Chapter 7

3rd Person Pov

Naruto had never been this tired before. She has been physically exhausted more than a few times. However, she's never been mentally and physically exhausted at the same time.

'Who knew being a combat medic would be so hard.' The blonde thought going over everything she's been doing for the last few weeks.

First, Tsunade-baa had to get Naruto's reading level up to snuff with the help of hundreds of clones. That took about 3 days, and ever since Naruto has been pouring through book after book. Most of them are about the human body, but some were about politics. Naruto was just glad that Kakashi had to suffer with her on that one. Also, let's not forget the numerous chakra control exercises that she had to do over and over again. After dinner was Naruto's favorite time because that was when she learned fuinjutsu. Naruto was surprised by how easy it seemed to her, but when Tsunade explained that everyone in the Uzumaki Clan was basically genetically programmed to be good a sealing it made her feel like she had a family.

One of the more torturous exercises that Tsunade had Naruto do was to learn how to dodge. When they first started out baa-chan had been impressed by her stamina and speed. So Naruto's reward was being forced to wear gravity seals to improve her speed and strength.

On one of Naruto's few days off she had explored the Uzumaki Compound and had discovered some very interesting artifacts. They included Mito's old suit of armor, which Naruto was totally going to wear, a lot of scrolls on sealing, and a lot of Uzumaki techniques. There was a note that was apparently from her grandfather detailing that the clan vaults were linked and he sent off most of their techniques before they were destroyed. She also found an old Uzushiogakure uniform. It was red and black and had some amazing sealing matrixes. Naruto was going to make it her new ninja outfit.

Of course, some of the scrolls detailed the Uzumaki taijutsu which Naruto, Kakashi, and Tsunade had trouble deciphering. So, Naruto began training under the village's resident taijutsu specialist. He was… interesting.

Flashback

The sun was just barely rising over the village of Konoha. There were only a few people awake, and unfortunately for Naruto one of them was her. Kakashi had woken her up in the morning, made her breakfast, and telling her that they were going to see the village's taijutsu specialist about the scrolls. So after breakfast they made their way to a training ground, with the scrolls. Apparently Kakashi and the guy go way back and are eternal rivals. Tsunade probably had to blackmail Kakashi, with what Naruto didn't know, to get him to introduce her to his Eternal Rival.

When they got to the training ground there were only two figures there. One was a man that was about 3 or 4 inches taller than Kakashi. The second one was about the same height as baa-chan. They looked like they were father and son. Both had bowl cuts, skin tight green leotards with orange leg warmers and…

"E-eyebrows!" Naruto whisper screamed.

This causes the bigger man to apparently realize that he isn't alone on the training ground. He greets Kakashi first.

"Eternal Rival! You should be congratulated." Naruto wanted to cease to exist.

"Yeah sure Gai, but I'm not here for a social visit." Naruto watches as he adopts an attitude that is like Sasuke.

"Ah, are you so fired up with youth that you came to me with a challenge?!" The man looks so fired up at that moment.

"What you say something?" The man in the green leotard falls onto his face.

"Curse you cool and hip attitude Kakashi!"

"Anyways, I guess it is a bit of a challenge. However, this is something that only Konoha's resident taijutsu master could do."

"YOSH! I promise to fulfill this challenge or I'll run around Konoha one thousand times on my hands!"

"Cool, Naruto can you show him the scrolls." He's dismissive so Naruto takes out the scrolls and throws one of her medical textbooks at his head. He wasn't expecting it and got hit in the head. "Ow!"

"Stop acting like an ass." She then hands the scrolls to a gleeful looking Gai. "Here, we couldn't make heads or tails of these but I really want to learn it."

He immediately becomes serious and reading through the scrolls. Then as he reads further in his eyes get big. Kakashi is rubbing his head and hands her the medical textbook. He reads through one scroll before addressing her.

"You do realize what this is correct?"

"Hai, this is the Uzumaki Taijutsu style called Borutekkusumēkā (Vortex Maker)."

"I'm assuming that you have other teachers?" The man asked

"Yeah, I've been training under Tsunade-sensei, but that's mostly clones because I'm doing chakra control and reading a lot. Sometimes we have dodging practice which is crazy now that I have these gravity seals on. Then I do some fuinjutsu practice in the evening."

"That's a lot to do, but if you got here early enough we'll help you out. Also, maybe you should bring Tsunade along and we can do joint dodging sessions. However, I would be honored to teach you this style."

"Thank you Gai-sensei!"

"Oh, so you do know my name! What has my eternal rival told you about me?" The man excitedly asks.

"That you're the village's resident taijutsu master." There is a silence.

"What else?" Gai prompts.

"Um, that you're his Eternal Rival." Gai looks saddened by how little information Naruto knew about him.

"Is that all you've told her about me?!"

"Mou Gai, I thought it would be better for her to get to know you. You're very… unique, and I didn't want to give her any of the wrong ideas."

"Gai-sensei," the clone piped up. "Why is it so important that Naruto-chan knows about you?"

"Well that's simple, Kakashi is the last of his clan and the council has decided to marry my Eternal Rival to Naruto-chan." Naruto wanted to learn the jutsu that let ninja hide underground, it would be so useful right now.

"Oh," the boy is looking between the two of them. "So, what are you Naruto-chan? A normal genius or a genius of hard work?"

"Definitely a genius of hard work. I don't want to be like Sasuke-teme." Naruto can almost feel Kakashi's fear.

"Sasuke-teme?" The boy seems a little confused.

"Uchiha Sasuke he was on my team and he's the most annoying person I've ever met."

"I would think that would be Kakashi." She heard Gai mumble.

"Nah Kakashi is most infuriating." Kakashi looked a little hurt at that but Gai and Lee laugh.

##############################

Kakashi's Centric PoV

Kakashi was surprised that Naruto and Lee were getting along so well, but he honestly shouldn't have been. He was mostly surprised by the medical textbook he took to the head. It was enough to hurt but not enough to damage anything.

"I think she'll be good for you Eternal Rival."

"Kami, you too Gai? Now the pack and you are thinking this is such a great set up."

"No, we just think you two are good for each other. This setup is not a good situation at all least of all Naruto." Gai is serious which means that this is something Kakashi should listen too.

"There are a couple things that you need to know if you're going to teach her. I know that at least her academics were purposefully sabotaged. She could barely read, and she was kicked out of that class because she raised her hand. I can't even imagine what damage they've done to her taijutsu." Kakashi is angry and sad because this was horrible to do to any child and it happened to someone Kakashi knew and should have protected.

"I'll keep that in mind, and you were a child you couldn't have done a lot to help her." Gai of course knew what was going on in Kakashi's head.

Flashback End

Naruto Centric PoV

'It has been a long couple of weeks.' The blonde falls into a deep sleep with that thought.

Next Day

3rd Person Pov

The Chunnin Exams were going to start in a couple of days. Naruto was given a break for the day and Naruto decided to go around shopping in her henge Katsumi Shiroka. The Uzumaki Clan compound was low on food, and Kakashi was doing D ranks with the team. So after Naruto had put on a red shirt with some shorts she left the house.

Ever since Sai had been added to the team the already horrible team dynamics were just collapsing in on themselves. Sai seemed to think that insults were like nicknames and he was just too emotionless, it gave Naruto the creeps. He also pissed Kakashi off by calling him an Inuzuka bastard that no one wanted. Sai was much too young to have know that and it really pissed Kakashi off. She heard him ranting about the guy, hissing under his breath while he cooked dinner. During her reminiscing, she had registered Konohamaru following behind her.

"Konohamaru rocks are not that square and they don't have eyeholes." Konohamaru bursts out of the box with a lot of fanfare.

"Hey Boss! How are you? I haven't seen you around recently." The boy is very eager.

"I've been really busy, training and studying. I got an apprenticeship and I've been working my butt off."

"You've been studying?" The boy asks incredulously.

"Yeah, I've been learning every single part of the body. You can actually pick up a lot of weak spots from it."

"Really? Can you play ninja with me?"

"How about I give you a little training?" The blonde asks after debating with herself for a minute.

"What kind of training?" The boy looks so excited.

"Evasion and speed training. Run and I'll chase after you. Let's see how long you last."

Konohamaru speeds off without another word, and Naruto begins to hunt the young boy. He is pretty fast for his age, which is good. Naruto however is a lot faster than she was so she easily follows him. At one point she passes the waiting Team 7 waving at Sakura. Then she saw Konohamaru run into a foreign shinobi.

He was wearing all black and had something wrapped up on his back. He also had on makeup and his headdress made him look like a cat. Behind him was a girl with four pigtails, blonde hair, and an oversized fan.

"Well look at what we have here. A brat that doesn't know his place." He picks a struggling Konohamaru up by his scarf. Naruto throws a senbon into his hand.

"I would watch yourself Kesho-san (Makeup-san). It wouldn't do for a Suna shinobi to be attacking the hokage's grandson. That would cause an international incident." The two focus in on her and the boy throws Konohamaru to the ground, yanks the senbon out and sneers.

"And what are you going to do about it?" Naruto throws a shuriken to take off his hat and a kunai to nick his cheek.

"First rule of combat Kesho-san, never underestimate your opponent. Just because I'm off for the day doesn't mean I am not carrying weapons." She glares at the two. "Now get yourself and your two teammates, including the one being creepy in the tree, and go back to report to your superior officer before any ANBU get here and haul you off to Anko. Also, Sasuke you are not fooling anyone get out here."

Sasuke emerges glaring at the two foreign shinobi. Then he focuses on the red head leaking ki. He is pale with blood red hair that is spiked up by what she assumes is just nature. He also has a huge gourd on his back. He has green eyes with no pupils and he looks like he hasn't slept a day in his life and has put a ring of dark eyeliner around his eyes. He has the kanji for love on his forehead and no eyebrows. He is focused on her.

"Who are you?" He demands focusing a staggering amount of ki on her.

"I am Sasuke Uchiha-" The redhead glares at Sasuke.

"Not you the blonde."

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto." She answers a feeling in her stomach that she doesn't recognize until she puts together that he is probably a fellow jinchuriki.

"Mother wants your blood." He reports to her glaring.

"Nice to meet you too, Ichiban (Number One). Nine says hello and that your mother is an idiot." She sees the two visibly react in fear to this statement.

"Kakuro, Temari, come on and stop being such a disgrace to our village." The redhead walks away the two following behind him the three disappear behind a corner.

"Come on Konohamaru, let's get you back to Iruka-sensei. It's dangerous with these foreign shinobi out for the Chunnin exams. So, until they are over you shouldn't run away from school."

"Hai boss." The boy responds visibly shaken.

Also I got some of this from 'Team 8' which is such a good story by the way. Please read it. However, I've read some good ones recently including

'Into the Shadows' by darknessfeathers

'Naruto: Rise of Uzushiogakure' by Black' Victor Cachat (be warned it's gotten a little confusing)

'Arvum' by Hanamaki (this is Kakashi x FemNaru)

Most of the stories by Marrei have the same pairing as above also check out Blackkitten23 on Ao3 which is good for a lot of stories but they are a bit more mature.