send a message to Tsunade and Jiraiya to await Kushina and I at the tower in the centre of the forest, we shall see what damage Orochimaru has done. Kami help me but if I interfere with the exams Team 7 will be disqualified or I'll be accused of favouritism."

"Natsumi had better be alright or I'll make you wish you were never born Namikaze."

Naruto heard some shuffling, a crackle and then nothing.

So Orochimaru had infiltrated the exams, attacked Team 7, either for Sasuke or Natsumi and had escaped, causing a mass panic and all shinobi to be directed to… essential areas from non-essential areas. Non-essential areas like the Hokage's tomb, making a skeleton crew guard it?

'Perfect, this is the best opportunity for me to gain access to the tombs undetected as any deaths will be attributed to Orochimaru allowing me to get away scot free.'

Naruto dropped everything he was doing, heading for the location of the Hokage's tombs which he had discovered some time ago now after he had overheard a conversation on them through his seals in the Hokage's office when Jiraiya, Tsunade and Minato were contemplating visiting their bodies out of nostalgia one night.

For even though there was a grave dedicated to each of the Hokage in the massive cemetery that Konoha had, these were only 'public' graves which didn't actually contain he bodies of these legendary shinobi. No, their graves were located in a well concealed and innocuous looking training ground which had a powerful genjutsu shielding it, multiple fuuinjutsu seals drawn up by Mito Uzumaki originally and added to by Kushina and Minato and finally had a full squad of four ANBU guarding it normally.

Yet due to this crisis only one, recently inducted ANBU remained, as all the more experienced ones were out looking for the Snake Sannin, wary that Orochimaru might try to gain some of the secrets of Konoha or learn of the more recent updates to their barriers so that he could later infiltrate Konoha as he wished.

Unfortunately for this ANBU not only was Naruto able to bypass the genjutsu through gratuitous use of fuuinjutsu seals instead of detectable chakra, Naruto found the fuuinjutsu seals applied around the area to be child's play to disable without being detected by the ANBU. Even if Mito Uzumaki had been hailed as the greatest fuuinjutsu master the world had seen, she was merely a public figure and had never learnt the secrets which the True Uzumaki held, as such she was a novice in their eyes.

So the ANBU did not expect anyone to have gotten close enough use two very recognisable golden chains which emerged from the ground and penetrated straight through his body into his heart and head.

"I may not like using their techniques, but I must admit that they are merely tools for me to obtain what I want. Very useful tools if they let me kill ANBU undetected."

Naruto felt no remorse for killing the ANBU, a fellow shinobi of the leaf for the Yondaime's son had long since lost any respect for the village and its inhabitants, he cared not for them and if they were obstacles to his goals for the future he would remove them. He had isolated himself enough from others since the incident regarding Mizuki and the deaths of his comrades during the mission to Nami no Kuni that he now held no loyalty for the village or anybody within it seeing as how his team had been treated with such indifference in regards to their deaths.

The blonde genius dispelled the remaining genjutsu and then proceeded into a tunnel which was long and narrow, making its way deep into the earth. Naruto finally found himself in a large hall that was reminiscent of a catacomb.

There were sconces with torches in ready to be lit and once Naruto had done so he looked at the large epitaph which was a central feature of the hall, it read:

Here lie those brave leaders who have given their all for country, village and the people.

Here lie the Hokage who have devoted and sacrificed their lives so that Konoha and its inhabitants may live on.

May you as their successor forever follow in their footsteps and protect the next generation.

May the Will of Fire forever burn brightly within you!

Naruto scoffed at what was upon the tablet, writing it off as mere ideological doctrine for future Hokages to swallow and enslave themselves to. He quickly disregarded the tablet looking for the prizes he sought, the tombs of the three Hokage.

They were not hard to find as each tomb was grand, clearly illustrating that these were the first Hokage of the village and thus the most important. Each one had a statue depicting the Hokage in question in their prime, presenting a strong image for future generations to admire.

Again Naruto ignored it all, disabling the fuuinjutsu protections laid upon the graves and gaining access to the carcasses within.

The Sandaime had already decayed significantly after a decade since he last drew breath. Nevertheless Naruto easily retrieved a skin sample from the man as he had not lost too much to decay at this point in time.

The Nidaime however was significantly worse off with only a few small patches of skin remaining on his body, the rest having decayed after nearly half a century since his death, still the blonde obtained the samples he needed for later use.

In the Shodaime's grave Naruto could only gape in surprise seeing as how the body had decayed relatively little after so long. He hypothesised that it was because Hashirama possessed the True Senju body, meaning his connection with nature was strong enough to last even into death and thus preserve his body for a far longer period of time than normal. Naruto made sure to take plenty of samples from the Shodaime for later experimentation.

The True Uzumaki was ecstatic at his desecration of the Hokage's bodies, already attempting to calculate how much this would push his plans forwards, particularly Hashirama's cells whilst he made his exit.

Yet just as Naruto emerged from the tomb he froze in his tracks as he felt a powerful and malevolent chakra enter his senses. From the shadows emerged a man with very pale white skin and yellow eyes that contained a slit pupil. There was no mistaking it, Orochimaru of the Sannin had arrived.

Naruto had never felt more fear, he knew just how powerful this man was, he could feel it in the air as a crushing amount of killing intent descended upon him yet Orochimaru showed no signs that he was emitting this oppressing feeling. Zabuza felt like a kitten now compared to the monster that stood before him and was examining him like a curiosity he would love to dig into.

"Well what do we have here, the little-known son of the Yondaime it seems, Naruto-kun is it? How delightful that you already killed the ANBU here for me and disabled all the traps, but I must wonder why you are delving into the Hokage tombs hmm? Tsk, tsk you're being a naughty boy Naruto-kun and I should punish you for such disobedience shouldn't I?"

The killing intent rose even further, forcing Naruto onto his knees with his head bowed to the thing before him as he stalked closer to Naruto, licking his lips as he neared the boy, speaking in a mere whisper.

"I really should punish you, get revenge for your father taking the position which was rightfully mine but I doubt the man would care if anything happened to you and I am very interested in what you are doing so I suppose I'll leave you alone for now Naruto-kun. But we'll be meeting again, I'll make sure of that Naruto-kun, kukukuku."

With that ominous statement the man disappeared completely to Naruto, both physically and from his senses. He stayed for a few moments, sweating as he wondered if it was a trick or the man had really let Naruto go with just a warning as he also recovered from the presence the man had exuded which affected Naruto so.

After a little longer Naruto quickly went his own way so that he wasn't seen by either Orochimaru or the shinobi trying to find the man. He fled to his training ground, sitting in a meditative position once he reached the area and contemplated what had just happened between himself and Orochimaru.

He once again cursed his own weakness but what disturbed him more was the implication that he would once more see the snake in the future for the specific purpose of finding out what he was up to. He did not know 'when' in the future this may be, meaning Naruto had to prepare himself for his next encounter with the Sannin.

These worries were soon replaced by giddiness as Naruto basked in his achievement, deciding to forego any training for the rest of the day in order to experiment with this new and unique material so that he might finally become a recognised level 8 sealing master, therefore gaining access to the last of the Uzumaki scrolls.

This obsession would extend for the next few days as Naruto locked himself away with his experiments to concentrate on using dead matter to revive bloodlines. That wasn't to say he completely neglected his training Naruto was far too smart to do such a foolish thing so he had kage bunshin work on his fuuinjutsu, elemental techniques and bloodlines as he trained in his taijutsu. In addition to this Naruto had one kage bunshin monitoring his seals at all times, as a result he learnt what happened in the Forest of Death.

Not only had Orochimaru attacked Team 7, he had applied a curse mark to Sasuke which had been sealed completely by Minato, Kushina and Jiraiya who together deciphered and eliminated it. The boy had protested because of the strength he felt that he gained from it, when he was told that the seal actually weakened him overall as it stunted his growth so he wouldn't become too powerful for Orochimaru to control, Sasuke lost all objections to its removal.

Those who passed the second stage were then forced to go through a preliminary round as there were too many of them. The blonde took little notice of the matches and was only interested in the last match between the one called Gaara and Rock Lee.

It appeared that Lee was well on his way to becoming a great taijutsu user just like his sensei but had been crippled by his opponent Gaara. Thankfully Tsunade had patched the fledgling taijutsu expert with her legendary healing skills. Still Gaara had peaked Naruto's interest, the boy had the most unique ability to manipulate sand as both a brilliant defensive and offensive weapon.

What was fascinating was something that he overheard from a conversation in the Hokage's office, the boy was the Jinchuuriki of the Ichibi. No wonder he had such an affinity for sand, the Bijuu would naturally grant its host something to defend itself with.

The True Uzumaki had long since had a fascination with the Bijuu and their origins; he knew that the Uzumaki scroll contained more information although it seemed that this information was contained in the level 8 section of the scrolls, presumably to stop any amateurs from attempting something and bringing knowledge of the True Uzumaki being reborn to the rest of the world.

This only made Naruto even more determined to access this final level within the month that he had until the Chunin Exam Finals, another titbit he had learned from his kage bunshin. A month should be more than enough for him to enhance his fuuinjutsu skills and then graft the bloodlines he had gained into his body.


Author's Notes

Regarding the Cursed Seal: I feel that with the survival of the Uchiha, they would have pushed Minato for a solution to the seal on Sasuke. With a combination of Minato, a fuuinjutsu genius, Kushina, who is experienced in sealing herself and comes from a clan who has developed seals which are essentially contracts with Gods and Jiraiya, an experienced fuuinjutsu master who also has insight into the twisted mind of his teammate; I feel that they would be able to develop a counter, hence why Sasuke has had the Cursed Seal removed (and consequently Anko as well although I haven't specified this).

This is not to say the seal no longer matters, there are of course other individuals who have the seal and others who Orochimaru may place it on should they become his subordinates. So until next time, Ja ne!