Hey guys. I would really appreciate it if you R&R. Constructive criticism is always welcomed. I will update when I can but I am a full time collage student, so sometimes it might take me a while. You will mostly see updates during weekends. I know the story progress is slow but I like it slow. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me.

Chapter 10

Naruto was doing some basic physical exercises as she waited for Kakashi. There was no point in wasting the day when she could be training, while she waited for him to arrive.

"Yo." Kakashi said while standing over her as she finished another set of curl ups. "While I'll commend you on your hard work. It would be best if you conserve your energy for our actual training." Naruto wasn't to worried about it. After years of being together with Kurama, her body had already adopted the natural ability to energize ten times faster than what was normal. She hadn't lost this ability when she traveled back in time.

"Don't worry Kashi-sensei, I've got plenty of energy left. Bring it." She said as she got up. Suddenly she noticed a really sadistic look in Kakashi eyes.

'I'm an idiot aren't I' Naru thought groaning.

"I won't argue with you there." Kurama spoke up.

"Shut it, fluffy."

"How dare you call me fluffy, Show some respect brat, I am the most powerful being there-"

"I know your fluffy. You know your fluffy. Just give in to the fact that your fluffy, fluffy." There conversation was interrupted by an eager voice.

"Oh really? Then lets start training shall we" Naruto swallowed, she had a feeling that today was going to be really long and tiring.

"Today, I want you to learn this jutsu" He passed her a scroll. She fumbled as she caught it and looked at him inquiringly. "We will learn different element jutsu, later. Today I want to teach you an extension of something you already know. Its is called Shuriken Shadow Clone. It will allow you to make multiple copies of a shuriken." To demonstrate he threw a single shuriken in the air and made the hand sign for a clone.

"Shuriken Shadow Clone" Where there was only one shuriken before, now there were six. Naruto had used something similar to this unconsciously when she took down Gara, but she hadn't realized it. She grinned least now she would actually know how to use it, and it wouldn't be to hard to use. Plus now she could save money on shurikens. "This technique is a very useful one to know, especially if you are dealing with multiple enemies. Because of the amount of chakara, you have you could probably create dozens if not hundreds of shurikens at once." Kakashi explained. "There is one more shadow clone technique, I'll teach you later. Knowing you it would be best to leave that off for a while though." Kakashi shuddered at that point. The destruction she could cause using the Exploding Shadow Clone, was to horrifying a thought to even consider. Yes, he would wait awhile before teaching her that, or Konoha would must likely be in a pile of ruble.

He gestured to try and wasn't really surprised that she mastered it on her first try. Where he had produced six, she produced twenty. Shadow clones were her forte after all.

"Since you're not having any real trouble using that jutsu, lets move on shall we." He looked lazy eye at her, "What element do you want to work on first?"

Naruto really wanted to learn something new today so she didn't say wind, fire and earth, instead she wanted to learn about water and lighting. She nodded, making up her mind. "Water." Kakashi raised an eyebrow but said nothing to that, he was sure she was going to say wind based on her fighting style. Instead he led her to the lake next to where they were training. He took out two bowls and scooped up some water in one. He then placed both bowls on the ground in front of her.

"I want you to move water from one of these bowls into the other one." Naruto looked up at him like he was crazy, but decided to try anyway. After five minutes of uselessly trying to get the water to move, she would learn faster with more clones.

"Shadow Clone" She summoned around 50 shadow clones to help her as well as 100 bowls. "You guys know what to do, get to work." She commanded.

"Got it boss!" They replied. All of them filled up one bowl from the lake and got to work.

Kakashi was impressed. He hadn't realized that she knew how to use shadow clones effectively. Well it saved him the hassle of trying to explain it to her.

30 minutes later

Naruto wasn't having a lot of success with manipulating the water. The only progress she had made was making the water rock a little. She was still trying her hardest when she heard Kakashi call her over. Kakashi was standing with another, shorter man who had his back turned to her. She walked over to them, and Kakashi gave her the closed eye smile of his. "I want to introduce you to someone." he said just as the other man turned to face her.

Naruto couldn't help but be speechless for a moment. In front of her stood a much younger, Itachi Uchiha. Though he still looked a little serious, he had a much gentler and less intense image around him than his older counterpart. Naruto now knew how much the Uchiha massacre had effected the man in front of her. She knew why Itachi had done what he had, and how much he had sacrificed. The man in front of her was no traitor. She couldn't help but smile at him. She noticed that he give her a slight smile in return.

"This is Itachi Uchiha, he will also be training you from now on." Kakashi nodded at Itachi, while quietly whispering to him, "Don't forget that she can use THAT jutsu." Naruto couldn't hear what he said to him but it was the first time she saw fear and panic flicker across Itachi's face before it disappeared and he nodded back. Naruto decided to let it go and introduce herself to the raven haired man.

"Hiya, I'm Naru. So what cool jutsus are you going to teach me." Naru couldn't help but feel exited at the taught of being trained by Itachi. She knew how awesome his moves were. 'Sasuke will be so jealous' Naru couldn't help but think with glee.

Itachi smiled at her enthusiasm. "From what Kakashi-sempai tells me, you need help with genjutsu." Naruto couldn't help but frown at this. She hated genjutsu, she sucked at it. But before she could protest, Itachi continued "I will also be teaching you how to use a sword, if you wish." At that Naru perked up. Using a sword had been one of the few things she hadn't tried yet, and she couldn't help but be exited at the prospect of leaning how to use it. Even Sasuke-teme knew how to fight with a sword. She was so going to learn and beat him to the ground. She nodded at him eagerly.

\(^o^)/\(^.^)/\(^o^)/\(^.^)/\(^o^)/\(^.^)/\(^o^)/

For the next two weeks, Naruto split her time between learning genjutsu, learning how to manipulate water, hanging out with her friends, and the academy.

Itachi had quickly understood that the only thing that could make her motivated enough to learn genjutsu was the promise of sword lessons if she did well. Naruto did get irritated at that but quickly let it go and took her genjutsu lessons seriously.

As for the water manipulation, she had made great progress but hadn't completed it yet. So far she could raise the water and move it a little, but she couldn't hold it up for to long. Unlike the time she was learning how to cut the leaves with the wind element, she wasn't rushed as much before and she couldn't bring out as many clones as she wanted. Though she was determined to finish it. What confused her was that Kakashi wasn't really giving her any taijutsu training. Ya, he made her continue doing physical exercises and a little sparing, but nothing to extensive. When she asked him why, all he said was that there was someone better who could teach her that and she would meet him soon. Naru let the topic drop after that, though she did wonder who would teach her.

Naruto also spent some time with Hinata. After two weeks of playing and training Hinata, Hinata skills were growing slowly but surely. Hinata could now use the Byakugan a lot better than she could before. Naruto helped improve it by simple making a game where Hinata would see how far she could see with it and the different unusual things she noticed with it on. She was also faster and had greater stamina, from all the running Naru forced her to do. Hinata was also gaining more confidence in herself. It seemed that all Hinata really needed was for someone to let her speak her mind more, something that Naruto was always encouraging her to do. While Hinata would never be a truly outspoken figure, she was no longer as timid as she once was.

The one thing that Naru hated about the last two weeks was the academy. The only reason she still went was because her friends were there. The teachers were just as she remembered them. They would send her out for the slightest of offenses so she couldn't really learn anything. Whenever there was a test, they would give her a chunin if not jonin version of the test, that no one else received. She also suspected that they erased some part of her answers if she even got it right. Because of all this, Naruto grades still remained dead last. The teachers also tried to degrade and shame her in front of the class constantly. What truly made her happy though is that whenever they did, Shikamaru and Choji were quick in coming to her defense, and tried to cheer her up by distracting her with other topics. Naruto couldn't help the huge grin that came to her face whenever they did this, the last time she was a kid no one came to her defense. Her happy smile seemed to make her teachers even angrier though.

The only time she shined and the teachers really couldn't do anything about it is when it came to the physical aspects. She tried to show her abilities at the same level as Sasuke, but it was hard for her to hold back, since she was used to putting in all her energy. In the end she beat Sasuke by a tad amount, which infuriated him. She used this to goad him into training with her.

"Dobe, how can you beat me?" He demanded. She rolled her eyes at him.

"What, not used to losing to a girl?" She taunted him.

"You cheated didn't you."

"Ya right, like I would need to cheat to beat you."

"...You are going down next time."

"Hey teme, if you really want to beat me, than train with me."

"Why would I train with someone like you, dobe."

"What you're to scared."

"No! Of course not. You're on, dobe." Sasuke whole face had gone red from his anger at this point. He hadn't realized that he had fallen into her trap.

"Meet me on training ground seven, tomorrow before school than we shall see who beats who."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine." Sasuke said while walking away. Teme had to have the last word didn't he, she swore to get the last word next time.
Soon it became an everyday thing that Sasuke and Naru would meet before school to train and compete. Naru always made sure to match her skills evenly with her, she even made it so that she almost lost to a few times, so that he wouldn't get to discouraged. She never outright lost to him though, because she knew it would be highly unfair to him if she did, and she wouldn't betray his trust like that. In the time they trained together, Sasuke had grown by leaps and bounds. He was much better than he was before they meat.

He was becoming more open too. While he was still prideful and arrogant, he was starting to interact better with other. He no longer outright rejected other. In an extremely rare moment, he even dropped his guard enough to tell her that his father had praised his progress. Most of their conversations though ended with him praising his brother. Sometimes she didn't know if to consider this cute or just really annoying. For he was always saying "My brother..." or "Itachi-nii..." in the end Naru decided just to roll her eyes at him and put up with his brother obsessive tendencies, at least this time around it was positive obsessiveness.

For now she decided not to tell him that his brother was training her, instead she had begged Itachi to train Sasuke and her together in the art of the sword once they were done with her genjutsu training. This way she wouldn't have to hid the truth from Sasuke and the two brother would be able to spend more time together, something that Sasuke had desperately craved. What confused her was that when Itachi agreed, Kakashi started to mutter something about "Falling for it," Naru had long since given in to the fact that she was cursed with weird teachers and gave up on trying to understand their weird ways, especially Kakashi's ways.

Currently she was she was trying to manipulate the the water. She was so close. The water was hovering a millimeter away from the empty bowl. Naruto tiny face was scrunched up with concentration and the tip of her tongue sticking out. 'Almost there. Almost there. Come on. '

"Yata ah!" She had done it. She did it a few more times and it became a lot easier for her. She turned around to see if Kakashi had seen it, only to be enraged at what she saw.

Kakashi was crouching down with his back towards her, trying to read his book sneakily but failing miserably. Suddenly Naruto grinned, this was going to be epic. She manipulated the water to the top of the unsuspecting ninja and released it. Splash!
Kakashi had been enjoying his book. He tried to stop himself but found that he couldn't do it. The book was calling out to him and who was he to refuse. The Hokage had told him not to show the book to her, he hadn't said that he couldn't read it. He was slightly giggling as he read, congratulating himself on finding a loop hole. The next thing he knew, he was drenched in water along with his book. He whirled around to find the culprit of this heinous crime. Only to come up short, when he found the little *cough* devil *cough* girl grinning up at him. He glared at her, thinking up of different punishments he could give her for ruining his precious book.

"Sorry Kashi-sensei, I missed the bowl" She turned on the puppy dog eye jutsu on him. Curse her! Not again, he wouldn't fall for it again. He refused to give into her.

'Must remain strong, must remain strong. You are a jonin shinobi. You are the copy ninja. You will not fall.' He chanted while trying to look anywhere but at her and her cursed jutsu. It was futile, the second his eye connected with hers, he had lost. His head sunk in despair. He looked at his soaking book, this was the second book she had ruined. He had to make sure to keep them safe from her in the future. He sighed

"Well since you gotten it this far, I guess you pass this stage. Follow me." He led her to the hot springs. Naruto groaned, she had a feeling that she wouldn't like the next step.

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