It was three weeks after Naruto's new training regiment began, and all the Jounin Senseis were called to the Hokage's office. He announced that the chunin exams would be soon and asked if any sensei's felt their teams were ready. One by one, the sensei's for all the rookies stood up and said their teams were ready. Later, after all the other Jounin's had left, Kurenai Yuhi addressed the Hokage.

"Hokage Sama, are there any unused training grounds with a lake that I can use? I want my genin to learn water-walking before the exams"

The Hokage told her that she and her team could use training grounds 37.

The next day, she headed off to the new training ground to meet her team 45 mintues early, unlike soume perverted jounins she knew who were always late because they were too busy walking around with their heads stuck in orange books. Kurenai was about to step into the clearing, when she saw a boy wearing all orange lying on the ground. She realized it was Naruto Uzumaki and decided o give him a few minutes to wake up on his own before going over to wake him up. However, this was unnecessary as five minutes later, Naruto sprang up from the ground mumbling something about how he shouldn't have upped his weights so much in one go. Kurenai was about to go over to him and tell him that her team needed the field when she heard him yell.

"Shit! I only have an hour to train before I have to go"

She watched in astonishment as he summoned 50 clones and they all began to spar on the lake. After Naruto had defeated all the clones using tai jutsu, jutsu, and kenjutsu that was very advanced for a genin, especially a dead last genin, Kurenai jumped down from the tree she had been in and called out to Naruto " I guess Kakashi is a much better sensai that I thought"

Naruto looked shocked that someone had been watching him, but promptly fell over laughing after realizing what Kurenai had said.

"I wasn't aware that what I said was so funny"

"Gomen Kurenai Sensei, its just that Kakashi sensei hasn't taught me anything at all except for tree climbing. He only teaches Sasuke."

Kurenai was both furious and confused. The former, because it was wrong for a sensei to neglect their students and play favorites, and the latter because she didn't understand how Naruto could be so good without any training help. She'd seen his academy grades, she knew he wasn't exactly the greatest, and that was putting it kindly, very very kindly.

"Naruto, if no one trained you, how do you know so much? The skill levels you're exhibiting are very high for your age"

Naruto blushed in embarrassment, obviously not used to any form of praise and responded that he trained himself because he needed to be able to protect everyone that was precious to him. Kurenai was very upset over the boy's neglect and moved by his desire to help everyone so she decided to help him out.

"Naruto, can you do any gen-jutsu" Kurenai asked.

After Naruto shook his head no, Kurenai made him an offer "If you'd like, you can meet me here later and I'll train you a bit."

Naruto broke into a wide grin and yelled "Really?"

"Yes, really" Kurenai laughed at his excitement. All of a sudden, Naruto frowned, " Are you sure you want to help me? Not even my own sensei will help me and you do have your own team."

Kurenai bent down until her eyes were level with his.

"Naruto, I don't know why Kakashi isn't helping you at all, but he should be and I would be honored to help train someone with goals as worthy as yours"

Naruto grinned in response and thanked her.

"Meet me here at 5 o'clock tonight, but for now you have to go because this is my team's training field now"

Naruto began to run off, but stopped to yell back "Hai Sensei!"

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At their team meeting that day, Kakshi told them that the chunin exams would be in two weeks, so they wouldn't be doing any missions for a while.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

"Ohaya Kurenai Sensei"

Kurenai had Naruto sit down and asked him if he knew anything at all about gen-jutsus. Naruto, a little embarrassed, shook his head no. Kurenai, seeing his unease, hurried to reassure him. "Naruto, even though you have no skills with this, your skills in other areas are great for someone your age. And, it's not your fault, if Kakashi did his job, then you would no this stuff.

"Hai" Naruto nodded. For the next hour, Kurenai continually cast gen-jutsus on Naruto while he furiously tried to stop his chakra flow in order to escape the illusions.

"I don't get it!" Naruto yelled in frustration. "Why cant I do it?"

"Naruto, calm down, not everyone an. However, there are two other ways to escape a gen-jutsu. You can hurt yourself, but I wouldn't recommend that at all, or you can release a burst of chakra to disrupt the genjutsu. Now I want to see you try that, ok?"

"Hai Sensei"

Kurenai quickly placed Naruto under a genjutsu and he gathered his chakra and had no problem pushing it out to escape the illusion.

"Yatta! I did it!" As Naruto did a celebratory lap around the field, Kurenai laughed at her students antics.

'my student? I just me the boy, why am I thinking of him as my student?' Kurenai wondered to herself, but her thoughts were disrupted by Naruto.

"Sensei, do you want to maybe go get some dinner, my treat, for helping me? I want to say thank you."

Kurenai accepted and they walked off together away from the training grounds.

As they walked, they passed a restaurant Kurenai like.

"How about this one Naruto?"

Naruto looked a little nervous but just responded "Sure"

"Naruto, is there a problem?"

"No sensai just give me a sec, ok?"

Naruto paused and quickly put a henge on to transform his notable features.

"What are you doing Naruto?"

"Well, not all the restaurants like to let me in and some of the ones that do overcharge me. I may be stupid, but I know a glass of water shouldn't cost 50 ryou."

Kurenai quickly became very mad at the thought that Naruto was refused service in places.

"Sensai, its ok, I don't mind."

"No Naruto, its not ok. How about you come to my house and I'll make dinner for us?"

Naruto quickly agreed, but was a little upset that he couldn't get his new Sensei dinner as a thank you.

After they ate, they sat down to talk for a bit. Kurenai asked Naruto why his grades were so bad in the academy if he was clearly able to learn things very well.

"Well, I used to think it was my fault, I thought I was stupid. But, now that I see how much I learned, I realized that it was just that the teachers in the academy didn't want to help me. Just like Kakashi."

Naruto looked pained at having to admit this, so Kurenai quickly reached over to give him a hug. Naruto looked shocked at the physical touch. 'no one has ever hugged me before…', but he quickly slumped into the hug and began to cry. Naruto fell asleep in Kurenai's arms and she laid him down to sleep on her couch.

Kurenai sat in a chair watching the blond boy as he slept. She couldn't believe how awful his life seemed. She slowly began to release some killer intent in anger at the villagers when she heard a knock at her door. Getting up to answer it, she saw it was her friend Anko. After stepping into Kurenai's living room, Anko asked with a wide grin on her face " Whats this Kurenai chan? Cheating on me with some jail bait?"

"Haha anko how funny yes I was actually planning to molest him."

"Can I help? He looks yummy for a genin?"

Kurenai sighed and sat down, no longer in the mood for her friend's perverted antics.

She explained to Anko what she had learned of the boy so far.

'He's like me, Anko thought to herself'

"I can understand why you're helping him Kurenai, he deserves a lot better than what he's been dealt."

"Hai" Kurenai muttered in a tired voice.

Seeing that her friend was tired, and would most definitely not want to be going out for a drink, Anko got up and left.