A/N: Just to let you know, I have completely forgotten to put Japanese words instead of English since Japanese isn't my language. I'm adding a few swear words in this chap because I'm in a bad mood. Also go check out my new short story where Naruto meets the ghost of Minato, and don't forget to review it!

Leader of a Village

Previous Chapter… "Call it The Great Naruto Bridge." Inari shouted. The demon, though Inari thought he was more human than demon, had become good friends in the week they stayed together.

"All right. It's official. I hereby declare this bridge named The Great Naruto Bridge!" Tazuna exclaimed and was met with cheers.

A little ways off, Naruto smiled.

It was full-out pouring by the time the team got to Konoha's gates. It was nearly dark and all four were soaking and neither in a happy mood, especially Naruto. Did I mention he had a certain dislike for water? Well he has an even more dislike for rain. Not only did the damn rain dampen his fiery spirit, chill him to the bone and wet his hair making it flatten over his eyes, the sound of millions of droplets cascading down and plit plating onto the soggy ground was almost too much for his ears to take.

"Fuck this rain." He muttered under his breath. He was never happier to see Konoha again. With a whoop of joy, he ran towards the gates, not even pausing to give his name to the poor guards, and charged off towards his apartment.

He landed on the doorstep of the apartment. The Sandaime had persuaded the owners to let him have the room while he paid for it. Luckily the apartment wasn't too bad, he was a little short on hot water but apart from that it was a decent home.

He rubbed his hands in an effort to warm them up, failing though, and reached for his keys. His numbly felt into his weapons pouch and fished out the key. Smiling, he shoved it into the lock, only to miss and drop it onto the floor. Cursing, he tried picking them up but accidently dropped it into the gap between two planks. He stared at the key, focusing every swear word known to man and demon at the stupid key lying there as if taunting him.

After realising the key wouldn't die, he dramatically sighed and pushed out his chakra to fetch the key. Still holding the key with chakra, he expertly put it in the hole and turned. Instantly happy again, he dropped the key onto the coffee table and flipped onto the couch, relaxing into the soft Dacron-filled comfort. He thanked himself for practising chakra control for the past years. He relaxed his mind and focused on the rain humming on the roof.

He opened his eyes to the sound of some annoying bird just outside his window. Did I fall asleep? He looked out the window to see clear blue skies and a crisp atmosphere. Looks like rain has its good side. He looked at his wall clock. 6:30. Half an hour before he had to go meet with his team, 2 more hours for Kakashi to arrive and 5 minutes to go get another lame D-Ranked mission. Without even looking, he covered himself with chakra and heated himself up. His damp clothes quickly drying in the heat.

He stretched, ate some ramen and changed into his common form of a fox. Using his chakra to unlock the door, he jumped out and started leaping on the roofs of various buildings. Even though foxes couldn't laugh, happiness was evident from the way his mouth was open and his pink tongue dangled out the side dripping saliva.

He finally arrived at the bridge. His brain made the calculations. He left at 6:40 and ran for 8 minutes, so there was still 12 minutes till Sasuke and Sakura to arrive. Plenty of time for a nice quick nap. Finding a comfortable spot on the tree's branch, he happily dozed off.

At the sound of footsteps approaching, Naruto opened an eye to see who came. Sasuke was walking towards the bridge with his hand in his pockets. Following like a lost puppy was Sakura, talking animatingly to the obviously annoyed boy. Naruto decided it was probably a good idea to show up now.

He morphed back into human form and jumped down from the tree, walking towards his teammates. He also noticed that Sasuke glared at him with a little killer intent. Sakura was still as clueless as ever. Great, Sasuke still hates me for having more power. Stupid mortal. So he decided to tell him.

"Sasuke, you're and idiot. You can be as jealous as you want but you will never be more powerful than me." At those words Sasuke's face turned into a sneer. Obviously his teammates weren't scared of him anymore.

"Just you watch. I will get more power than you, what ever it takes. I will kill my brother with the power I have."

Naruto growled. "Stupid ningen. It's that type of sick ambition that will cause you to hurt your friends. Let go of the past, Sasuke, you will live a much happier life."

"What do you know? Huh? I lost all my family because of one person, and I will kill him!"

"Careful, Sasuke, don't get blinded by revenge. You might just regret it."

"Hmph." Sasuke ignored Naruto from then. That was the scene Kakashi was met with. Naruto staring at the ground, annoyance clear on his face. Sasuke leaning on the bridge with his arms crossed and staring of into the water, also annoyed, and Sakura glaring at Naruto for angering Sasuke. Really, Kakashi had finished talking to Obito a while ago and had seen the whole thing. Sasuke is a fool. He should know better than to think he is smarter than a fox. When the time comes, I hope he will make the right choice.

"Alright, team. Time for some missions." He said and led them to the Hokage's tower.

--

"Alright, Team 7. There is the D-ranked mission, capture Tora the cat, clean out the trash in the river, and-"

"Aww, come on, old man, give us a real mission. We did pretty well on the last A-Ranked mission." Naruto pouted. The Sandaime sighed. I'm getting to old for this shit. "Naruto, there is a reason for these missions."

"Oh yeah? What are they?" He challenged.

"Shinobi must learn to work as a team. And doing these jobs is a great way to bond with each other, since you will be a team for quite a while."

"Nuh uh. Doing missions where we camp in the open and watch each other's backs is the way to bond."

Kakashi whacked the back of his students head. "Naruto, stop talking back to the Hokage. We got lucky the mission to Wave happened to be an A-Ranked."

"Yeah but we did so well on the mission. A few problems here and there but nothing we couldn't deal with."

"We can't-"

"Relax, Kakashi. I'll give you a B-Ranked."

"Yay, victory! I hope you checked to see if the client was lying. Oh wait, I want them to lie, it would be more entertaining." He said in a sing song voice.

"No Naruto, this is just a simple mission. Your mission is to escort Shibuki, leader of the Waterfall village, back there safe and sound." (A/N: If you have seen the short film of that, it might be a bit different from the real one.)

Naruto's eyes turned suspicious. "That sounds awfully a lot like our Wave mission."

"Don't worry. The client would have paid more if it was too dangerous. Ok, you will meet him in an hour at the gates. Good luck."

Kakashi turned to his team. "Alright team, go home and pack for about 3 days trip. Waterfall isn't far from here, it shouldn't take too long."

"Hai." They replied and set off.

--

The three genin arrived at the same time to see a man with blue clothes and armour plates on his shoulders. Apart from the armour, the young man didn't look much like a ninja, let alone a leader of a village. In fact, he should be too young. The man turned his head to them only when they were close to him, signs of an inexperienced ninja.

"Hello," he said, "are you the team whose going to escort me?"

"Yup, team 7 at your service." Naruto replied cheerfully.

Shibuki frowned at them. "Aren't you a little young for this mission?"

"Aren't you a little young to be a leader?" he replied drily.

"I am, in fact, the strongest ninja in my village."

"Well your village must suck since you don't look like much."

"That's funny, coming from a lowly genin."

"Well what rank are you classified as?"

"For your information I'm a high chunin."

"Wow, a pleasure to be in your presence Mr High-chunin-level leader of Waterfall village. I must hail before your awesome power." Naruto said and promptly raised his arms and hailed him in mock awe while chanting 'Hail' over and over again.

"Why you little brat! I could beat you even if I had 10 kunai stuck in my body."

"Ha. That's funny. I'd like to see you try."

"A genin isn't much of problem to me."

"Why don't you say that after you actually beat me? Mortal."

"That's enough." Kakashi said, appearing out of thin air before Shibuki could reply. But that didn't stop him from registering what Naruto said.

"Mortal? What's that supposed to mean?"

Kakashi cut him off before he could reply. "Let's go now, we are wasting precious travelling time. Move!" They set off at his command, albeit at a slow run.

--

"Mr Shibuki, what the Waterfall village like?" Sakura asked, always the curious one.

"Well, the Waterfall village is magnificent. Everyone is happy, our ninja are strong, and we also have a secret weapon. Very soon, I feel we will become the largest village in all the Shinobi lands." He said in a proud voice, his eyes sparkling with the hope of his dreams coming true.

Psh, I've seen the Waterfall village, and if it hasn't changed much from 14 years ago than the village still looks a hell of a lot worse than Konoha. Naruto thought.

"Right, I'm sure it will be big pretty soon. How big is it compared to Konoha, eh?" Naruto asked innocently.

Shibuki opened his mouth to reply, paused, frowned, put his finger on his chin, pointed at Naruto and opened his mouth, frowned again, then eventually settled for crossing his arms arrogantly and facing the other ways, much like Sasuke. Naruto snickered.

"Well how would you know? You've never been there otherwise I would have known you were there."

"It's a matter of where you look and what you look for, Shibuki dear."

He smirked at the confused face. They continued there trip reasonably silently and made camp in the surrounding bush at night. Naruto had brought cups of ramen from his house, so was currently gouging himself with the heavenly food while the others had sandwiches. After his 5th cup he was finally satisfied. (He keeps all the cups in a sealing scroll Kyuubi gave him.)

"I'll be on watch first, than Sasuke, Sakura and last will be Naruto. Each watch will be 2 hours long. Now go get some sleep."

--

Five minutes into his shift and he was already bored to death. The only things that perked his interest were the few hedgehogs that had crossed his path. Naruto had changed into the form of a fox because the fox form's hearing was 5 times better than normally. Plus the other senses heightened 5 times as well. Currently Naruto was lying on a patch of grass next to an oak tree. The gentle wind caressed the leaves and the stars blinked in the never-ending space. The crescent shone like a beacon in the sky.

It was times like these Naruto truly felt one with nature. It was times like these he could forget about being human. What would make this truly perfect is if Father was here. I wish so much he was here. Considering Kitsune live forever, Naruto was definitely considered a very young kit. Naruto sniffed the clean air and rest his head on his paws.

--

Somewhere in a cave…

"Ugh, would he hurry up?"

"Patience, Kisame, he will come in due time." As soon as he said that, an image materialised in front of the pair. The image was a man with a black coat with red clouds on it, like the Tsukuyomi world and the same on the pair. The man had three dots (if they are piercings, sorry.) on both sides of his nose and two upside down triangles on his chin. His ears were covered with so many ear piercings you could hardly recognise skin. A headband with the Rain symbol and a scratch in the middle was on his forehead pushing back red spiky hair.

"We have found the target." The man said.

The pair smiled. "Who is it?"

The man turned to Itachi, the second person in the cave. "The boy is called Uzumaki Naruto, a genin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, age 12."

"What is so important about this boy, Pein?" Itachi asked.

Pein smiled. "He is the Kyuubi's son."

A/N: Yay, I've finally made is longer! Alright so the Akatsuki are pretty much the same except they aren't going for the jinchuuriki they are going for people of strength or value. They want Naruto to be their slave and do their bidding to rule the world!

Tsukuyomi: The genjutsu the Mangekyou Sharingan will put you in for 72 hours and torture you. The sky in the genjutsu is black with red clouds.

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