Author's Note: hopefully it will satisfy the readers who are screaming at me to update this fic. Geez guys, no need to threaten me to update this fic. I like reading fanfiction more than writing it, you know. Happy Easter, guys. This chapter is my gift for you all.

Part Twenty One

After spending the day for training in the forest, Naruto went to a small creek for a bath. No bathhouse allowed him service and even if there was any none of them wouldn't accept the giant two tailed fox that was following him. Personally Naruto felt that it was too troublesome to threaten the owner to use onsen when he could take a bath privately in nature. You had to love his fire ability. Within minutes, the water in the small creek was as hot as in onsen and no one else was within sight. Naruto and Kibi dipped into the warm water. Naruto sighed in contentment, while the fox was purring.

The Kyuubi vessel amused himself by controlling the water around him. One mini water version Naruto was beating his teammates and jounin. Mini Sakura was crying as mini Naruto cut her hair. Another scene showed mini Naruto cackling as he burned Sasuke's clothes that had Uchiha fan on them. Mini Sasuke was begging him to stop it, but instead Mini Naruto moved to burn his Uchiha library. The real Naruto was grinning.

Mini Sasuke then changed into Mini Kakashi who was begging Naruto to stop throwing away his porn book from the cliff. Kibi's eyes eyed the movement before he bit Mini Kakashi curiously, which immediately turned back into water.

"Awww," Naruto pouted and glared at the guilty looking fox. The boy flicked Kibi's wet nose. The fox whined in protest.

It was 2 days after the preliminary was over and he saw none of other combatants nearby…well actually not really. He saw Hatake just kidnapped a sleeping Uchiha and brought him to God-Knows-Where this morning. He wondered if the jounin had drugged the boy or something because the boy didn't react at all being carried away like a doll. He bet that he would be so shocked to find himself not in his room, but somewhere else when he woke up. That thought made him chuckle.

He sniffed the air when he smell roasted meet nearby. Apparently his clones had finished hunting and prepared for his food. The joy of having big chakra reserve and kage bunshin…you had someone to cater your needs without complaint. From its smell he knew that the meal would be ready soon. His mouth watered.

"Come on, Kibi. Dinner is almost done," he called the fox that was still playing in the water, as he changed. The two tailed fox yipped before it emerged from the warm water reluctantly. It shook off its body to dry its fur and followed its master to where its master's clones were preparing dinner.

Naruto stopped eating and his fox was growling, as it turned to a tree. A figure emerged from behind the tree. It was a big old man, younger than sandaime, with long white hair. Naruto didn't say anything, but went back to eat. Since Naruto ignored him, the fox went back to eat as well, but kept its wary eyes on the man. The man, in turn, watched it warily. Suddenly his stomach growled and he looked at the meat Naruto was eating sheepishly.

"Eh he heh, sorry kid. Seems like I'm hungry." Naruto didn't say anything. "Uh…" he started awkwardly. "Aren't you going to offer me something?"

This time Naruto turned. "And pray to tell me, why should I?"

"Oh come on, kid, be compassionate," the fox and Naruto simultaneously snorted.

"There is no 'compassionate' in my book. If you're hungry, go to restaurant inside the city. It isn't that far," Naruto knew who he was. Jiraiya, The Toad Hermit, one of Konoha Sannin, Sandaime's student and also the teacher of the late yondaime, the man his father was apprenticed under. The man had never met him before, even knowing who he was, so why the sudden interest? He wasn't there when he needed him.

"Aw, come on, kid," he whined.

"Don't call me 'kid'! And cut the crap!" he snarled. Jiraiya took a step back, wondering what he had done to deserve his anger. Unknown to him, it wasn't because of what he had done, but what he hadn't done. Reacting to its master anger, the male fox stood to its real intimidating height and growled low, baring its teeth. "What do you want? Don't tell me that dear father of mine put you into this," he spat.

"You know who your father was?" Jiraiya asked in shock.

"Of course. Had known it since I was 7 years old. I'd be blind not to realize it. Imagine my surprise when I realized that my idol was actually my father and that he was the reason why I was hated and treated like a trash. I needed 3 days just to snap out of my shock."

"…So you also know about it," he said sadly.

"The fox? Oh yes, I am," Naruto said, calmer. "So let me ask you this question once again: What do you want? I doubt you come here just to visit me after all these years."

"I have made a promise to your father," told Jiraiya.

"You're 12 years too late for that," he sneered. "Come on, Kibi. You can take the leftover, I don't care," Naruto turned away.

"Wait, don't you want to surpass your father?" the boy stopped walking.

"Already on that way. It won't be long before I surpass him on my own. Your help is unneeded."

"You can be a frog summoner, kid!" the white haired man called up.

"Already have a fox contract. Don't need another summon." Jiraiya felt like tearing his hair. He sighed before he took a small scroll and threw it to Naruto's back. The blonde ninja caught it without looking.

"I made a promise to your father and I intend to follow it through. You don't want my help? Fine. That scroll is intended for you. Inside is your father's notes about his prized techniques, like rasengan and hiraishin, and some notes about new other techniques he was trying to concoct. Whether you learn it or not is up to you. I'm just a courier," Jiraiya plopped down the ground and ate the leftover meat, which was half the boar meat.

Naruto had half the mind to throw the scroll, but stopped short. He wondered Konoha's reaction when they saw him, their hated scapegoat, using their beloved yondaime's technique. Perhaps there was a benefit learning these techniques. Inside him, Kyuubi agreed. If anything it would be interesting to see their reaction.

Naruto vanished from Jiraiya's sight without saying anything.

"Man, that kid was difficult. Not even Arashi was this difficult," he complained.

"That's because the boy was jaded already. He simply doesn't believe on others," Sandaime stepped out of shadow and lit his pipe. "The future of Konoha doesn't seem to be bright," he exhaled the smoke, as he stared at the full moon in the sky.

Jiraiya snorted. "That's the understatement of the year. Let's just hope that Konoha will still stand by the time the danger comes to pass. Btw, your report about the kid was incorrect. He seemed more world-weary than what you had told me."

"Well, I'd like to give him some credits. As it is, it is a miracle that he's still sane…relatively sane anyway. And he hasn't gone on rampage like Itachi…yet."

"…You're not sure, aren't you?" the old Hokage sighed. "Do you think it's wise to give that scroll to him?"

"It's his heritage. It was his in the first place. And I'm hoping that it'll placate his anger to Konoha and Arashi somewhat."

"Seems like a futile attempt to me," the Icha Icha author shrugged.

"Funny, that's the same line you told me when you were talking about Arashi when you first taught him. And he became Hokage in the end" sandaime smiled.

"Hey, I'm not a miracle worker. And it was thanks to Arashi himself he achieved that rank. Naruto has more potential than Arashi, but at the same time he holds more anger and hate. I doubt that whatever method I used on Arashi will work on him."

"Well, it seems like we can only pray for the best then."

"…That doesn't sound very assuring."

"No one says it does," sandaime's shoulder sagged. Both ninjas sighed.

0-0 0-0 0-0

It was a week after he met Jiraiya and was given the scroll. The only thing he had mastered so far was rasengan. He simply didn't have the right seal knowledge to attempt hiraishin and he had no time to make new techniques from his father's notes at the moment. Naruto was trying to perfect his father's rasengan. According to his note, he had failed to include element to the technique and so that was what Naruto currently attempting.

The principle was rotation. He was using wind element because it was easier to rotate among all elements, with water being the close second. Right now Naruto was trying to increase the number of rotations it had. His chakra control training, manipulating water strings really helped him. And fortunately wind was his affinity, so there was no problem there.

"…It looks like a giant shuriken," he commented, panting as he looked at the variation of rasengan he had made, 5 days after he mastered rasengan. It was a bother to maintain the thing though. "But it still can't be thrown. Damnit all to hell!" he cursed, before he hit a nearby tree with it. He was alarmed when there was a big explosion that hurled his body away, and his hand HURTS! "God damnit!" he yelled when he saw the bleeding meat that was supposed to be his right hand. To his shock, the wound healed rather slowly although the amount of chakra Kyuubi pumped into it was the same.

Naruto then turned to the blown tree and was shocked to find a huge crater behind said tree. "Don't tell me that it's just another super powered rasengan!" he groaned. He already had super rasengan by using Kyuubi's chakra (AN: and for the sake of simplicity I will use the name oodama rasengan for this). He prickled the tree splinters with his healthy hand and found to his shock that the splinter turned into ashes by a simple touch. "Woah…okay, maybe not so another super powered rasengan," he muttered.

A quick visit to hospital and death threats later, the terrified doctor showed him the result of the test a day later. The skin of his right hand was still red and tender, but at least it didn't look like hungry wolves had chew on it.

"My cells are destroyed?" he mumbled in disbelieve. "Damn, guess that version of rasengan is truly on another level." It was a good technique, but there were disadvantages. It was a double edged technique though whoever received it got the most damage. It also couldn't be thrown despite it looked like a shuriken ball. And its huge size allowed his opponent to see it. Not to mention it was hell to maintain. "So the winds practically slashed the cells. That made it hell to heal and would kill any ninja without high regeneration like me. That's an advantage." Naruto put rasen shuriken under 'last move/suicidal technique' list. "There has to be a way to protect my arm, but how?" Naruto frowned.

Naruto tried to use kage bunshin to do the technique. He poured more chakra to the clone. Unfortunately the clone dissolved after it created rasen shuriken. Apparently the technique was killing off the cells of the clone just by holding it. It was only after Naruto used seals to enforce the clone, did it manage to hold it down for barely 5 seconds before it dissolved.

"Damn, that take a lot chakra to make," he grumbled. It would be better off using normal rasengan several times than creating an enforced kage bunshin to make 5 seconds rasen shuriken. "Well, I did use wind for this, maybe wind is also my answer."

He needed another week to get the answer and even then it wasn't perfect yet. The first idea was to form a wind shield around his arm to cancel off the effect of rasen shuriken. That was easier said than done. It was really difficult to rotate wind and chakra in 2 different parts of arm. And Naruto was more used using fire than wind. It seemed like he would be forced to train his wind control. He used up his final week to train his wind affinity, hoping that he wouldn't need much effort and chakra to control rasen shuriken by the time of the exam.

Two days before the last exam started, sandaime approached him. Naruto trained outside his seeing range, so he couldn't use his crystal ball to spy on his training. Jiraiya only got glimpses of his training and he couldn't come closer without alerting Naruto or his fox, but his white haired student was sure that Naruto had mastered rasengan, much to their shock and delight. He wondered whether Naruto managed to improve rasengan's ability. The report that he had gotten from the doctor that Naruto had threatened was a bit worrying. He had talked about the destroyed cells to his colleges and none of them had ever seen injury like that.

"How far are you in mastering rasengan?" he asked Naruto who was having a blast creating wind blades and tearing down the forest.

Naruto didn't say anything, but rather showed him by making the swirling ball in his left hand under 5 seconds. "It was easy to follow his instruction," he admitted grudgingly. Although he was still bitter against his father, he had to respect his prowess as ninja.

"How long did you spend to master it?"

"Five days," there was a sharp gasp from Hokage's mouth.

"That's impressive. Jiraiya needed 3 months to master it and even then it was under Arashi's guidance."

"His chakra control sucks, that's why," Naruto snorted. "And he wasn't used controlling chakra in its raw form. It was easy to do once you understood its principles."

"Am I to assume that your chakra control is good? I'm under the impression that with chakra reserve as big as yours, it will be harder to control."

"I spent half of my entire training for chakra control. I already knew my weakness; there was no way I'm just leaving it like that. So why are you here? I thought you are busy."

"Just going for a fresh air," he shrugged.

"I hope you're not using me as an excuse to escape your paperwork," Naruto rolled his eyes when the old man looked away sheepishly.

"Actually there are other reasons. I want to see how far you are with the scroll. Have you taken a look at other techniques on it?"

"There is only one other finished technique there and that's hiraishin. Unfortunately my current knowledge of seal won't let me go that far yet. I'm planning to learn it after I'm outside Konoha."

"Ah yes…about that," he started. "My student, Jiraiya, brought me news about an organization of S-class missing-nins that are interested with bijuus such as the one sealed inside you. My former student, Orochimaru, was once a member of that group. There is also Uchiha Itachi, Sasuke's older brother, there."

"If you're trying to convince me to stay here, just forget it," Naruto cut off.

"Well, I hope that you'll stay here, but I know you won't agree to it."

"Understatement of the year," Naruto leaned against a tree.

"Anyway, that's just a warning. This way you won't be taken by surprise by them."

"Thanks for the warning…I guess."

"I'd also like to ask a favor from you," the blond raised an eyebrow. "One of the Leaf-nins, Yakushi Kabuto, is apparently a spy. He had approached Sasuke who was with Kakashi at the time. He disappeared afterwards, but there is possibility he'll still enter the tournament."

"You want me to eliminate him?" he grinned predatorily.

Sarutobi coughed. "I am hoping that you'll capture him, so Ibiki can interrogate him. This is his folder."

Naruto accepted and opened the folder. He raised an eyebrow. "High cell regeneration as a bloodline limit?"

"And he's a medic-nin too, so he can use his bloodline more efficiently. A good one apparently. You saw how he cut Rock Lee's tendons. That was a professional work."

"Interesting," he wondered how Kabuto would fare against his rasengan and perhaps even rasen shuriken.

"Just remember that the objective is to capture him alive. It will be easier for you as a contestant rather than us as spectators."

"Whatever. He's an opponent so I'll fight him anyway. Plus he's pretty annoying."

"Well then, good luck."

He snorted. "It's my opponents that will need all the lucks they could get."

"Just be careful anyway."

"If you don't start stop talking, I will make sure you won't be able to attend the tournament," he threatened impatiently.

"Oh fine, geez. Here I'm worrying over you and you get rude all sudden."

"I don't need you worrying over me, that'll mean you don't believe my capability. Beside I'm always like this and you've never complained before."

"Not right in front of your face, alright," Sarutobi mumbled.

"What was that?"

"It's nothing," he said quickly.

"That's what I thought," the blond nodded in satisfaction.

"Oh and Naruto, one last thing. Please don't use traps! I don't want you to kill all contestants," he pleaded.

Naruto grinned. "No deal, old man."

0-0 0-0 0-0

The Kyuubi vessel was itching to gut the young man on his right, but the exam hadn't started yet. Worse—he looked around—there was no sign of Sasuke anywhere in the field. Well, if that boy wanted to be disqualified for being late, that was his problem. He was the only one not there yet and the exam would be started in 10 minutes.

"Where's Uchiha Sasuke?" Shiranui Genma, the proctor of this exam, asked.

"Last time I saw him, Hatake kidnapped him," he shrugged, earning sweatdrop from others.

"Well if he didn't arrive soon, he would be disqualified. It isn't a one on one match, so we can't move his match."

"Humph, it shows that the famed Uchiha is a coward," Kankurou drawled.

"Nope," Naruto smirked. "He's here," the contestant door was slammed open to reveal a panting Sasuke with his sharingan on. He looked pretty incensed. He growled angrily as he took a stand beside his teammate and shot a suspicious glare at Kabuto who smiled in return. "You were almost disqualified," he informed.

"Yes, no thanks to our beloved instructor," he hissed angrily. "If I see him after this, I'll cut off his balls and burn his porns (in his seat, Kakashi shivered for reason unknown). That man didn't tell me where I was before he disappeared without trace yesterday," he growled. "It took me a long time to get the right track and twice I took the wrong turns," he gritted his teeth.

"Humph. Typical Hatake," he was amused.

"Well, now that all of contestants are here, we can start the exam," Genma proclaimed, cutting off Sasuke's reply. "If any proctor or medic-nin enter the field, you're not allowed to attack them or you'll be disqualified unless if they cut you off in the middle of your attack. You still can't attack them afterwards though. Killing is allowed, but remember that needless killing isn't a chuunin qualification. Team up isn't allowed here because people complained it isn't fair…but if you manipulate others to do your bidding, that's another thing," he grinned. "I'll be up there, so you don't have to worry of me getting in your way. When you hear me blow the whistle, you can start the fight. Now take your place, anywhere in the stadium."

Gaara chose a plain field with no tree around. Kankurou took the place farthest from Gaara, as he didn't want to be his victim. Tenten chose the place with the most trees around for cover, which was near Kankurou. Sasuke took place near Kankurou, on the other side of Tenten. Kabuto placed himself near Sasuke, and Naruto chose to stay near Kabuto, which made him in the nearest place to Gaara's location.

The spectators were divided to who they should concentrate on. Most of them were interested to see the last Uchiha and also the Suna weapon, Gaara. Bets were done all over the stadium.

Meanwhile in the stand

"Who do you think will win, Gai-sensei?" Lee, who was standing with a crutch, asked. The medic-nins had done their best to heal him. Thankfully his wounds were pretty easy to treat, as Kabuto took care when he created them. He was asked to not stressing his muscles before e would be deemed completely healed for another week. Not like the young nin stopped training, and he made his doctor and nurses angry with that decision.

"We'll see it soon, Lee. All of them are filled with burning passion of youth!" Gai's teeth glinted. Neji sighed as several people scooted away from the pair. The Hyuuga boy had awakened 3 weeks ago, pretty traumated by the experience. He had mellowed a bit after the incident. During these weeks he always wondered how Naruto didn't snap and killing anyone…yet. He was pretty sure that the younger boy was no longer completely sane.

"That means Tenten has a chance to win this!" he exclaimed.

"Of course, Lee. Our team member has trained for this occasion!" Gai patted Lee's shoulder.

"She'll need a bloody miracle to fight against Uzumaki," he knew that Tenten was angry at Naruto for beating not only Lee but also he himself cruelly, but the girl had to understand he was on wholly other level. She had never won against him, and he was beaten/humiliated without much effort from the blond.

Lee's grin deflated.

"Huh, are you saying that you think Naruto will win the fight?" Ino asked in disbelief. "No way, he's a deadlast!" she laughed it off.

"Then, you don't know him," Neji stared. "He is strong. You won't stand a chance against him, girl."

She scoffed. "Yeah right, perhaps you need to check your eyes," she said in disbelief.

"He's right, you know," Kiba scowled from his stand. "I don't want to admit this, but the one who prevented us from reaching the tower is Naruto."

"No way!" she exclaimed.

"My nose never lied to me," Kiba said, offended. "Shino can vouch for him too, right Shino?" he turned to his quiet teammate.

"My bugs told me that he was strong. His mere presence…upset them, just like Sabaku no Gaara did."

"That red head? What's with him?"

Hinata looked nervous. "We s-saw him s-s-slaughtered a team of Ra-Rain-nins al-alone. If if not b-because of his team-teammates, w-we won't be h-here, right now," she twiddled her fingers, her eyes were planted in the floor.

"Woah, and you said Naruto's presence upset your bugs the same way Gaara did?" she still looked doubtful. "But he was the last of everything in the academy!" she protested.

"Che. Just like I found the academy too troublesome, Naruto didn't seem to care about marks. In fact he looked more like he wanted to flunk the academy. And don't forget that it was Naruto who stopped us too," Shikamaru pointed out.

"But I thought it was just another ninja using his image so we'll underestimate him!"

"Well, he was really Naruto, not another ninja. Che, this is too troublesome. Wake me up when it is over," he slumped to his seat.

"I can't believe it," Ino shook her head.

"Well, you better believe it, fast. Because I'm sure he'll be the one to win this tournament," Hinata's cousin claimed.

"Now, now, Neji, you know that the others also have the same chance like he does to win the tournament," his sensei chastised.

"I'm still rooting on him," he closed off the matter.

"What do you think, Kakashi? Do you think your wayward student will win this?"

"I have to admit he has pretty good chance to win this," the Cyclops shrugged. "Still I heard that Gaara was Suna's secret weapon, so he must be pretty strong. Plus Kabuto's ability as medic-nin is worrisome for his opponents. And I had trained Sasuke extensively for a month. Tenten is a weapon expert, and Kankurou's ability is still unknown. The sure thing is that no one will win a battle of attrition against Naruto."

"Why?" Temari who was nearby asked curiously. She didn't think the blond would win against Gaara. He was a jinchuuriki of Shukaku!

"Even now Naruto had more stamina and chakra than Gai and I combined. In fact Naruto has surpassed even our Hokage in that regard," the genins had admitted that the supposed deadlast was strong, but to have chakra reserve bigger than Hokage at such young age?

"Humph, if that's the only thing he has, Gaara won't lose. He has huge chakra reserve that rivaled our Kazekage too," she exclaimed. "And he's my younger brother and son of Kazekage."

An amused laugh greeted her. "Well guess what, missy. Naruto is the son of our yondaime too," Jiraiya grinned, making the genins gasped in shock. "Uh? You don't know?" he looked nervous now and turned to Kakashi who glared at him accusingly. "But Sarutobi-sensei told me that he knew about his hidden heritage and that he had told others about it in the second exam," he protested.

"Jiraiya-sama, the ones who understood what he talked about were the adults of Leaf-nins," told Kakashi sternly.

"Er…oops?" he offered weakly.

"Forget it," the Copy Sharingan shook his head.

Temari swallowed and turned to watch Naruto. She then shook her head. She should have faith for her brother. It wasn't like Naruto was a monster like him…right?

The whistle was sounded.

The battle royal tournament began.

TBC…

The tournament is for the next chapter. If you want to complain about the whole rasen shuriken thing, don't put it on review, do it in your own heads or something, coz I don't care. I don't want to write scenes about it step by step.