Next chapter is up, thanks for reviewing guys! Much appreciated.

I forgot to write this on my last chapter but: I DO NOT OWN NARUTO.

CHAPTER 2

Last time on: Greatness (*laughs*)

Naruto walked calmly to training ground 44 to vent out his anger.

When he reached, his anger was almost legendary to behold. He manifested chakra strings from most of his tenketsu, whether it was his hands, back, legs, neck, anywhere the strings could come out without it tearing his clothes to shreds and he decimated any tree and animal that got in his way. He let loose a yell and tore into a bear, mutilating the poor thing, disregarding the animal's roars of mercy. It was midnight when he finally cooled down and could make even the slightest bit of coherent thought, suspiciously not even the slightest bit tired he sat down and, for the first time in four years when his parents first forgot his birthday, cried. He cried until his voice was hoarse and scratchy. Another hour later pale boy stopped crying and looked up at the moon, clenching his fist he produced a thin string of chakra from his index finger, it glowed an eerie green and snaked around the trunk of a tree where he pumped more chakra into it and watched as the tree deteriorated slowly until it was on the verge of falling, with a flick of his wrist the tree fell forward and crashed in the now freshly made clearing.

'I'll show them' he thought darkly 'I'll show them I'm not useless'

And with that last thought, he took off his shirt and produced chakra strings from all his available tenketsu (same as before, but now includes his back, chest and sides) and began chipping away at the fallen tree, constructing his first puppet. If one were to watch him cut into the tree one would say he looked eerily like a spider wrapping its prey with its web.

A few feet away, Shibi Aburame watched his unofficial student as carved into the tree trunk and nodded approvingly, already knowing what he was doing, before he left in a shunshin. 'Good luck, Naruto'.

Now..

The next day, the residents of konohagakure no sato were in for a surprise when, at midday, the hokage's son walked down his usual path towards his home with wooden parts of a something levitating above his head with faint green strings connected to them. This not withstanding the fact that ninja in general could walk on walls, water and even breath fire; it was the fact that it was a 8 year old child that looked as if he had just fought off a tiger in a blizzard carried these things above his head. But even still, when they finally adjusted to the sight, most of the villagers sent him smiles and waves which he only responded to with stoic nods.

But despite his stoic exterior, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze's mind was a whirlwind of idea's, traps and even the occasional plot. 'The jaw should be able to unhinge and fire poison senbon, these poison senbon should be categorised inside Kumo-paralytic, fatal and uncomfortable. The joints can be easily constructed in Higuarashi-san's weapons store. Yes, I know exactly what to do'.

On reaching home, he briefly pondered whether he should follow the front door or his bedroom window; he chose the latter while briefly noting that when he became a ninja he would buy a more spacious house or apartment.

Since it was a well known fact that the Hokage and his wife, who was the princess of the now semi-extinct Uzushioagakure no Sato, were seal masters far even surpassing Jiraiya of the Sannin, so it came as no surprise when he found it impossible to wall walk up the house to his room, so the boy did the next best thing; he spared two strings and used it to open his rooms window, he then very delicately-despite it being made out of sturdy wood-place his puppet parts in his room. Then the blonde boy used the strings as a sort of limb to hoist himself up to his room. This all happened in the span of 3 minutes.

'So my guess was correct, I can use my chakra string as prehensile limbs' Naruto mused, as he passed through his window, his legs were immediately latched onto by a red faced and red eyed Mito. Sighing to himself, he patted her head and made to walk into his bathroom when he still could not walk, unsurprising since Mito was still latched on his legs.

"O-o-nii-san, I-I'm sorry! Y-you can have the-the title I-if you want, just please I-I'm sorry!" she blubbered, her word slightly slurring most likely from lack of sleep.

Naruto had no idea what to do; he never really studied on how to stop a girl from crying. He patted her head awkwardly and told her: "Mito, I'm not angry at you" then his face softened, "please stop crying."

Then as if a switch had been pulled, she indeed stopped crying but this time she climbed onto his back, a few minutes of rigid standing and her breathing evened out. He pondered using his strings to place her on his bed to sleep, but discarded it not wanting to risk poisoning his own sister. After placing the red faced girl in bed and giving her head another awkward pat, he proceeded into his bathroom and showered, he had a long day ahead of him.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

We now find our budding puppet master in the market district, green shorts filled with scrolls that were in turn filled with money he had saved since he was 5 years old, apparently being the son of a Kage had its perks, go figure. In his hands he held a list of all his requirements he would need for his puppets; he walked into Higuarashi's Ninja Weapon Store, where the bell over head chimed;

"Welcome to Higuarashi's Ninja Weapon Store, Namikaze-sama, how may I be of assistance" Shurupuu Higuarashi, a burly, black haired, black eyed man of 50 years old bellowed from behind his stores counter.

"No need for formalities, Higuarashi-san, I'm just here to buy some things" Naruto said as he passed over his list to the muscular man "and how much is it to rent out your workshop and forge for an indefinite period of time"

"5000 ryo per week" the man hummed as his eyes scanned over the list "pardon me for asking Naruto-kun, but are you preparing for a war?"

"In a sense, yes I am" the pale boy smirked, when the man paled he waved his hand dismissively "it's not important, just do you have all on that list?"

"Yes, I do have everything" at this Naruto sighed in relief, "When do you want me to deliver them to your house?"

"Actually, I plan on using them in your work shop if you don't mind, so you can just carry them over there"

"Luckily for me, most of them are already there, that is the weapons, and the clothes are up here, I'll carry them down when you're ready to use it. When do you want to pay for all this, I mean if you pay me for these things and you also pay me for renting out my workshop and forge I can actually retire 20 years earlier, which I wouldn't mind you" he then wrote down the sum of Naruto's purchase, but was surprised to see that he only nodded. Not even responding, Naruto brought out a scroll and unrolled it over he counter, the man watched him open mouthed as Naruto unsealed so much money it actually made the counter creak under its weight. They heard an almost inaudible thump behind the shelf where a few zanbatou's were hung, they could only assume that the burly mans daughter had seen the money and passed out.

"Will this sum be sufficient" Higuarashi gave a dumb nod, trying to process how that much money could be on a child's body, "is your workshop ready now?" another nod. "Then, I would like to make use of it now please"

"Don't mind if I ask, but how long would you be there?" the man said, trying to get his mouth to work correctly.

"A long, long time, Higuarashi-san" the boy chuckled. "Down payment for the next year is in there, you can count it at your leisure. Maybe in the future when I'm older we can enter into another agreement that would be beneficial to both of us"

"I-I…uh…w-well then, follow me" the black smith stammered, going to the door and closing his shop for the day, before he turned around and staggered into a corridor-still not believing how rich he was now-that led to two separate place, upstairs and downstairs, they went downstairs and Naruto found himself in a humble workshop/forge. All the necessaries were there. "If you don't mind me asking" Higuarashi stammered, "do you even know how to use a forge?"

"Don't worry about me, Higuarashi-san, I'll be fine" the boy said as he rubbed his hands together, "please bring in the clothes, I'll be here for a while."

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Apparently, what Naruto meant by 'a while' was 5 months.

He only left the workshop was to visit his sister in the kage's mansion who had taken to training like a girl possessed, saying she wanted "to make her onii-san proud", go to his friends clan compounds so that they would not notice his absence in the mansion, visited Shibi Aburame who suspiciously gave him a scroll on the various spiders the Abuarme clan had catalogued and their poisons if they had and even though he could not see his eyes behind his glasses, he could just feel the knowing air his sensei had.

He also made weekly trips into training ground 44-which he noticed that the trees were more sturdier than the trees in Konoha's other forests-so he could cut down trees and started carving out body parts for his puppets among other things. He had also taken to running laps around Konoha before sunrise where he would find a green spandex wearing… person also jogging (more like sprinting) around Konoha, that would yell something about "the springtime of youth!" and "youthful jogging of a youthful youth!" anytime he saw him. He shuddered at the memory.

Naruto had also taken it upon himself to find a fighting style that would complement his puppetry; Sami Yamanaka gave him a scroll from the less frequented section of the Konoha library. It was called The Dizzy Spell Stinging Fists (original name); despite the long and arduous name it was the perfect fighting style. It focused on movements that were unpredictable, fast and disorientating but not too strong strikes; where a user should be able to move his arms and feet so fast it would be a blur, which in turn would slightly hypnotize the victim and give him time to strike him in any of his pressure points, stick a paralysis senbon he was sure to place on his person or jump back so he could use a puppet. The style needed the user to be even the slightest bit proficient in using a senbon. The Dizzy Spell Stinging Fists was eerily similar to using a genjutsu but it was not, still the only way to neutralize the fighting style for a novice user was if the person was to have a doujutsu like the sharingan or the byakugan, he'd have to plan on what to do if that were ever the case. He has been training in the style for the past 3 months for 5 hours a day in his favourite training ground, so he could say he was proficient in it but it would take a few more years before he would become a master in the style.

Naruto was now the proud owner of three puppets.

The first was a puppet named Kumo; it was modelled, unsurprisingly, after a spider with a man's upper body. The puppets spider half was painted black with the occasional brown and dark green streaks. The human half was Caucasian with green eyes, he wore a sleeveless black shirt with a dark green flak jacket over it. The puppets abdomen was filled with ninja wire and shuriken, both laced with paralytic and poisons respectively. The puppets arms were riddled with seals that stored poisoned senbon, shuriken, kunai, explosive tags, flash bangs and smoke bombs, the mouth was segmented and fanged slightly, he could retract the fangs and make it as long as a regular kunai poisoned, of course, with an anti-coagulant-like poison that would prevent the wound from closing. He would have to bite the neck for it to ensure 95% death rate of its victims. Kumo had seals on his flak jacket that stored some lightening chakra so that if anyone were to be able to hold onto him, he would be able to electrocute the poor idiot. Also, the puppet had a cavity in it where Naruto could climb in and control directly, but if one were to see the puppet for the first time it would be hard to believe because the human half had a regular build. The puppets whole body was also riddled with durability seals so it could even fight underwater (he hadn't tested it yet). It carried a katana sealed into its wrist for emergencies. Naruto had already decided that Kenchi would be his most used puppet.

The second puppet was mysteriously named Black Hole (Burakkuhoru) or Ko. Naruto made the puppet looked like a 5 year old child so that its opponents would underestimate it. He fashioned it to look as cute and adorable as any other regular child should be, it had green eyes and a faint dusting of blush on its cheeks, he made the puppet I such a way that it would fidget cutely when he summoned it but when its opponent began to relax, it would look into its victims eyes, hypnotizing him-Naruto was very good with seals-then it would unhinge its mouth and a seal in its mouth would activate. It would be from this seal that the puppets name had been derived. The seal in its mouth was a modified storage seal that removed the handicap of storage limit and whether the thing being stored was living or not, it would shoot out ninja wires and quickly drag the still gushing victim into its mouth where he would remain in suspended animation for an indefinite period of time. The puppet could spit the opponent out, still in a daze, at command. Ko wore a purple kimono with black flowers over the waist and chest areas, it had on black sandals, it also had pitch black hair and lightly tanned skin. Ko was a puppet that was physically incapable of running past a civilian pace because she was as slimmed as any other healthy child should be without any training. Ko was a puppet more accustomed for capture and interrogation.

The last puppet was Naruto proudest work of art. It was named Mummy (Mira) or Wraps. Naruto first of all carved out a human skeleton from a tree and inscribed it with his special durability seals. He then painted it so it could easily pass off as a human skeleton and then began wrapping it in bandages from top to bottom so heavily that if one were to see it, he would think that there was skin underneath it. Its eyes were green orbs that glowed and its mouth was forever etched in a toothy grin. It carried a solid obsidian scythe he had sent Higuarashi to order from Demon Country for a hefty sum of money, but it was well worth it because if any other person besides Naruto held it, he would immediately be struck comatose. Naruto was inspired in making this puppet by myths of a ghost with similar features, so, if he was forced to introduce wraps he would give it a jackal like laugh to unnerve his opponent. Even though he doubted anyone could bypass his Kumo, he just had to make sure in case of emergencies. Wraps was able to run at jounin speeds for a quick swipe and decapitate or to wrap the victim in its unusually durable bandages or to distract for an ally to incapacitate.

Naruto himself had made a drastic change in his dress code. He now wore black ANBU styled pants with numerous pockets for his scrolls with his kunai and shuriken holder on his right leg and hips respectively, a black long sleeved shirt with a green stripe going down the middle, a dark green hoodie with hidden pockets, fingerless gloves so as not to block his chakra strings, black sandals with his half mask hanging off his neck and his black glasses over his eyes. He looked good, if he says so himself. Or if he took the fact that Hinata kept fainting every time he waved at her, he really needed to read into that.

The boy had also gone to a black market tattoo artist and paid for her to disregard his age so she could tattoo his special seals (he gave here the kanji of what it looked like) all over his arms and a spider tattoo, that had Kenchi sealed into it, on his left wrist. ('tattoos are awesome' Naruto mused.)

Then, for the last month he has been practicing with all his puppets both individually and collectively till it became instinctive. Naruto could now control each puppet with three of his fingers. The boy also kept a sketch pad and a pencil with him in his hoodie pocket in case he had any inspiration. He had not even spent more than an hour in the kage's mansion.

He was now ready to start the academy. This would start in the next… 2 days.

Great…

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She felt horrible.

She felt like her heart had just shrivelled up and died.

She hadn't seen him in the last 5 months.

After his birthday party 5 months ago she had not even seen him so that she could apologize for being a bad mother.

She has been crying for the last few months in his room, begging anyone who could hear for her son to forgive her. To forgive them. A sob escaped her throat.

Kushina Uzumaki has made it a personal mission to clean Naruto's already pristine room, just for her to feel like she had done something for him.

Presently, the woman stood in the kitchen in a trance as she watched the cheerfully blue sky. What was his favourite colour again? Why couldn't the sky just darken and feel as bad as she felt. Taking a deep breathe she continued her task of washing the dishes after another lunch that Naruto had been absent from. Where was he, did he have enough food to eat? Was the place he slept in warm? Safe?

The only relief the woman felt was that Naruto had not completely severed ties with the family. The red head had devoted all her afternoons to interrogating her other child, Mito on Naruto's well being. He was well, that was the only reason she could sleep at night.

She felt two arms circle around her waist and a head settle on her shoulder. Minato.

"We were idiots, weren't we minato-koi" the woman whispered

"Yes we were" Minato answered, "but I'm sure we can change that fact soon"

"That what you said yesterday and the day before and the day before…" the woman trailed on,

"I know, I know. But I have a gut feeling…" he kissed her neck, "trust my gut feeling, hime"

She melted into the kissed and turned around, kissing the man lightly then soon it turned into a full on make out session with Kushina on the kitchens counter moaning slightly into Minato's mouth… they to get to their room… they needed to get to their…

"Ehem!"

Minato jumped back so fast he stuck to the ceiling; the couple turned to the intruder only to see a stoically red faced Naruto whose black spectacled (black glasses, right?) eyes were trying to look anywhere but at his parents with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"Sochi-kun…" Kushina whispered, subtly checking to see if she was under in a genjutsu. Her heart thumped, maybe Minato was right.

"Tou-sama, kaa-sama" the blonde boy bowed to his parents, breaking their hearts slightly by his formality to them, "I would like to make a request"

There was a long and pregnant silence, Minato held his breathe and Kushina had to physically restrict herself from sobbing into the boy's chest. They were his parents; he did not have to ask for permission to make a request.

Taking charge, dropped from the ceiling, knelt down in front of the boy and clasped a hand on his shoulder, noticing silently that his left hand twitched almost too quickly, and gave Naruto a small smile, "you don't need to ask for permission to make a request, Naruto-kun, just make the request."

'so that's what they want to do' the boy thought darkly, 'well four years of ignoring me would not wash over overnight'. "Hai, I would like for you two to fill in and sign the Guardian section of the registration form to the Academy". True, he could have asked Shibi to sign it for him but unluckily for him everyone-or most of everyone-knew he was the son of the Yondaime Hokage; he had to have their signatures before he could go to the academy.

"Of course we will fill the form, just drop it in my office later, ok?"

"Hai, Tou-sama, thank you"

"No need to thank us, Naruto-kun"

Silence. Chocking silence. Minato stood up and waved at them, telling them that he needed to get back to work.

"Sochi-kun…"

"Kaa-sama?"

She held her hands over her mouth to stem the sobbing that wanted to wreck its havoc in her body and took a step towards him…

"I have somewhere to go, later" Naruto muttered quickly, bowing and walked briskly out of the kitchen. Leaving his mother in the now empty kitchen crying into her hands. Mito silently walked into the kitchen, after witnessing the whole thing, and brought her mother into a hug, occasionally stroking her back.

"Don't you worry, kaa-chan, would be back to normal in no time" the young girl declared. That was the thing she needed. Just a burst of part-naive mentality, even if it were for the day, so that the tears would stop.

"Sochi-kun…"

Kushina felt horrible.

Authors Note

Well… I feel horrible.

How did you guys like this chapter. Nice? Ok? Meh?

What of my puppet ideas, helpful suggestions are much appreciated guys.

Oh yeah and recently I found out that anything inspires me into writing a fiction. Just like a spider on my kid sisters stuffed bear inspired me to write this story. Right now, I'm running out of pages in my hard back notebook, do you guys want me to post them? Their mostly one-shot's, sure, but I can always expand them or whatever.

That's it! Review!

B.j