Chapter IXX

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Naruto brought his hands together in a familiar seal. "Kage Bunshin no- Ahh!" The half-formed chakra dispelled instantly as Naruto crouched down, clutching his head. He had felt the disturbing sensation of sounds echoing directly inside of his skull without passing through his eardrums first. It was worse than trying to listen to someone speak while performing an underwater somersault and Naruto resisted the urge to retch.

Naruto was vaguely aware that someone had approached him and was asking him if he was all right. He held up a hand and waved them away, concentrating on not being sick. Suddenly the feeling intensified, accompanied by the fuzzy notion that someone was trying to communicate with him.

Swallowing hard, Naruto sat down right where he was on the ground and closed his eyes, sending a tentative probe after the feeling. Suddenly, the words clicked into focus and the nausea mostly abated. Naruto-kun?

Shujin-kun? Is that you?

Naruto had the oddest sensation that the demon fox was rolling his eyes. No, this is one of the other bijuu sealed inside your head. Of course it's me! How does this link feel from out there?

Really strange. It's quite difficult to think words without saying them aloud. It also feels like your words are irritating my brain that there's no way I can fix it.

Funny… Shujin muttered.

What's that?

I'm just speaking aloud. If you're just thinking, let me try without speaking instead…Hang on… Is that better? The last of these words were completely clear and arrived in Naruto's head as naturally as though they were his own thoughts.

Yeah! That helped. Naruto blinked, something occurring to him. Can you see what I see?

Wait… what? Yes! Great Log, I can! I completely forgot to test that! Shujin sounded equal parts agitated and elated. Where are you?

Naruto looked around the large field, taking in Jaitan, who was apparently lecturing Shikamaru, Sasuke, who was doing something clever with a couple of leaves, Kiba, who was playing keep-away with Akamaru and losing, Shino, who had his hands together in an unfamiliar seal which he was explaining to Hinata, Oscar, who was in the act of begging a chip off of Choji, and Sakura and Ino, who were arguing.

I'm in a field.

And who are they?

Those are my friends.

You have friends?

Ouch, that hurts, Naruto thought, stung.

Well, it's not like you've ever mentioned knowing anyone but me! Shujin objected.

Wow, self-centered much?

Well, when you're locked away for three generations with no one but yourself…

Three generations?

Yes. Naruto waited for Shujin to continue but when he did not, Naruto assumed he did not want to talk about his previous demon containers.

Guess he just cut the connection without saying goodbye. Rude, but understandable, I guess. Must remember he is not human. Naruto stood up, brushing grass and leaves off of himself and looking around to notice that all of his friends were grouped around both of Jaitan and were nodding as he gave out instructions.

"Never a rest for the weary," Naruto sighed as he jogged over. He stopped behind Sakura and asked what was happening.

"Remember that challenge we did in the Forest of Death?" She asked, half-turning toward him to glance back over her shoulder. Naruto did remember. "Well, he's about to tell us what the reward is for the winners," she said primly.

"Ah, I take it you didn't win, then," Naruto surmised with a smile.

"Neither did you," Sakura said haughtily, turning away. Naruto rolled his eyes before turning his attention to his sensei.

"Anyway," Jaitan said, one of his faces curiously blank while the other stared daggers at Sakura and Naruto, "As I was saying, I promised all of you a new jutsu in exchange for cooperation during the last challenge that Anko so kindly supplied for us. Though the original plan was only to teach this jutsu to those who completed the challenge, well, plans change. I will be teaching all of you Shunshin." Here, the Jaitan who had thus far remained silent caught sight of Anko's fuming expression and quietly sidled around his counterpart so that the other Jaitan was between him and Anko. "Damn," that one muttered. "I probably just earned myself snakes in my bed tonight for that move." The Jaitan who had first spoken and was just then acting as a human meat shield turned and carefully and calmly studied Anko's expression, his gray eyes neutral as that scanned her face, taking in the narrowed eyes and gritted teeth. "Probably poisonous snakes," that Jaitan concluded, nodding gravely.

"Hang on," Ino interjected, "Isn't Shunshin pretty advanced?"

Jaitan blinked at her, nonplussed. "Well, yes, but I figured you could handle it. I don't expect you to get it immediately, but it ought to be fairly useful for chakra control training even if you cannot grasp it, yes?"

"Why bother?" Shikamaru yawned. "We can just Kawirimi."

"See previous comment," Jaitan said. He seemed slightly put out. "What about working on smokeless, seal-less kawirimi, then? Can you do that?"

"Troublesome," Shika groaned.

"Come on, Shika-kun, it should be easier than Shunshin," Choji said coaxingly, or as coaxingly as one can through a mouth full of crumbs.

Jaitan rolled his eyes and began to walk away. "Dismissed," He said. When he was a little ways away, he said, "Shikamaru?"

"Yeah?"

Without breaking stride, Jaitan whirled around and hurled a kunai straight at Shika's chest, hand-grip first. It hit the Nara several inches below the sternum and everyone around him heard both the heavy clunk of the thick ring impacting Shika's chest and the whoosh as his breath left him. He sat down hard on the ground and bowed over, struggling for air.

"Either learn to Kawirimi faster and more efficiently, or I'll teach you Shunshin. Either one you pick, I will expect you to be able to do it seal-less and smokeless and fast enough to dodge that kunai. It's your choice."

Choji helped Shika back to his feet. "Kawirimi, then," Shikamaru muttered, rubbing his chest.

"Very well," Jaitan said, gravely. Then, so fast that almost no one saw it, his other self was gone, just a sort of flickering out of existence so quick that everyone present almost missed it before he was back, casually tossing and catching the kunai that had not been in his hand a moment before. He then handed the heavy blade back to his counterpart who held it up mockingly for a moment before stowing it away.

That was very neat, Naruto thought admiringly. No seal, no calling out the jutsu name, no smoke, and no disorientation. Wish I could do that.

Why not? Came the unbidden thought.

Shujin? Are you speaking to me again? Naruto asked, confused.

Hm? Oh, yes. And didn't he just say you would have to learn what he just did?

That was Shunshin, not kawirimi.

Why can't you learn both? They are different, I take it?

Well I could learn both, but it would be hard, considering how many different techniques I'm working on right now.

Didn't you once tell me you would train as hard as it took?
Yes, but this is a slightly different type of decision. Then, it was about willingness to be trained to use your powers. Now, I'm perfectly willing to learn both jutsu, but I would need help trying to balance my time between all the things I'm trying to do.

I'll help you. Just tell Jaitan now that you want to learn both.

Naruto, surprised at the conviction in Shujin's voice, did as he was bidden, drawing Jaitan aside and requesting training in both a more perfect Kawirimi and in Shunshin. Jaitan seem surprised but pleased. He set Naruto to work at once on both things, pointing out that Naruto could use clones to learn both jutsu and not disrupt any training schedule Kakashi-sensei had given him . When Naruto heard this, it was all he could do not to slap himself for not thinking of it. Of course! Shadow clones would solve most of his problems in the department of jutsu waiting for him to perfect. It took him a moment to identify the blurry echoes in his head, but a moment later he realized that Shujin was laughing at him. Shujin most certainly had not forgotten what Naruto could do. Naruto could have kicked the fox-boy for not reminding him. Shujin dared him to just try it, but Naruto retorted that he would restrain himself; one of them had to be mature.

Oh, you've decided to be mature? I hadn't noticed. Shujin mocked. Or is this how all humans behave when they're being mature?

"Is something wrong, Naruto-kun?" Jaitan asked.

"No, everything is fine, Jaitan-sensei," Naruto said. He had to get away. "I'll go start… practicing, shall I?" Without waiting for an answer, he darted off. After hastily making about two thousand clones and setting them to work, he retreated into his mindscape where he proceeded to chase Shujin all around the round, stone chamber, roaring that he would get the little bijuu!

Shujin raced ahead of him, laughing in breathless whoops and throwing incoherent remarks at Naruto over his shoulder. He laughed harder in great shrieks when Naruto, with his longer legs and better control of the mindscape, caught him. Naruto wrestled him to the ground, flipped Shujin onto his back and began tickling him. Shujin screeched and wriggled in protest, laughing all the while. Naruto only stopped his relentless onslaught when he received a sharp bite from Shujin, right across the knuckles of his right hand. He sat back on his heels and Shujin curled up, knees held tight to his chest. He was grinning still, but his voice was sulky.

"Don't do that."

"Alright, take it easy." Naruto held up his hands, palms outward in a classic I-surrender gesture. The puncture marks on the back of his hand seemed to be healing much more slowly than they would have done outside the mindscape, Naruto noticed. Those teeth were sharp. Note to self, Naruto thought, Next time I decide to make a Bijuu into a human, make sure he doesn't have teeth any sharper than his tongue. Shujin didn't make any outward appearance that he had heard Naruto's thoughts. Interesting. Naruto decided to try an experiment. Hey, Shujin! He thought. How's life in the sewers? I bet it's almost as nice as life in Konoha. Made any new friends lately? Shujin didn't so much as roll his eyes. "Shujin?" Naruto asked, tentatively.

"What?" clearly the demon was not happy.

"Can you hear my thoughts while I'm in here?"

"Well, I haven't heard anything since you got here. Though I suppose there is the distinct possibility that that's because you haven't used your brain since you got here."

"Point to you," Naruto said. "However, I just tried to communicate with you in my head and nothing happened." Shujin's eyes focused on Naruto's as though he was actually paying attention.

"What is the significance of that?" Shujin asked sharply.

Naruto shrugged. "Maybe there's no significance. Just thought you should know."

Shujin nodded pensively before his eyes flicked away from Naruto's, to the bars of his old cage on the far wall. He suddenly sat up straighter and impatiently pushed the pale braids of his hair away from his face and ears, as if to hear better. "You ought to go," he said tensely, as though he was dividing his concentration between talking and interpreting what he was listening to.

Naruto stood up and Shujin followed suit, absent-mindedly accepting Naruto's hand to help himself up. "Why?" Naruto asked.

"Your shadow clones just started to train. Perhaps you should make a few more and get them to work on some of your other problems, wind chakra for one."

"Alright. Thanks, Shujin-kun."

"Until we speak again, Naruto-kun," Shujin said, lowering his voice impressively so it resonated throughout the stone chamber. He hunched his shoulders and wiggled his fingers in a pseudo-spiritual way. Naruto could not suppress a grin as he left.

Naruto found it suspiciously easy to sneak away from the training ground when his clones were filling more than two-thirds of the space already. He had gotten some disbelieving looks from his fellow rookie genin when he just kept producing shadow clones in such large batches. He headed for training ground seven, goals clearly in mind. He had done as Shujin had suggested and set a new group of shadow clones to work practicing wind chakra. Before leaving the field, he had taken a moment to climb a tree and see how the valley filled with thousands of his doppelgangers looked from above. It was a little like someone had taken a green piece of cloth and thickly splatter-painted it yellow. Naruto chuckled at the thought of what the place would have looked like were he still wearing orange every day. At this, an idea for a prank slowly began percolating in his mind. It wasn't the type of thing he usually went in for, but who would notice but him?

Naruto shook himself from his musings as he arrived at training ground seven. Quickly, he set up, carefully pulling a list from his pocket and smoothing out the ink-stained, crumpled piece of paper before setting it down on the ground. Forming a handseal, Naruto took a brief moment to wonder whether he ought, by rights, to be feeling some chakra drain at that point, but the thought didn't trouble him for long. Two dozen clones poofed into being and he began his work.

Making a more durable clone was not proving as easy as Hinata had made it sound when she had proposed the idea. Naruto retested the method he had previously tried, filling the shell of a shadow clone with chakra until the chakra became dense with compressing it. As soon as he had finished making a few of these, he set them to spar with normal-strength shadow clones, not wanting to waste time between experiments testing the altered clones himself.

The next method he tried was to build a clone one layer of chakra at a time, starting with a shadow clone a foot high and adding until it was the same height as he was. Even though he was determined to complete at least one clone using this method, one clone took so long that Naruto had vetoed it as the solution to all of his problems long before he finished creating it.

Naruto persisted, trying combinations of ideas that he had had before and even coming up with one or two on the spot that were begging to be tested. It was not until hours later, tired and winded from chakra-depletion, that it occurred to Naruto that perhaps the particular type of chakra he was using was causing the problem, for none of his experimental clones had lasted indefinitely, though some had been moderately successful. When the idea that it was his particular strain of chakra that was causing the problems came to him, Naruto was at first intrigued by the implications and possibilities before he realized the true meaning of this discovery was that he would have to retest every combination he had tried that day, assuming, of course, the he managed to find a way to alter his chakra strain to be more durable and energy-efficient. He groaned aloud thinking of all the wasted efforts of the day. At least he was able to console himself with the fact that his clones had been working hard on Kawirimi and Shunshin, and on his wind chakra control all the while he had been working.

It took a good week for Naruto to come up with a functional durable shadow clone design, though his methods in building it were painfully slow. Luckily, once he knew how it could be done, he could delegate the task of refining the process and making it faster to a couple of garden-variety shadow clones while he turned his attention to the progress his clones had been making on perfecting his use of wind chakra. It was the day after he had come across his winning shadow clone design that he had decided to start making personal headway on his wind chakra blades.

Naruto showed up for training right on time, as had become his custom. Usually most of the other rookie ten arrived around the same time, with a few notable exceptions. Sasuke, however, was always there before Naruto, though Naruto did not immediately realize that the Uchiha was absent until all the others had assembled. Only then did he think to wonder about the auspicious lack of Sasuke. When Sasuke finally did arrive, out of breath and a good ten minutes late, Naruto though he caught a flash of red in the Uchiha's eyes. Funny, why does he have his sharingan activated? Naruto wondered. However, when he looked Sasuke in the eyes properly, he saw no trace of red in the retinas. The scleras, however looked slightly irritated, as though Sasuke had been rubbing his eyes too hard for an extended period of time. But why would he do that?

When Naruto questioned Sasuke, the only thing that the Uchiha would say was, "I went to watch the sunset," a statement Naruto could make neither head nor tail of, it being still early in the morning. He assumed that Sasuke must have just woken up late and was unwilling to admit it.

In the meantime, Naruto could now slice a leaf cleanly in two with only a minimum of effort and concentration. He informed Kakashi the next time he saw him, and Kakashi gave him a new exercise to work on while the silver-haired man went to call in a favor and try to get Naruto something he could really practice on. For the time being, Kakashi gave Naruto a bowl of water. The idea was for Naruto to use wind chakra to create a skin around the water and hold the water together in a sphere to get him used to some of the other aspects of wind chakra besides simple cutting. This exercise was proving much more difficult than just cutting a leaf and Naruto was able to get the sphere only halfway formed before the water splashed back into the bowl.

On the other side of training ground seven, Sasuke and Oscar were showing Kakashi their prowess at lightning chakra, to which he responded by setting them to work trying to imbue weapons, namely kunai, with their lightning chakra. "Remember," Kakashi said, "If you can enhance a weapon with lightning chakra, its primary use is piercing and electrifying as well as enhancing existing blades." The silver-haired man drifted off to consult with Sakura about her own elemental powers while Oscar and Sasuke drew out a kunai each. Watching out of the corner of his eye, Naruto noticed that each had a different approach to trying to imbue their kunai.

Sasuke wrapped his fingers tightly around the grip of his kunai and closed his eyes, clearly concentrating hard. Oscar, on the other hand, kept his eyes open and seemed to be playing with the knife. He was turning it over and over, occasionally running a finger up and down the blade before switching hands and trying again. Naruto could only take this in through sidelong looks, as he was supposed to be working on his own elemental mastery at the same time. Half an hour or so later, Naruto was considering getting a few shadow clones to help him out when he noticed a flurry of movement across the clearing. The kunai Oscar was holding was crackling and flickering, and Naruto caught the distinct small of ozone.

"Sasuke, look!" Oscar said. Sasuke did not open his eyes; in fact, he appeared to squeeze them tighter shut.

"Leave me alone. I'm trying to get this," Sasuke said through gritted teeth.

But Oscar wouldn't leave him alone. "Sasuke?" he said, tapping the other boy's shoulder. "Look at this. Sasuke." Sasuke half turned away from Oscar, who persisted in trying to get the attention of the Uchiha. "Sasuke. Sasuke. Sasuke, look. Sasuke." But the Uchiha refused to abandon his own work to look at Oscar's. Finally, impatient, Oscar touched the crackling kunai in his hand to Sasuke's shoulder. "Look!"

The Uchiha jerked from the electric shock and whirled around, eyes wide. "What? What do you want?" he half shouted. In answer, the darker boy proudly held up his kunai. "That's it?"

Oscar looked disappointed at Sasuke's reaction. "Fine, be that way. Let's see you do better." Sasuke hunched his shoulders, fingers still tightly gripping his own obviously unremarkable kunai, "I could have shocked your elbow instead of your shoulder, you know. That would have hurt a whole lot more, even though I didn't put that much chakra into it," Oscar said sulkily.

"Why would it have hurt more?" Sakura asked interestedly, temporarily forgetting her own assignment. Naruto assumed she had missed the part where Oscar shocked Sasuke or she would have been on him like a mother wolf protecting her cub.

"Nerve ending cluster," was Oscar's only reply. It seemed to make more sense to Sakura than it did to Naruto, but Naruto thought he understood well enough that whatever Oscar had said was something that got hurt a lot.

As he let his mind wander, Naruto was brought back to the task at hand when the water in the bowl splashed down, sending a mini-tsunami into his lap. Naruto looked down. Great. He moved into the sun so his pants would dry faster and fervently hoped no one would notice. To that end, he created a few shadow clones, which would serve the dual purpose of helping him with the training exercise and blocking him from the sight of his teammates while his clothes dried.

"Oi, Tenzo," Kakashi called. After a moment in which Kakashi knew his old friend was considering whether or not to come out, an ANBU sporting the distinctive mask of a cat appeared, falling into step beside Kakashi as the silver-haired man began walking away.

"Hai, Kakashi-senpai?"

"You know that favor you owe me?" Kakashi asked casually.

"Are you finally going to call it in?" Tenzo asked, a mock-hopeful note in his voice.

"No, I'm not, but I still need you to do something for me. Well, It's actually for one of my students."

"Ah yes, the first genin team to pass your test. A team of four, if I recall rightly. And how is that going?"

"As well as can be expected. I don't even oversee the majority of their training, but I know that the man who does, Jaitan, has hopes of my team, as well as the other two rookie genin teams being entered in the chunin exam this year."

"Do you think your team is ready?"

"Ready to be made chunin? Not quite. But in a few months, by the time the exams come around, I think they will at least be ready to try to prove themselves."

Tenzo accepted this with a slight nod before bringing the topic of conversation around to the reason of their meeting. "So, Kakashi-senpai, what exactly was the favor you wanted to ask of me?"

"Well, I've been training my team to manipulate elemental chakra recently," Kakashi said, not because he was unwilling to get to the point, rather because he felt he owed his old friend an explanation.

Tenzo whistled. "A tall order, particularly for rookies."

"I know, but they can handle it. One of them, Uzumaki Naruto, has a wind affinity, a particularly strong one, too."

"Uzumaki Naruto," Tenzo said slowly. "Describe him."

"Blonde hair, blue eyes." Kakashi paused before adding, "Determined to become a Hokage to surpass the previous four to protect the people he cares about."

Tenzo glanced at Kakashi sharply, eyes finding the cyclops' through the holes in the painted mask. "I see."

"I was going to ask Asuma-san to train him, and I still will, but I want Naruto to try something a bit different before he moves on to that. Do you think you could oblige?"

"I think I've got just the thing," Tenzo said.

Naruto stared in awe at the waterfall before him. Kakashi-sensei must have friends in high places, he thought. Then his thoughts caught up with his ears. "You want me to what?"

"Cut the waterfall. Stop the flow. Once you can do that, I'll get Asuma to teach you," Kakashi said. "You might find it helpful to water-walk, in order to get closer. I'll leave you to it." Naruto incredulously watched Kakashi retreat.

Cut the waterfall? Naruto shrugged. He knew he could probably get the hang of it eventually. After all, he had never thought he would be able to tree-walk. All the same, there seemed little point to devoting all of his time to this exercise. He created a couple of shadow clones, giving them strict instructions. He grinned as they walked out into the middle of the water and began following up on his directions. It's so nice to delegate. Naruto left, the idea of setting up a new prank firmly in mind. He wanted to do a bit of physical training later that day, something he discovered could not be worked on via shadow clones, but for now, with his clones occupied in practicing all of his new jutsu and techniques, he felt justified in taking a bit of time off to pull a prank and maybe visit Ichiraku's.

A/N: Okay, so this chapter took a ridiculous amount of time to get around to writing. I'm sorry. Good news: I will soon be starting a new fic for a challenge and I will write both that one and this one at the same time. However, it may take a while for me to post the first chapter of the Challenge fic after I start writing it because I want to PM the author who came up with the Challenge and get permission. Okay! now on to stuff about this chapter!

-For those who do not know, Tenzo was Yamato's codename while Kakashi was an ANBU, so that's what Kakashi still calls him

-With any luck, the Chunin exams will start in the chapter after the next one

-I think Sasuke regrets watching the sunset

-NaruHina in the next few chapters

-The next chapters will be both longer and more interesting. This I swear through blood and bone by ship and shore with heart, soul, and mind.