Chapter 12

Two men in cloaks with red clouds on it were walking on a lonely road. The taller one looked more than a fish than a man with a giant bandaged sword swung across his shoulder, a wild look on his face. The shorter one walked with a grace only seen in seasoned warriors, the most experienced assassins. He was the image of a walking authority. One may think that no such two people could become comrades, even allies. But the fact remains that they are, brought together by the sole purpose of capturing all the legendary tailed beasts.

"Hey Itachi!", called out the blue fish-face, "Isn't it time yet to capture the bijuu? I am shit bored of killing weaklings to get money! Don't get me wrong, I like money, but this is damn boring"

The said Itachi took a moment to regard his companion's question, "You are right Kisame, we are not doing anything worth the time. Let's do a quick check on our precious jinjuriki, nothing much, just see how fast they are progressing and to analyse their abilities."

Kisame gave a wide smile, his shark canines protruding, "Well Itachi, that's a first! I have never see you agreeing that fast to anything I say, if I didn't know you well I would say that you are losing your touch"

"Well you know me well enough not to ask that", said Itachi, "You go after Yonbi, shadow him, document his abilities. Meanwhile I will check on the Kyuubi"

"Huh?", said Kisame surprised, "I don't think going there alone is a good idea"

"I will be simply observing", said Itachi softly, "besides I have some personal business to take care of"

"Very well then Itachi", said Kisame taking off to a different direction "As you wish"

As soon as Kisame left black crows started coming out of Itachi's body until there was nothing left.

At the same time, the real Itachi walked into Ichiraku's ramen stand, smiling as he realised that his escape plan had worked perfectly.

Konoha was slowing waking up as the sun came up from behind the Hokage monument. Everyone was happy, finally they were going to spend a day with their families- Oops! Sorry, not everyone-

"YOU BASTARD!" screamed a terrified Naruto. He was currently hanging off a cliff clinging onto a very thin rope. He couldn't believe that he fell for such a lame trick, he should have ran away when he saw Simon taking him to the cliff with the rope. 'Its just as a precaution' he had said, the next moment he threw him off the cliff throwing him one end of the rope.

"Hey! Naruto, I advise you to do something very soon. The rope will not hold on for much longer, it has already been a minute", shouted Simon at Naruto in a causal tone.

"What the hell are you doing! I thought you didn't want to kill me?"

"I won't be so sure", replied Simon in a funny tone.

"Hey! This isn't funny, pull me up", now Naruto was desperately looking at his options out of this mess.

"I am not joking, I can't pull you up. If I do the rope will break, if I try something else your ass will touchdown before I could be of any help. So stop whining and try something to save yourself!"

Well shit, thought Naruto, well I'd better try out my new power, better late than never.

He reached out his hand at the surface of the cliff and channelled some of his chakra into it, feeling the life in the roots of a tree hidden from his view he felt oddly at peace. He reached out to it and willed it to help him, as if reading his mind some roots sprouted out of the cliff just below him in a criss-cross pattern, more the chakra he channelled the more it grew, soon it grew as large as the bed in his apartment.

Wow, thought Naruto as he let himself go, this is nice, I feel as if I am something bigger.

"Well, that worked very nicely, didn't it? I knew it would!", said a voice behind Naruto.

Naruto very slowly turned around keeping his balance on the wooden platform, he saw Simon standing behind him, in flight.

"Hey! How can you fly? Wait- If you are here then who was holding me a moment before?"

Then he looked up and saw another Simon waving at him from top of the cliff.

"What can I say? I picked up your little trick" said Simon cheekily.

Naruto got a sudden urge to throw himself down the cliff, just to tear that shit-eating grin off his face.

"Okay, here is what we will do for today- First, we have to improve you primary elements to their very best, then we will focus on the wood element. This actually serves two purposes, if your suiton, doton and the futon elements are perfected it will be easy for you to use your mokuton, also as of now you won't need to use you kekkei genkai and it will hence remain a secret"

Simon was lecturing Naruto while Naruto and his clones were trying to climb trees using feet only, "Yeah? The why am I doing this instead of learning some elemental jutsu?"

"Oh! That is to improve your chakra control. You see, the basic requirement for everything I mentioned is something that you don't have."

Naruto took a moment to process this, "Hey!"

THUMP! THUMP THUMP THUMP….

"Sorry, it's actually two things, chakra control and concentration", said Simon, sighing.

"So now that you have got a basic idea about how I teach, and that you have done some of the basic exercises, blah blah blah let's get on with the fun stuff which element do you want to learn?"

Naruto was lying on the ground, dead tired "Wh-hat? Now..n-now u wanna teach? I-I think I-"

And with that he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Simon started chuckling, "Itachi! Come out of hiding, I know you are here. Why don't you disable your invisibility jutsu and come out from behind that tree?"

Itachi slowly raised an eye-brow, clearly this guy held many secrets. As far as he could see with his sharingan, even though the child-guy-whatever had a very large chakra reserve his chakra pathways show little to no usage, even to see that was quite some strain in itself. Even with the lack of chakra in his outer system he managed to detect me, he know who I am too. For that I will play this game of his.

"So, you are here to see who has been disrupting Akatsuki's plans, am I right? ", questioned Simon, to which Itachi came out from behind the tree and nodded. "Well you can cut the crap as both of us know why exactly you are here. In that case shall we take off from here and have a friendly spar?", said Simon with his hands bursting into flames.

Itachi smiled slightly and with another nod followed Simon's lead.

Simon was having so much fun, it had been quite some time since he had faced such a good short-range fighter. Simon was fighting with just his fists while Itachi was using his chakra blades laced with fire chakra. Neither of them had scored a hit until now,…well if they had then the spar would have ended long before.

As for Itachi, it was an opportunity to practice his tai-jutsu, certainly this guy is excellent hand to hand combat skills.

WOOSH-

Itachi saw the kick from the corner of his eye and dodged just in time to avoid the kick, but not what came with it. He fell on his back with part of his cloak on flame, Itachi retreated, put out the fire and activated his sharingan, well, even I have a few tricks of my own, let us proceed to round two!

Simon saw the determined look on Itachi's face and his activated sharingan, I was wondering when he would do that…

Meanwhile with Naruto

Naruto had just woken up. He was scratching his head, think of why he was on the ground. That is when he noticed a sapling on the ground…and once again tree leaves shall bud anew.

The words of the Sandaime now made sense to him, it cleared his mind of all his doubts and filled it one emotion, compassion. He gently touched a leaf of the sampling and closed his eyes and whispered, "bud anew and become powerful so that you can protect those precious to you", and he passed it some of his power.

He let it grow and in a few moments opened his eyes and grinned when he saw himself standing in front of him, why am I not surprised?

Sorry guys, I know I did not update for quite a while and I have also not contacted my beta for some time. Without reviews it is hard to continue, so, guys please review.