*Six months after beginning Naruto's training*
-Namikaze Compound-
Naruto currently sat working on his latest fuuinjutsu masterpiece-a tag that doubled both as a chakra seal and an immobilizer. The tag, when applied to the victim, would start sealing off the victims chakra network (almost like the Jyuuken strikes that the Hyuga use), and just in case the user had enormous amounts of chakra (take his father, for example), he included one of his original seals, that would redirect both blood flow and nerve signals to all muscles, which causes those muscles to contract (like a massive, full-body cramp) effectively immobilizing the opponent.
Fuuinjutsu was not the only thing Naruto had proven himself to be sufficient in. His natural "affinity" for stealth had all but increased, leading to an event a few months earlier that had revealed just how sneaky he could really be.
-Flashback-
-ANBU HQ-
A lone ANBU sat in the middle of the cafeteria, dumbstruck. Pink paint, bright-colored streamers and glitter decorated each and every table. The walls were painted a lime-green, with splotches of brown and black that blended together, effectively making the wall look like a mural about turds.
Speaking of turds, each Captain's room had been broken in to, and had dog feces from the Inuzuka kennels piled around on the floors, and in the toilets. In the captain's bedrooms, there was a small gardening tool, with a sticky note attached that wrote, "Get scoopin'."
The normal ANBU's rooms had their locks and door handles switched around with one another, turning the hallways into an absolute mess, not to mention the stench of dog crap that drifted through the ventilation system.
They knew, thanks to some evidence, who did the crime. And that evidence, was one strand of golden blonde hair.
"NARUTOOOOOOOOO!"
-End Flashback-
Along with his stealth, his taijutsu style complimented his talents perfectly. The style required stealth and the abilty to remain silent to suprise and attack the enemy, taking them down quickly and efficiently. In the open field, the style also allowed suprise attacks. The fluid style requires Naruto to be able to bend and recover momentum quickly and efficiently, leaving little time for the opponent to react. So far, when Naruto had sparred with Sasuke*, the blonde usually came out on top, unless Sasuke pulled an ace out of his sleeve, which apparently, the young Uchiha had a creative streak as long and bold as Naruto's. Needless to say, they got along well.
Today was a very special day for Naruto, because he was now old enough (according to his father) to try to take the Genin graduation exams. For luck, (or "just to be prepared", which he insisted to his father) he donned his new outfit that he had bought the night before. He wore loose black duds that were wrapped underneath white cotton wraps from just under his knee to his feet. He also wore a black training jacket, which was light and breathable, with a mottled gray-black shirt underneath the jacket, along with black shinobi sandles. To finish off the look, he had a kodachi hanging diagonally along his back, with the handle in a reachable area over his right shoulder. The sword itself had dark blue wrappings, with small white diamonds (made from the wrappings revealing the layer of cloth underneath) running along the sides of the hilt.
"Umm, do you really need to wear all that?" Minato asked. Naruto nodded immediately.
"Well, today is the day I become an official shinobi" Naruto stated. "So I think I should at least look the part."
Minato nodded, as in understanding. "Ahh, I see. Already trying to grab the ladies' attentention, eh?" Minato finished with a wink, but was then slapped in the back of the head by a clone Naruto had hidden in the room. "Ouch!" Minato whined. "That hurt!"
An annoyed Naruto stood across from Minato. "You know full well that all that matters to me is my family, and the protection of this village. Starting my career is something important to me, not something to take pokes at. Besides that, women are scary *shiver*.
"Really?" Minato asked, intrigued. "What happened?"
Naruto, now rocking back and forth on the floor, looked up with his Puppy-Eyes no Jutsu. "I swore in front of Yoshino Nara." He concluded weakly.
Minato sweat dropped. Everyone knew that was almost a death sentence. Rumor has it she had a variant of the Hiraishin kunai applied to her favorite frying pan, so she could summon it at will to mercilessly bludgeon any who swore in front of her. The punishment also applied to anyone displaying any signs of tiredness or laziness. And everyone knew the Naras were lazy...they must have a natural resistance to the terror of the godforsaken frying pan.
Naruto took a moment and looked at the clock, and gasped. He needed to get the Academy, now! Picking himself up off the floor and wiping his tears, he gave a quick goodbye to Minato and disappeared in a black blur, without a sound. Minato, now alone in the room, pulled a picture out of his kunai pouch. It was a picture of Minato holding a pregnant Kushina, both smiling at the camera. With a tear falling from his eye, he held up the photo and kissed the red-haired beauty, and then disappeared in a soft flash.
-Testing Facility, Konoha Shinobi Academy-
"There he is! Yondaime-sama's son! Isn't he cute?" A large number of feminine voices squealed at once.
Naruto groaned. Thankfully, Iruka had managed to enter the room, instantly shouting for everyone to shut up.
"Today", Iruka began. "You are all here to take the Genin Exam. You have all made great progress, I am proud of you. As you can tell, there are a few people here that you have not met yet. Those of you who are taking the exam, and not currently attending the Academy, please stand up."
A fairly nice-sized group of kids stood up. Naruto, of course, followed by Sasuke, Shikamaru and Neji.
"Follow me. You will be taking the written exam first." Iruka said, gesturing towards the door. The kids quickly followed. They were then seated in alphabetical order, and handed the test. Remarkably, the test only had one question:
1.) What is the Will of Fire?
Naruto inwardly smirked. His dad practically preached the whole story of the Will of Fire to Naruto many times as a child. So, he started writing. About 15 minutes later and a page and a half of writing, Naruto was done, and calmly handed his paper to Iruka. Looking around the room, he saw that most of them were already done, save for Neji. Knowing Neji, he was probably confusing the Will of Fire with the ten-foot pole of fate stuck up his ass. They waited another 10 minutes and Neji was finally done with his paper. Next, Iruka instructed them to follow him outside, where they did accuracy tests. They had to stand 25 feet from the target, and then throw. Neji hit 10/10, although for some reason he had activated his Byakugan to do so. Sasuke hit 10/10, and said nothing. Naruto finally was up, and thew his first kunai.
The first thing Naruto saw after letting go of his first kunai was the little distortion of air around the kunai. Audibly, Naruto muttered "Shit!", which earned looks of confusion before the kunai reached its target, and then passed through it. There were multiple gasps, and Iruka asked, "Naruto, what did you do?"
Naruto gave a short laugh, "Hehehe, well, I started elemental training last week, and it kind of became an instict after practicing it." Iruka nodded. "Well, just try and hold back on that, alright? We can handle patching up the target, but we don't want to annihilate it." Iruka finished. Naruto nodded and then threw the rest of his kunai one after the other, all of them placing themselves at the center. A perfect 10/10. The rest of the kids then threw their kunai, with the same results. It looked like the clan training had really paid off.
Next was the final part of the exam, the spars. They had another Academy teacher named Mizuki standing in the middle of a circle, with a radius of 20 feet. The score was based on the performance of the student, not whether they won or not. After all, the Academy teachers were required to be at Chunin rank or above. They all wrote their name on a slip of paper before tossing it into a kunai pouch on the ground, where Iruka fished one out and called up the first to be examined: "Hyuuga, Neji"
Neji, who didn't use his Byakugan still won, although noone present was surprised. The Hyuuga were well known across the elemental nations for their prowess at taijutsu.
Sasuke and Shikamaru had gone, and won, and it was finally Naruto's turn.
Stepping into the ring, Iruka started the match. Naruto immediately dropped into the first kata of the Silent Fist style, earning confused looks from his peers and Mizuki himself, who was in the standard Academy Style. The Silent Fist style was seldom heard of, because those who used the style efficiently had no enemies who had encountered them live to tell the weaknesses to others. Not one to be outdone, Mizuki made the first move, a puch aimed at Naruto's stomach. Naruto bent inside the puch, steeping on the inside of Mizuki's foot and did a palm thrust at Mizuki's right shoulder, with enough force to knock him out of the circle. This all happened within 3 seconds and there had been no sound, not counting Mizuki landing and skidding. Naruto realized what he had done, and abruptly apologized to Mizuki. Mizuki smiled back, telling Naruto that he had done a great job. He told Naruto that he had been expecting something much different, so he had applied some special seals that decreased the air resistance around his body so that he could move quicker. The only reason he hadn't dodged was soley (pun intended) because Naruto had him pinned to the ground.
Iruka declared the match a win for Naruto and they went back inside, where Iruka was waiting for them. He handed them all thfteir new Genin headbands, and bid them a good day, and then left to test the other Academy Students who were still waiting to take their tests.
"Guess I really didn't need my sword." Naruto muttered to himself, and then smiled. His father was standing right outside the doorway, eyes gleaming with pride.
"I'm proud of you, Naruto." Minato stated. "By the way, since I really don't have much of a gift like the others, I figured that I would give you a little something that I think you would like." At this, Naruto sat patiently. "You are the be on the first two-Genin squad in Konoha's history. As such, you and your partner will either be sent on your own missions, or you will be sent to assist other squads in need of help."
Naruto couldn't help it anymore. "Who's my partner, and who's my sensei?"
"You will find out tomorrow, and meet at Training Ground 89 at 8:00 A.M sharp. Officially, the name of your squad is the Epsilon Unit, and you will find out why it's named that."
"Umm okay thanks Tou-san!" Naruto blurted, before once again becoming a blur of black and grey heading towards his home.
-The Next Morning, 7:45 A.M.-
-Namikaze Compound-
"UP! UP! UP! UP!" Minato yelled from the doorway. "You need to be at the training ground in 15 minutes!"
Naruto sprang up from the bed. "Oh, shi-" Minato gave a quick death glare. "-nsplints!" Naruto finished, and Minato gave Naruto a thumbs up.
"I hope you do well, Naruto." Minato said, as Naruto finished getting ready and flew out the door.
-Training Ground 89, Main Entrance-
Landing just inside the fence, Sarutobi Asuma lit a cigarette and looked around his new training ground. The ground was flat, meaning it either had been used very little, or that it had been repaired recently. The trees were unmarred, which to Asuma meant that this training ground had been used very little. Trees took quite the beating when they inhabited a village of ninja. Deciding to just sit and wait for his two students, he walked to the nearest tree and leaned against it.
"Hi."
"WHOAAAA!" *choke* "AHHH!" *cough*
Asuma slowly turned his head to the image of a grinning Naruto. "C'mere, brat." Asuma grumbled, pulling Naruto closer and ruffling his hair, which, after a second, turned into a noogie. "You made me choke on my cigarette, kid." Asuma said. Naruto, not a second later, gave Asuma a cheeky response, "I aim to please, Asuma-sensei."
Asuma only grunted. Sneaky son of a gun. Minato, what did you do to this kid? He's just like you, except, well, just stealthier. A LOT stealthier, and it scares me. Very, very much. Asuma thought. A few minutes later, Asuma caught a glimpse of his second student, who was walking along at a leisurely pace with a chronic slouch.
His new student approached the two by the tree, looked at Asuma, then Naruto, and then muttered one word.
"Troublesome."
MyPastLife out.