Konoha's Maelstrom Chapter 4: Team 7, part 2, a naruto fanfic

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Batteries still not included.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed. As a new author I'm stumbling around trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, so feedback of any kind is appreciated.

I put up a poll with the last chapter and forgot to mention it, and judging by the ten who noticed it people prefer fast updates to long chapters. The poll is still open if you want to weigh in.

It seems like the readability of the last chapter suffered because of how much detail I try to cram in. I'm going to be more aware of that from now on. A lot of that was that I'd spent too much time thinking about who Kakashi would be in this story, and that spiraled off into other stuff. Some people enjoyed it, some people thought it was pointless. There's still a lot of explainy stuff that I think is essential to this chapter, but I've tried to make it easier to digest. Let me know if its better or worse than the last chapter in that sense. I've closed the last major inconsistencies that I felt the need to with this chapter, so things should pick up.

The response to the Mito scene was interesting to say the least. The original draft had Mito and Kyuubi revealing too much just for the sake of revealing it, so I rewrote it more vaguely. And I may have overcompensated on that count. Reading the reviews that talked about what people were seeing, I was thinking 'why has no one picked up on the clues?' So I went and carefully reread it and realized I had removed too many of the clues to get across what I wanted to.

Oops.

So, it would be very surprising if anyone actually managed to make very many accurate guesses at all based on that teaser. There are some clues that I still think are obvious that no one's mentioned though. I thought about rewriting it or putting up a more informative version, as a kind of omake, but it doesn't ruin anything as it is so I'll leave it be unless there's massive demand for it or something. (Yes, that was me shamelessly asking for reviews.)

You may also notice that the way Kakashi thinks Kage Bunshin works is not the way it actually is working. That'll be explained.

~~~~~~~~~~~ Konoha's Maelstrom ~~~~~~~~~~~

~ Chapter 4: Team 7, Part II ~

"See ya later," Naruto said as he leapt off the roof of his apartment building, heading towards the training ground that Kakashi-sensei had told them to meet at.

Had anyone actually been there, his farewell might have made sense. Unless they realized that he was actually talking to the plants.

Naruto liked to talk. So few people were willing to engage him in genuine conversation that he wholeheartedly enjoyed even the most frivolous of topics, so long as someone was actually talking to him. After countless thousands of hours of conversation between his Kage Bunshin, talking to himself even when there wasn't a clone to respond seemed natural.

Talking to the plants on his roof garden wasn't a sign of insanity. At least, he hoped it wasn't. It wasn't like he thought they were really listening to him. He'd read somewhere that plants actually grew better when they were played certain kinds of music, and pleasant (albeit one-sided) conversation couldn't be that far off, right? So he got to organize his thoughts, and the plants got the dubious benefit of hearing him speak.

It might be wishful thinking, but he did think the plants had gotten noticeably healthier since he'd begun meditating up there the week prior. Although it likely had more to do with the water condensation chakra exercises he'd taken to practicing there.

Calming his thoughts was the whole point of spending time on the roof.

A very important part of his training involved meditation to get better in tune with his chakra. He'd had some trouble with the whole concept until coming across a method that involved having a location to come to specifically to shut out the rest of the world, and routines to go along with that. Sometimes Naruto needed to have conversations with himself that weren't literally with himself in order to stay sane, so the roof garden was a clone free zone.

He'd been up on the roof trying to regain his center since he'd jolted out of his 'sleep' at three in the morning. Plants may be great listeners, but their silence wasn't helping him come to terms with whatever had happened the night before.

The Kyuubi. The woman. The Uzumaki clan. None of it made any sense.

Three hours of trying to work through it and the only progress was thinking of something that may have been what the fox was talking about. There was only one thing that he could think of that the Kyuubi possibly could have felt. That first night after discovering the Fundamentals of Ninjutsu book he'd performed a reckless experiment with Kawarimi just for the heck of it. The backlash of trying to play tug of war with the space-time continuum had knocked him out and taken down every single active clone.

That would mean that it took a week for the Kyuubi to bring him to the seal, which did kind of make sense. The demon had mentioned that it would be 'easier' next time, so maybe whatever it had done to bring him there had been difficult enough to take a week. Even assuming that he was correct about that, Naruto was still left with a problem; there was no way in hell he was pulling a stunt like that again. He'd spent some time looking into the nitty-gritties of the Kawarimi, and what little he'd managed to learn about space-time techniques told him that he was lucky he hadn't blown himself up. Or turned himself into applesauce. Space-time manipulation could be weird that way. If that was what the Kyuubi wanted him to do, there was no way that Naruto could see it being a good thing. The fox probably thought it could use the stress on his chakra system to try and escape or something.

But as much as he didn't want to help the fox out, it had been about to tell him something about his clan. Naruto needed to know what the Kyuubi had nearly said. He'd never thought too much about his clan name. All his life he'd been an orphan without a heritage, and there hadn't even been a hint that his clan had been important. Early on in his life he'd picked up the impression that no one even knew who his family was, and that Uzumaki was just a meaningless name given to him for bureaucratic reasons. That was standard procedure for children of unknown parentage who weren't adopted. But if the Kyuubi was to be believed his name meant something. Something incredibly important, if even a freaking demon knew about it and could recognize it in his chakra.

If only that woman could have waited even five more seconds.

Aside from whatever the hell the Kyuubi knew about his clan that amused the demon to the point of actual laughter, where the hell had that woman come from? What was she even doing in the seal? Naruto wanted to feel grateful, he really did. If she really had stopped the Kyuubi from doing something dangerous, she deserved a hell of a lot more than his gratitude. But things just weren't adding up.

The thing that just kept niggling at him was how terrified the Kyuubi had gotten when she'd shown up. Something about the whole situation felt really off, and he couldn't put his finger on it. It was a moot point, because if he wanted to disregard her warnings about how dangerous it was for him to be in there with the demon, he didn't know how. And even if she was telling the truth he had no way to stop the Kyuubi from yanking him back in.

"Good, you're on time."

Naruto started slightly. He hadn't even realized that Sasuke and Sakura were already at the training field.

"Morning Sakura-chan. Sasuke." He included Sasuke grudgingly. Surprisingly, he even got a 'hn' in return rather than just being ignored. He couldn't help but stare at Sakura, but not for the usual reasons.

"What?" She asked defensively. There was something unnerving about the way he was looking at her. It was more considering than adoring.

"Nothing," Naruto said, averting his gaze. He didn't want to admit that he'd been trying to imagine her with red hair. He loved Sakura for who she was, not what she looked like! He'd be able to remember exactly what about her was so attractive when he wasn't so distracted. Why couldn't he get his mind off that damn woman? He couldn't help but bounce from intense suspicion to mooning adoration of her beauty and then back again every five minutes. "Hey, either of you have any weird dreams last night?"

"Weird dreams?" Sakura asked, taken aback by the question. "Not really."

"No," Sasuke answered, with a whole syllable more than Naruto expected from him.

"Hm," Naruto murmured as he fell back into thought. He didn't still think it had been a genjutsu, but he wasn't going to write off that idea completely. If nothing else, he was going redouble his genjutsu studies. He never wanted to feel that trapped in his head again.

"You're late!" Naruto and Sakura accused Kakashi in unison when he showed up in a swirl of leaves. "Again," Naruto added, peeved at what was looking to be a pattern.

"A black cat crossed my path, and I had to circle the village three times to shake off the bad luck," Kakashi replied, fooling no one.

"That's almost as lame as what Naruto said yesterday." Sakura turned her glare on the blond, and even Sasuke gave him the evil eye. They were clearly blaming him for Kakashi adding a ridiculously untrue excuse on top of being late.

So what if he gave their weirdo sensei the idea? One of Gai-sensei's rants that Naruto hadn't quite managed to tune out was about the youthfulness of punctuality, how a Youthful Shinobi should always be mindful of the area around them so that they didn't get lost on the road of life. For some reason that was all that had come to mind when he was scrambling for an explanation of why it took him five minutes to get from the classroom to the roof that didn't give away his trump card. And the fact that he'd ditched Sakura-chan.

It had seemed much more clever in his head.

Kakashi-sensei was clearly taunting him with this copycat routine, and he'd even managed to redirect some of Sakura-chan's anger from its rightful target onto Naruto! He wasn't the one who made Kakashi late, and that was clearly the issue here.

"That was way lamer," Naruto defended himself.

"If you say so," Kakashi said. He jingled something in his hands, grabbing the genins' attention. "Here are two bells. Your task is to take them off of me before this," he set down an alarm clock, "goes off. It's set for noon. Those who don't have a bell by noon don't get any lunch. Not only that, but you'll be tied to one of those stumps to watch me eat your lunch right in front of you."

That bastard! That's why he told us not to eat! Naruto realized as his stomach twisted in protest. He'd actually forgotten that Kakashi had told them not to, but he hadn't been in the mood to eat when he woke up. Now that it had been brought up he was suddenly quite hungry.

"There are only two bells, so one of you is definitely going to be tied to a stump. And the person who doesn't take a bell fails. So at least one of you will be sent back to the academy."

What?!

Naruto tensed, acutely aware of Sakura and Sasuke doing the same on either side of him. Any one of them was now potentially the enemy. That is, if the other two could actually get ahold of the bells.

Kakashi's single exposed eye managed to convey his amusement at their dismay. "You should use your kunai, shuriken, and whatever else you brought with you. You don't even have a chance of succeeding unless you come at me intending to kill."

"But you'll be in danger!"

Had Naruto not met Gai and Lee the week before, he very likely would have agreed with Sakura, although he wouldn't have mirrored her concern at the thought of Kakashi getting hurt. Mizuki had been surprisingly easy to overwhelm with clones, showing him that even experienced shinobi could be taken down by a near limitless army of fearless cannon fodder. A thousand clones had been ridiculous overkill for Mizuki. The chuunin had managed to dispel a grand total of two clones before going down. It likely would have been only marginally more difficult to defeat him with fifteen or twenty clones. The experience had left him with a rather overinflated ego. It seemed as though if one Naruto could give an opponent even the slightest bit of trouble, all he had to do was send more and more clones at them until they were overwhelmed or exhausted, whichever came first.

The truth of the matter was more complicated.

Yes, a swarm of disposable Narutos was something that a lot of shinobi just weren't equipped to deal with. Two days after the Mizuki incident, Iruka had admitted over a bowl of ramen that in anything even close to a straight up fight Naruto could take him out. He'd followed that up with a stern lecture on quality versus quantity, and a warning that in a hypothetical confrontation Iruka wouldn't fight him head on. Genjutsu had been stressed as a huge potential weak point. That had been followed up by another lecture about how the vast majority of missions the village undertook didn't end up in shinobi slugfests, and how important skills not directly related to combat were. It was good information, but boring to listen to. The fact that Iruka had been paying for his ramen helped him through it though.

Naruto liked and respected Iruka-sensei, but he'd thought his former teacher just couldn't fully appreciate the beauty of the 'throw a thousand Narutos at the enemy' plan. And then Lee had shown him the hard line between quality and quantity. Trying to overwhelm the enthusiastic genin with clones was about as effective as trying to cut down a tree with a plastic spoon.

What it all boiled down to was that Naruto didn't think that they'd even be able to scratch Kakashi, because they wouldn't even be able to scratch Lee if he was the one with the bells. Even if he wasn't allowed to fight back or hide. Something about the way the gray haired jounin held himself reminded Naruto of Gai-sensei, so he doubted Kakashi was a pushover.

"Oh, I'll be fine," Kakashi assured Sakura. "So are you three going to actually do anything? The clock's ticking."

The three of them leapt away from Kakashi and each other, all choosing to hide while they figured out what was going on. Kakashi didn't move a muscle. Apparently he wasn't going to pursue them or hide, which possibly made things easier.

The instant Naruto was sufficiently hidden he started creating clones. He didn't need to say anything to direct them, as they knew everything he needed from him. An interesting thing about Kage Bunshin was that they usually didn't require explicit coordination of their roles. If he wanted half of a batch to work on chakra control and the other half to do katas, the individual clones came into being knowing which half they belonged to. He couldn't figure out how it worked, but it was really useful. Especially when having to talk to give out directions might give away his position.

Three clones went off to hide and think about the situation. Several dozen spread out for reconnaissance and in preparation for other tasks. He had a pretty good idea where Sakura-chan had hidden herself, but Sasuke had managed to slip off somewhere. Knowing where they were seemed like would be a good idea. Another few clones were sent off to the library. That was a long shot, but there was a book in particular that he thought might be helpful.

It was a dry read, but 'An Analysis of Battlefield Dynamics' had really opened his eyes to how a simplistic view of a situation made things difficult. As best as he could remember, this was what the book would characterize as a 'multi-party non-proxy competition for finite possession'. Which was just a stuffy way of saying that Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura all needed something, and there wasn't enough of that something to go around. Also, they were acting on their own behalf. For the most part, Konoha ninja acted as proxies for Konoha on behalf of clients, which sometimes did weird things to the strategic planning process.

Unfortunately, being able to give a fancy name to the situation didn't help when he couldn't remember any of the complicated analyses of strategies that went along with it, which was why he was having a clone try to figure out if there was anything helpful in there. A goal-oriented approach to the test would be hard without understanding Kakashi-sensei's motivations, but it was better than nothing.

There were other things to worry about, like the deceptive presentation of the victory conditions. Naruto could sit around trying to figure out whether or not having a bell at noon actually was the end goal, but he was better off leaving his clones to puzzle out all those confusing details, as noon wasn't that far off. The goal involved the bells, so actually going after them was probably a good idea. Knowing that his clones were thinking about the issues that were bugging him helped him clear his mind and focus on what he could achieve. Being able to delegate thinking was awesome.

"You're a really weird one, aren't you?" Kakashi said as Naruto simply walked back into clearing less than a minute after jumping away to hide.

"It's no fun playing hide and seek if no one is doing any seeking," Naruto replied, biting back the urge to point out that Kakashi was the weird one. That wasn't in line with his current tactics. "And besides, were you going to give me a bell if I hid until noon?"

"No, actually."

"That's what I thought. So, may I please have a bell?"

Kakashi stared at him. "You're… asking?"

Naruto smiled innocently. "If the first thing everyone did when they wanted something was try and take it by force, the world would be a horrible place, wouldn't it? There isn't any harm in being polite."

This strategy wouldn't have even occurred to him before reading 'Tactical Misconceptions: Goal-Oriented Strategic Thinking', which was an awesome book by the same author as 'An Analysis of Battlefield Dynamics', and the reason why he'd suffered through reading the much more difficult Dynamics book. Shimura Danzō knew what he was talking about, so even if he didn't grasp everything about battlefield dynamics he was sure there was something to it.

Although he didn't expect it to work, asking politely was technically a valid strategy. There wasn't any known reason why Kakashi would benefit from holding onto the bells, so he shouldn't have any reason to keep defend them. Other than the fact that it was a test, of course. But maybe it was test about out of the box thinking, and asking would work?

"Good point," Kakashi conceded, visibly amused. "No one's ever tried that before. But no, that's not good enough."

Naruto shrugged. "Worth a try. I'll give you a thousand ryo for it."

"Look kid, let me save you some time. You're going to have to take it from me."

The next part of his plan was something he wasn't really sure about, but even if it went bad he was sure he could recover.

Naruto steeled himself, and casually strolled up to Kakashi as nonthreateningly as possible. He reached out for the bell as he neared the jounin, who stepped back.

Kakashi was looking at him, unnerved. "When I said to take it from me, that wasn't what I meant."

"What, you want me to attack you? You better not be some weirdo masochist, because that's not something I want anything to do with."

Kakashi sighed in annoyance. "Do you want to go back to the academy?"

"Not really."

"Then stop messing around and actually try already!"

"Are you sure?" Naruto asked dubiously.

"Yes!" Kakashi growled out in irritation. "Seriously, just–"

"Exploding Kunai of DOOM!" Naruto yelled out comically, making a throwing motion in Kakashi's direction, who dodged out of the way. Unnecessarily, as it turned out. A kunai with a paper tag trailing off the end of its handle had flown out of his sleeve, but somehow it got caught on the cuff of his jacket.

"Eh?" Naruto said, staring dumbly at the kunai and hissing tag hanging from his jacket. "AAAAAAAAAHHHH!" he screamed as he waved his arm around in a panicky fashion.

Kakashi was at his side in an instant, grabbing for the tag. Gotcha! Naruto thought victoriously, twisting his body to hide his intent to go for the bells. The bells chimed as his fingers brushed against them, and then Naruto's side exploded in pain and he was sent spinning uncontrollably through the air.

Oddly enough, he'd had a lot of practice being in this kind of situation thanks to sparring with Lee, so it was relatively easy to deal with. He landed in a crouch on the side of a tree after a flight of about thirty feet, but allowed himself to fall to the ground rather than stick to it. He took slow, deep breathes as the pain in his side faded.

"Interesting trick," Kakashi commented, looking at the kunai embedded in a tree off to the side where he'd thrown it. The 'exploding' tag had gone off, catching fire rather unimpressively. "You're a seriously tricky little punk."

"That hurt," Naruto complained.

"Well, you shouldn't have startled me."

"Yeah, well… Exploding Kunai of SUPER DOOM!" Naruto launched another kunai in Kakashi direction, this one falling about ten feet short and sticking into the ground. It had a bundle of tags hanging off the end. Still pushing the counter-intuitive angle, Naruto charged at Kakashi, which meant he was headed straight for the tags. Six, five…

Kakashi jumped back a bit, although not enough to be safe if the were real exploding tags. "For your sake, those better–"

Two, one! Naruto finished counting mentally, shutting his eyes tightly. There was a flash of light so powerful it burned even through his eyelids, and a sharp screeching sound. A split second later he felt the familiar tug of a Kage Bunshin using a kawarimi on him.

He'd conditioned himself to respond to it so well it was instinctive for him to assist the swap rather than resist it, to the point where it was a good deal easier for him to swap with himself than an inanimate object. A disorienting moment later and he was crouched somewhere away from the battlefield, a lookout clone's hand on his shoulder letting him know that he was safe.

"Dynamic Entry of DOOM!" he heard himself shout, a fair distance away by the sound of it. He was still seeing spots from his flash tag, so he couldn't look and see. He winced at the clone's battle cry. For one, shouting 'Dynamic Entry!' was not part of the plan. And the 'DOOM!' sounded really cool in the moment, but not so much from an outside perspective. He'd have to think on that later.

The clone that had switched with him was not blinded like himself or Kakashi, so Plan C had been to take advantage of the jounin's momentary blindness to make an attempt on the bells. Plan A had been asking for them, and Plan B had been tricking Kakashi into trying to save him from a really crappy explosive tag and grabbing them. He'd never expected asking for them would actually work, but he'd had moderate hopes for Plans B and C. Judging from the sounds of hand to hand combat, the slightly less crappy explosive tags (which he was calling 'flash tags') hadn't affected Kakashi nearly as much as they had Naruto.

It was inevitable that upon learning that the Sealing Arts had been responsible for defeating the Kyuubi that Naruto would want to learn them. If the Yondaime had a super badass Ninjutsu capable of taking down the demon, wouldn't he have used it? So Fuuinjutsu was potentially even more awesome than Ninjutsu. And with that, he'd hit a brick wall of sorts. There was a reason that every ninja and their grandmother weren't spamming awesome seals. After all even an idiot, if they were a meticulous idiot, could copy down a seal and power it, right? Turns out, not so.

Fuinjutsu was really hard.

Fuinjutsu was really, really, really, really, really RIDICULOUSLY HARD!

Most seals were extremely sensitive to just about everything. And by most, that was something along the lines of 98% of seals. They could be sensitive to a wide range of things, at both the time they were created and the time they were utilized, if those were different. The chakra and/or the mood of the sealer, the chakra of the user, the time of day, the season, the lunar cycle, the ambient chakra, the weather, the air pressure… all sorts of things might have to be taken into account. The way one person wrote a seal might be completely useless for another, or even the same person ten minutes later. Which was why Fuuinjutsu was an esoteric art and not another basic ninja skill. It was more art than science in a lot of ways.

The explosive tag and the sealing scroll were considered the absolute upper limits of 'casual' sealing (and 'casual' usually at least a year of serious study), mostly because they were fairly insensitive to environmental factors and typically needed very little personal customization in order to work. Although trying to make explosive tags when it wasn't cold, dry, and in the middle of the night was going past the 'casual' barrier, and any sealing scroll that wasn't made inside a sealing chamber probably wasn't going to be reliable. Sealing chambers were incredibly controlled environments designed to cut down on the factors that made seals more difficult. Most importantly, they were completely void of ambient chakra.

Shinobi who could really use Fuuinjutsu on the battlefield were incredible, and Naruto wanted to be one. Of course, it had taken dozens of clone hours to even get the exploding tag to light on fire when activated, and hundreds to come up with the flash tag. He still couldn't make a proper explosion, but the fact that he was making fair progress on developing what he was hoping would be a 'flash bang' tag was incredibly exciting. It wasn't from a template or any theory he'd read about, but hundreds of hours of experimentation was giving him a sense for sealing that he felt was going somewhere incredibly useful.

Ok, his 'flash bang' was more of a 'flash screech' at the moment, but that was pretty cool too. Definitely way more useful than tags that just caught fire like overcomplicated matches. And he was looking forward to being able to produce his own explosive tags as well. On top of how awesome they were, if he could find someone who trusted his work they'd turn out to be a cash cow as well. The good tags were not cheap.

"Naruto, run away! You're going to get killed!" Sakura warned his clone. He was still seeing spots, but the ringing in his ears had subsided quickly.

Naruto heard Kakashi say something in an ominous tone. The jounin had been talking to his clone while they were fighting, but it was just some pointless stuff about teaching him a lesson in Taijutsu. He would take his weird caterpillar-human hybrid sensei over this weird lazy masochist pervert any day of the week.

"Konohagakure Hiden Taijutsu Ōgi: Sennen Goroshi!" the jounin intoned seriously.

One Thousand Years of Death? That sounded bad.

Naruto winced as the clone fighting Kakashi gave a horrified, pain-filled scream. Judging by the way the sound traveled, the clone was actually flying through the air. The scream was cut off by the sound of splashing water, and then the memories hit him.

"Oh, you fucking bastard!" Naruto hissed under his breath.

"That's a good look for you."

Antagonizing Sasuke wasn't going to help with getting his cooperation, but Naruto couldn't resist it at the sight of the Uchiha buried up to his neck in the ground. Oh, what he wouldn't give for a camera.

Sasuke ceased his ineffectual wriggling, flushing with indignation. "Like you're one to talk," he retorted. "At least he didn't stick his fingers up my ass."

Naruto winced at the reminder. "Yeah, on account of the fact that he'd have to get around the ten foot pole already shoved up there, I'm sure." He kneeled down next to the Sasuke and reached for him.

Sasuke snapped his head forward, trying to bite Naruto's hand.

"Hey, what the hell man! I'm trying to help you out of there!"

"Like I'm going to believe that."

"If you bite me, I'm going to roll up a newspaper and spend the rest of this test smacking you in the face with it," Naruto threatened. Well, he would leave a clone here to do that.

Sasuke turned his head to the side and went "Hmph", which Naruto took as agreement. He reached down carefully, placing his palm on the ground about a foot away from the other boy's head. Sasuke eyed him warily, but didn't attack.

Naruto let his chakra seep into the ground, keeping an eye on Sasuke's reaction. The boy didn't react, which meant that he either didn't sense it or was masking any reaction. It seemed more likely that he just hadn't noticed it. As jumpy and distrustful he was at the moment, Naruto would have expected another attempt at a bite.

It took about ten seconds to properly saturate the earth around Sasuke. The lingering traces of Kakashi's chakra had resisted his efforts in a manner that had to be intentional. The jounin had not wanted Sasuke getting out of there under his own power.

"What the…?" Sasuke mumbled as Naruto arm sank into the ground to grab his shirt.

"Grab my arm," Naruto instructed. Sasuke did so, with both hands. It was probably only about four or five times harder than moving through water at this point. Naruto hadn't put as much effort into this particular kind of elemental binding as he had water or wind, but secondary resonation with earth was far easier than other material elements, and reducing viscosity was the easiest thing to do with it.

From there it was a simple matter to lift Sasuke out of the earth.

"What was that?" Sasuke asked.

His tone was questioning rather than demanding, so Naruto took it as the closest thing to a 'thank you' as he was going to get. His first instinct was to deflect the question with a flippant remark, but it wasn't like he was giving away the secret workings of his personal jutsu by answering. It was a fairly basic application of chakra, and now was a good time to extend an olive branch.

"Secondary resonation of chakra to affect the earth," Naruto explained. He continued at Sasuke's blank look. "It's probably one of the bases for whatever Kakashi-sensei used to put you there in the first place, except like a hundred times weaker. Judging by how quickly and discreetly he was tunneling, his technique probably localizes the effective area somehow, which means there would have to be some kind of second or third level property alteration to actually move…" he trailed off as he noticed Sasuke staring at him, bug-eyed. "What?"

"You actually sound like you know what you're talking about. That is so weird." Sasuke muttered the last part, not quite under his breath. "Whatever. I don't have time for this right now. Since you're not as useless as you used to be, you can help." His eyes flicked to Sakura's unconscious form when he said 'useless'.

"We should wake up Sakura-chan first," Naruto said, pleased that Sasuke was agreeable to teaming up.

Sasuke sighed in exasperation. "Two bells, three of us. I'm not giving up my chance to become a genin for her sake. Are you?"

"Yes. Well, no." Naruto corrected himself at Sasuke's incredulous look. "This test isn't about getting the bells. Don't you think this whole setup is crazy weird?"

"A bit," Sasuke admitted reluctantly. "But that doesn't matter once I have a bell."

"You're not getting a bell unless he hands it over. None of us are. Let me wake Sakura so I don't have to explain myself twice."

"Whatever," Sasuke grumbled, clearly not happy with the idea. But he was sticking around, so that was something.

"Sakura-chan," Naruto said, gently shaking her. "Sakura-"

"Kyah!" Sakura took a wild swing at Naruto, who easily dodged out of the way. "Save me Sasuke-kun! Oh no! Sasuke-kun!" She looked ready to collapse in tears as she remembered seeing Sasuke 'dead'. And then she caught sight of him leaning against a tree, very much alive.

"She's awake. Now tell me what you think the test is about," Sasuke demanded.

"You're alive!" Sakura exclaimed happily, rushing at him.

"We don't have time for this," he snapped at her, stopping her in her tracks as she took note of anger in his voice. "Get on with it already Naruto." Sakura looked back and forth between the boys in confusion.

Naruto realized that he didn't have much time before Sasuke lost what little patience he had with the situation. "Right. So the test isn't about the bells. It should be clear by now that none of us has the slightest chance of taking the bells off him unless he lets us. Also, the victory conditions don't make any sense."

"How so?"

"Ok, let's say that you two each gets a bell. What happens then?"

"You go back to the academy. We become genin."

"Remember that he said since there were two bells at least one of us gets tied up at lunch? If the test is over and I'm going back to the academy, what's the point of humiliating me on top of that?"

"To be mean?" Sakura volunteered after some thought.

"Could be," Naruto admitted. "But I think it's a trick, meant to goad us into forgetting what he said yesterday. Taking the test at face value, the optimal strategy would be for two of us to team up and subdue the other one, or trick them into helping us get the bells and then betray them. Otherwise the odd man out would interfere with those that teamed up. With a 66% failure rate, that would mean half the teams that took this test managed to pull that off. But let's say this really is a test of skill, and that if I'm good enough or have a good enough strategy, Kakashi will let me 'win' a bell off of him. If the test doesn't end for me when I get the bell that means I have to protect the bell until noon. Who are you going to try and get a bell from? Me or him?"

"You, obviously," Sasuke said, nodding along.

"Right, so for the rest of the test, whichever one of us is holding onto the bell at any given moment is a much better target than he is. We'd never go after the one that Kakashi still had, and whoever was holding the bell at the end of the test would be the one to pass. Also a 66% failure rate. But both of those approaches ignore the most important thing he's said about the test."

"And what's that?" Sasuke asked.

"Yesterday he said that graduating the academy showed we might have the skills to be shinobi, but this was about proving that we were worthy of being Konoha shinobi. All the optimal strategies involve us thinking about each other as enemies. How can we prove that we're worthy of being Konoha shinobi if we're betraying each other at every turn?"

Naruto's eyes steeled, his resolute tone relaying that he was absolutely serious. "The test isn't about who's the most skilled. It's about sacrifice. Can we work together for the good of Konoha, even when it means putting aside our own goals?"

Sasuke was frowning at him. It seemed as though he got what Naruto was saying, but didn't quite agree with it. Sakura was looking at him oddly, in a way he couldn't quite figure out. It was like she was… afraid? No, that couldn't be it.

"That could be," Sasuke said, as he took it in. "But what if you're wrong. What if it is about the bells?"

The clones he'd sent off to think and read had popped, and it was a combination of thinking about everything Kakashi had said and rereading 'An Analysis of Battlefield Dynamics' that had resulted in his epiphany. He'd been trying to find an optimum strategy for three separate parties fighting over something a fourth possessed, but none of the 'good' strategies had made any sense. What he was 'supposed' to do was to team up with Sasuke, and to trick Sakura into thinking she was teamed up with Sasuke before betraying her. It went against everything he believed in. He wouldn't even do that to Sasuke, let alone Sakura.

He'd refused to believe that he'd have to be like Mizuki in order to prove himself worthy of being a Konoha shinobi. That's when he made the connection to a common theme in both the 'An Analysis of Battlefield Dynamics' and 'Tactical Misconceptions'. Every time the books talked about shinobi acting for their own personal interests, it was in the context of that shinobi being someone other than the reader. It always assumed that the reader was a Konoha shinobi, acting on behalf of Konoha, which was part of why he'd had such a hard time working out a strategy for personal gain from those principles.

All the odd things that Kakashi was saying were all what Shimura referred to as collaboration disruptors. If you knew that there were multiple parties that could work against you, it was in your best interests to pit them against each other, make them think that the other getting ahead was them getting left behind. Also, it was important to recognize when that kind of tactic was being used on you.

Naruto hadn't realized it at first because Kakashi had, at least initially, done a masterful job of masking it. From the very beginning they knew that they were competing for the bells with each other. Everything was geared for them to work against each other the instant it looked like one or two of them were about to get the bells. They went into the test as individuals, not a team.

But Kakashi put in too many disruptors. The fact that there were two bells was more than enough to completely trip them up. Threats to tie them up, keeping the test going so that they could theoretically take the bells from each others, and implications that even though two of them could possibly pass only one of them was statistically likely to were all unnecessary. The overkill had to be intentional. They were meant to notice his heavy-handed approach to keeping them apart. Nothing else made sense.

The idea of sacrifice was something he'd been struggling with every since the night he'd learned that he was a Jinchuuriki. He'd found out what the official term for what he was rather quickly when he got the idea that he might not be unique in his situation.

The power of human sacrifice.

That's what he was. A sacrifice. The Yondaime had sacrificed himself and Naruto for the good of Konoha. He couldn't even be angry at the deceased Hokage, because what was the alternative? If he hadn't sealed the Kyuubi into Naruto, they all would have died. He hadn't chosen to be a Jinchuuriki, but all things considered it didn't really bother him that much. What did bother him was the idea of becoming the Hokage.

He still wanted to, so much that it almost hurt. If anything, he had even more respect for the position now that he was beginning to understand what a burden it must be. The Hokage sacrificed everything for Konoha. All the Hokages had dedicated every part of their lives to the benefit of Konoha. He'd once thought of the Yondaime as the greatest of the Hokages, but now he had to admit that he respected the Sandaime more. It had nothing to with the sealing or their relative skills––although the history he was reading suggested that Sarutobi had been a monster in his prime––but the sheer amount of time he'd served as Hokage was incredible. To bear the weight of Konoha for so long, taking up the mantle again after the death of his successor… it was humbling. And terrifying.

Naruto wanted to love the village so much that he'd give everything to it the way the Sandaime had, but it just wasn't there yet. He wasn't even sure he was capable of it, not after learning why it had held him at arms length his whole life. And even if he could overcome his doubts on that count, that would mean putting his clan second. The revelation that he might have a meaningful history to uncover was also something to consider. Could he really prioritize Konoha over his clan?

He wanted to be the Hokage, but what that would mean scared him. And he knew that he would have to come to terms with his conflicting feelings for the village before he could figure out whether or not that was something he could really commit to.

Just because he wasn't ready to prioritize Konoha before everything else in his life didn't mean it wasn't important to him. He didn't know how much of himself belonged to Konoha, but he knew it was a good deal more than nothing.

"If I'm wrong, it's on me," Naruto told Sasuke and Sakura. "You two get the bells. If this test is about choosing to throw one of us away, I don't want to pass. I really don't think I'm wrong though."

He saw it the instant that Sasuke decided to back him in the other boy's eyes, but it didn't feel like victory. Sasuke had been prepared to team up with him and leave Sakura to fail when he'd realized that Naruto might actually be able to contribute. There had been some small amount of acknowledgement, and maybe even respect building in the way that Sasuke had been looking at him when he had been explaining his thoughts on the test. The moment he decided Naruto was being honest clinched his cooperation, but also swept away the respect as if it never been there. There was a glint in the boy's look that clearly said you're an idiot.

It hurt to have that acknowledgment, from Sasuke of all people, and to throw it away. It wasn't even technically on principle. Putting aside his personal goals for Konoha's benefit was one thing, but he didn't need to for Sasuke's. Or even Sakura's for that matter.

But this was the right way to go. He could feel it.

Trust your instincts.

Naruto shoved his fear away with sheer determination. "So?"

Kakashi watched Sasuke come to a decision from where he was hiding in a tree directly above the three. It was interesting that the boy had stuck around to hear Naruto's proposal at all, and astonishing that he might actually go along with it.

"Ok, but what are we going to do?" Sasuke asked. "Like you said, even if the three of us go at him at the same time it's not going to make a difference."

Naruto hid his relief at Sasuke's answer, but not well enough to keep it from Kakashi. "I've still got my best cards to play. Ooh, cards! Now that's an idea. Anyways, here's the plan."

The jounin slipped away, leaving a shadow clone to eavesdrop. It wouldn't dispel until after they'd tried whatever they were going to do, so Kakashi could get both the perspective of seeing what they did without bias and also see how well they came up with and executed a plan. Not that it mattered for the purposes of the 'test'.

The test was really a lesson. There was designed to pit them against each other, and looking at the rules there was no way to conclude 'teamwork'. They would all make individual attempts at the bells, fail miserably, and then he could swoop in and give an amazing speech about the benefits of teamwork. And then he could just use whatever flimsy instance of anything even resembling teamwork as an excuse to pass them.

It had been a cross between amusing and amazing to hear Naruto grab onto every single inconsistency and try to link them into a grand conspiracy. A ninja should look underneath the underneath, but looking underneath the underneath the underneath the couch was just plain paranoid.

Oddly enough Naruto had come astoundingly close to the point he was trying to make. And then he'd swerved off into a conclusion that had seriously ruined Kakashi's good mood.

Sacrifice? Seriously?

The worst part of it was that it made sense. There was no part of Naruto's analysis that he could point to and say no, see this? It really means teamwork! It was all just a bunch of nonsense to tack the moral of the story––teamwork––onto, but he couldn't really say that to their faces. Naruto had essentially hijacked his point, adding on that sometimes teamwork meant taking one for the team. Which wasn't untrue, but that wasn't what he was trying to get across here!

Oh, that boy was going to be trouble.

By all accounts, Naruto should have been doing the least thinking in the group. Instead, he thought every detail to death and came up with surprisingly good plans. If this had really been a test of their ability to accomplish a goal, retrieving the bells, Naruto would be scoring the best by far.

He hadn't wasted any time trying to take on Kakashi directly, correctly assuming that the jounin was far out of his league. Playing up his 'idiotic class clown' image, he was able to leverage the very reasonable assumption that his sensei wasn't about to let him blow himself up.

Kakashi had panicked. It had been entirely believable that Naruto's ill-thought-out surprise attack had gone horribly wrong, and he'd been about to lose an arm and maybe his life for his stupidity. The sound of Naruto actually touching the bells had snapped him out of his tunnel vision, and he reflexively knocked the boy away with an unnecessarily hard palm to the sternum. The 'explosive tag' simply catching fire where he'd thrown it had highlighted that the whole thing had been planned. It had worked better than it any right to, mostly because of Kakashi's personal stake in keeping Naruto alive. If it had been Sasuke or Sakura attempting that, he'd have caught on the instant they started reaching for the bells rather than actually being startled.

Not that the comedic idiot routine would have been believable coming from them.

The trick with the next set of tags had really been something though. The boy had given no indication that it had been coming, not even an anticipatory flinch or blink to give away the coming explosion of light. There was no way that Naruto hadn't been blinded just as thoroughly as Kakashi had been. In fact, he'd been closer to the tags, so it had to have been worse for him. But he'd carried on as if it hadn't happened, attacking with surprisingly proficient Iron Fist.

Even blinded and surprised, Kakashi had no trouble fending off the kid's assault. It had been a brilliant move, designed to close the gap in their skills for a few short moments. It just hadn't been enough against someone trained to fight in pitch dark.

It had been relatively simple to work out that Kage Bunshin had been involved with Naruto seemingly brushing off the effects of his own surprise tactic. Most likely he'd been engaging the real Naruto at first. He'd hit Naruto with considerable force when knocking him away, and he doubted that the boy had enough experience with clones to have one withstand a sudden hit like that without dispelling. The switch had been timed flawlessly, and the fact that the clone could attack without pause right after using Kawarimi was nothing short of impressive.

Kakashi had been expecting Naruto's strategy to consist of making as many clones as he could and trying to dog pile him. Fifteen or twenty clones would have been enough to take down a chuunin like Mizuki, who wasn't even much of a combatant, but the jounin had been looking forward to showing the boy that he wasn't going to be able to coast through life by bulldozing over every enemy with a bunch of clones. Instead, he'd actually been acting like a real ninja and had done of passable job of hiding the fact that he even knew the advanced clone technique.

In comparison, Sasuke and Sakura were rather disappointing.

Sasuke had performed more or less as expected. Aside from his opening surprise assault with kunai and shuriken, he'd relied on his skills in a direct confrontation. His skill with the Uchiha's signature Intercepting Fist was greater than Naruto's Iron Fist, but pitting them against each would most likely end in the Uzumaki's victory, even if they were just restricted to hand to hand combat. The Intercepting Fist was built around the Sharingan's ability to predict movement, so using without the bloodline limit active was a dumber move than he'd expected from a supposed genius.

His use of the Gokakyu was so thoughtless that it was actually insulting. Did Sasuke really think that Kakashi was going to stand still and be barbecued? The boy hadn't been using it as a distraction, or as the first step in more complicated tactic. He'd waited for the smoke to clear and had been genuinely surprised not to see a charred corpse as the result of his attack. Kakashi had to admit the size and intensity of the fireball had been impressive… for an academy student. Wasting fifteen percent of his chakra on a jutsu that he should have realized had no chance of actually hitting and then waiting to see if it had worked? Not so impressive. All in all there wasn't anything to be impressed about there.

Last and certainly least, Sakura had surprised him, and not in a good way. He'd thought there was a slight chance she'd pick up on the Genjutsu, but his plan involved her trying to help the fake Sasuke before having the illusion slip away to show her how outclassed she was. Instead she fainted. And then she fainted again when she woke up to the sight Sasuke buried in the ground.

Kakashi had thought he'd avoided this kind of annoyance when Kurenai had insisted on having the Hyuuga girl on her team. Not that he'd expected anyone would put Hinata on the same team as Sasuke or Naruto, let alone a team with both. Of course, some nut had given this team the green light, so maybe it had been considered.

Kakashi set aside his thoughts on the matter as Naruto walked back into the clearing, a seeming repeat his last attempt.

"Back for more?" Kakashi asked, putting his Icha Icha away. He'd didn't expect that anything the boy had cooked would end up damaging his precious, but better safe than sorry. The brat could be quite surprising when he put his mind to it. "I've never met anyone who wanted a second helping of Sennen Goroshi, but I won't judge."

Naruto flushed with anger at the reminder. "You're going to pay for that," he promised, his tone brimming with loathing.

Kakashi was a bit startled by the boy's vehemence. He knew that he'd used the technique on a clone, and he very much doubted that Naruto had learned about the memory transfer capabilities of Kage Bunshin yet. Even if he had, why would a clone decide to send that experience back to its creator when it dispelled?

Maybe it had really embarrassed Naruto, in which case Kakashi was regretting using it. The boy had a much poorer image of Kakashi than he'd intended, and picking on him too much was just going to make it worse.

Naruto assumed an interesting position. His hands were in the positioned as though to form a tiger seal, but separated vertically by a few feet. His right hand was held at his sternum, with his left arm extended vertically above his head.

Kirigakure no Jutsu? But he's not anywhere near the water. That particular stance was very esoteric, usually seen with a rare set of Kiri's signature jutsu. The only one he knew that required only one seal was the hiding in the mist technique.

Then Naruto began bleeding a ridiculous amount of chakra, and the wind began to pick up around them, along with a curious rustling sound.

"Uzumaki Hijutsu: Konohagakure no Jutsu!" Naruto proclaimed proudly. The rustling revealed itself to be hundreds of leaves, floating and swirling around them. Hundreds became thousands, and in less than ten seconds Kakashi couldn't see more than three feet in front of his face.

Hiding in the leaves… how apt.

Kakashi was impressed. When Naruto had mentioned inventing jutsu the day before he assumed that the boy had discovered trivial alteration, and like hundreds of genin before him thought himself amazing because he could make his fireballs more explodey. Or something similarly inane.

But this was not trivial.

Konohagakure no Jutsu had to have been designed specifically for Naruto, or someone with very similar reserves. The chakra cost was far too high for anyone else. The technique saturated the air around them with chakra to the point where Kakashi's chakra sense was completely smothered. The sound of thousands of leaves scraping against each and the wind that carried them kept him from hearing anything else. His sense of smell was also useless due to the leaves and the wind.

Kakashi was really regretting that his Sharingan hadn't been exposed, as he was itching to analyze the technique further. Kirigakure no Jutsu wasn't a cheap jutsu when it came to chakra, but it didn't have to be continuously powered. There was no way this technique was fire and forget like the mist version.

Unless Naruto was pumping in a hundred times more chakra than the technique needed to consume, there was no way Kakashi would be able to keep it up for long even if he did manage to copy it. Even if he was, saturating the air with chakra was one of the advantages of this version over the mist one. Naruto had managed to seal off every single sense that mattered.

This wasn't like the tricks that Naruto had tried to pull with the tags, useful only when he had the element of surprise. It was genuinely setting off Kakashi's danger sense. The smart thing to do would be to get out the effective area of the technique, but that would defeat the purpose of the test. Not to mention that would mean conceding that Naruto actually posed a threat to him, no matter how minimal.

No, he could deal with this.

Kakashi moved away from his original position. He wasn't going to underestimate Naruto by thinking that the boy hadn't given his teammates some way to find him in the leaves, but there was no reason to make it easy for them.

As soon as he began moving the bells started chiming. The wind and the leaves were actually targeting them.

Interesting, Kakashi thought to himself. It would be easy enough to hide the bells away, but that would just be mean of him.

There was suddenly a strong sense that something was coming at him from his right, which he ignored in favor of blocking a grab for the bells from the other direction. Sasuke engaged him briefly before jumping back out of sight. He could sense the Uchiha until he got about fifteen feet away, and then Naruto's fog-like presence hid the other boy's.

That must be Sakura's contribution, Kakashi thought as he dispelled the genjutsu that was now trying to make him believe that someone was about to attack him from behind. His danger sense was far more refined so it didn't trick him for even a moment, but it had been a good attempt.

The jounin frowned as the genjutsu now screamed that he was about to be attacked from all sides. It hadn't been reapplied. He'd dispelled it, and it had simply still been there.

That can't be right…

He jumped away from a brace of shuriken, dispelling the genjutsu again.

That's not Sakura, Kakashi realized as he once again sensed danger from the side but Sasuke's chakra closing in from behind. Someone was repeatedly layering the crude genjutsu on him over and over again, and Sakura certainly wouldn't have the knowhow or the chakra for that.

It had to be Naruto again, but even that didn't quite make sense. Yes, this genjutsu was something he'd be able to learn. It was relatively blunt, and responded to being overpowered by simply being unsubtle rather than failing. But layering genjutsu was a highly advanced skill, one that he was positive the blond wasn't capable of.

Unless…

"Uzumaki Hijutsu: Konohagakure no Jutsu!"

It wasn't necessary to actually announce the technique, but Naruto thought it was much cooler this way. He even managed not to say something about 'DOOM!' this time. Hiding in the leaves of doom didn't exactly make sense for the skill.

Maybe if he made the leaves explode? That was something to think on.

Konohagakure no Jutsu was his first original jutsu, and while he had been hoping for a more impressive time to reveal it, this would have to do. It had come a long way from its roots as a secondary resonation chakra exercise.

It had taken only two days to complete the exercise with the help of his Kage Bunshin. But he'd seen no reason to stop there, and had continued trying to increase the number of leaves he could control independently. The difficulty of adding a single leaf increased to the point where it seemed impossible to control any more, but he'd made a breakthrough in realizing that he didn't need to direct each leaf at all times. Large groups of leaves could be moved in the same manner, so that changed how he approached it.

Realizing that he'd fundamentally changed the controlling mechanism of the technique, he'd experimented with different hand seals. He'd found that the projection traits of the tiger seal worked better than the concentration aspect of ram, and going along that line of thought had used a variant of the tiger seal that was less concentrated. The farther apart his hands were, the better his chakra was emitted and spread over the area. He'd ended up holding half the seal straight up and the other at chest level.

Dropping his right hand any further actually made it much harder to diffuse his chakra horizontally, so he'd settled on that variation. He'd managed to find it in his reference encyclopedia of hand seals when he'd looked it up to get a better idea of how it might work. One of the jutsu listed as using the obscure seal, Kirigakure no Jutsu, had given him the idea of how to develop it further.

Naruto had never tested this jutsu with other people before, and he was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to sense where everyone was in the technique.

Konohagakure no Jutsu bled chakra all over the place. Some things resisted absorbing that chakra better than others. Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura's positions were obvious to him by how strongly their chakra pushed back against his own. He'd expected to be able to sense them on some level, but this was far better than he'd been hoping for.

He felt Kakashi move. Thankfully, the jounin wasn't trying to get out of the area.

Directing his jutsu around where the bells should be rewarded Naruto with a chiming sound as they bounced around.

Naruto felt one of his clones vie for primary control of the Konohagakure no Jutsu, and ceded his own hold on it as he jumped away from his original position. He didn't want to be easy to find if Kakashi wanted to attack him to disrupt the jutsu.

Collaborative jutsu was something he'd found to be particularly suited to his skill set. With Kage Bunshin, he could bypass a lot of the really annoying difficulties. Synchronizing was trivial when you had the exact same understanding and chakra as your partner. That meant that his clones could tap into the technique and manipulate it or sense through it fairly easily.

It was the same with layering genjutsu. And theoretically parallel genjutsu as well, which he hadn't managed to pull off yet.

The list of illusions he could reliably use was very, very short. Imminent Danger was the whole list at this point, essentially. Using several Kage Bunshin, he could leverage his poor genjutsu to their full potential.

Kakashi easily fought off Sasuke and dispelled the genjutsu. That was fine. He hadn't expected to actually deceive the jounin with his illusion. It was just supposed to be an annoyance, especially with the five clones all piling on the same illusion.

True layering involved being able to do this without clones, but there was no reason not to use them. If it took three seconds to apply the jutsu and one second for Kakashi to dispel each instance, as long as he had more than three clones going at it he'd be able to force Kakashi to be continuously dispelling genjutsu.

Well, that was the plan. His genjutsu clones dispelling put an end to that idea.

Once Kakashi had figured out that he was being affected by multiple genjutsu, he'd been able to tear through all five of them in less than a second. The clones had reapplied the genjutsu, but they'd all been dispelled simultaneously the second time around. And when they'd tried to go again for the third time, the genjutsu simply hadn't taken. A few more tries at that, and the clones had decided that it was a lost cause and dispelled to let the Boss know what was going on.

Kakashi-sensei was a weird jerk, but he was still skilled as hell. Start to finish, he'd completely overcome Naruto's attempts to use genjutsu in less than ten seconds, while fighting off Sasuke at the same time. It was pretty discouraging, actually.

Having only one real genjutsu had probably made it much easier to deal with, but now wasn't the time to sulk about it. Naruto created a Kage Bunshin to brood about the issue and put it out of his mind.

"What the hell?" Naruto vented aloud as Sasuke launched another fireball at their teacher.

That wasn't part of the plan. Especially as it drove the jounin away from where they were trying to direct him.

I guess it was too much to hope that he'd follow the game plan all the way through, Naruto thought to himself. He created a dozen clones with the intention of herding Kakashi towards Sakura-chan.

He'd had a hard time working Sakura-chan into his plan. There was nothing she could do that he couldn't just use a clone for. In the end he was just banking on Kakashi thinking that he'd teamed up with Sasuke with the agreement that they'd split the bells between them.

It made sense. If he had pick one of them to team up with based solely on skills, it would have to be Sasuke. So hopefully Kakashi wouldn't be expecting Sakura to make a bid for the bells. It also helped Sasuke accept the plan, as it was obvious which one of the boys she'd give a bell to if she managed to get her hands on them.

BBBRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGG!

"What?" Naruto said dumbly.

It's too soon!

"Lunch time!" Kakashi called out cheerfully, tossing Sasuke away from him. "You can drop the jutsu now, blondy."

It's a trick, right? It has to be a trick?

One of his Kage Bunshin helpfully vocalized his thoughts so he didn't have to give away his position. "We should have another half hour at least!"

"Well, I thought I'd be nice to finish up early for some food. You three didn't get to eat breakfast after all."

No… just no. It can't be over.

When he thought back on it, Naruto wouldn't remember making a decision to do anything. All he would remember was an empty feeling, and moving.

It wasn't something that was combat ready, not by a long shot, but he'd experimenting with using chakra to increase how fast he could move. Coordinating the reinforcement of his muscles, reinforcement the ground he was trying to push off of, and the expulsion of chakra he was boosting himself wasn't something he was even close to being able to pull off.

In that moment it was effortless. He was a hundred feet away from Kakashi, and in an instant he was right behind him.

Time had slowed to a crawl. The leaves swirling around were barely moving at all in his perception, his fist pushing them aside as it made its way inexorably towards the back of Kakashi's head.

Going for the bells didn't even occur to him. All the mattered was hitting the smug bastard. And he was going to do it.

Huh?

Kakashi wasn't there. It was as if he'd blinked and the silver-haired jounin had slipped away in that split second.

But he hadn't blinked.

There'd been no indication of movement, no afterimage.

And then Naruto was slammed facedown into the ground.

Fuck!

Naruto struggled as best he could, which was pretty much not at all. Kakashi was crouched down next to him, their only point of contact the jounin's hand gripping the back of his neck.

The index and middle fingers were directly on his spine. The others were pinching his neck, apparently on nerves or something because it was downright painful and he couldn't move at all. His entire body was stiff as a board.

As if that wasn't enough, the fingers on his spine were injecting chakra and it burned. The purpose of that became obvious as all his active jutsu dispelled. Every single clone popped, and his Konohagakure no Jutsu lost cohesion, all the leaves floating to the ground.

"Now that was just rude," Kakashi chided.

"Hng!" Naruto groaned. He tried to make Kage Bunshin without seals, but even that wasn't possible.

You fucking idiot! Naruto berated himself. He'd lost his damn cool, and thrown his real body into jeopardy. He'd felt so condescendingly superior when Sasuke had been coughing fireballs uselessly at the jounin. There was no way he'd be that stupid.

But he had.

His anger drained away, and all that was left was a profound sense of shame. He'd spent thousands of clone hours devising ways to never have his real body in actual danger. He wasn't under the illusion that his plans were infallible. Every tactic was supposed to be flexible to account for oversights.

This wasn't an oversight. It wasn't poor planning. It was pure idiocy.

The memories of the clones who'd been on watch to switch with his real body in the event of unexpected danger were telling.

In some respects it was awe-inspiring, but overall it was a monumental failure. He'd surpassed himself, moving so fast that his clones hadn't even been able to track his movement. As far as they were concerned he'd been slammed into the ground the same instant that the ground at his original position exploded from the force of his launch. And then they'd been forcibly dispelled before they could even think of helping him out.

"Well, you three weren't as terrible as you could have been," Kakashi said, releasing his vice-like grip on Naruto's neck and walking away from his prone body. "A few more years in the Academy and you might even be ready to face the real world. However, I'm in a pretty good mood, and I feel like doing you all a favor."

Naruto's focus snapped to the jounin. He'd been stretching to try and loosen his muscles. His entire body ached, and he wasn't sure if it was his boost technique, Kakashi's nerve-pinchy hold, or the combination of the two. Most likely the combination.

Sasuke's glare moved from Naruto to the jounin as well. He'd been glaring at the blond like it was his fault Kakashi had ended things early.

Sakura had a look that suggested that she daren't hope for good news, but was hoping for it anyways.

Kakashi removed a bell from where it was hanging, and tossed it to Naruto. The blond caught it automatically, the chiming sound sending shivers down his spine.

What?

"Blondie impressed me the most, and this way you two don't have to have your vision damaged by excessive orange." The jounin was doing that peculiar eye-smiling thing. "Everybody wins. Yay!"

What?

Naruto was ecstatic.

Naruto was terrified.

Naruto was fucking confused!

What?

Sakura was looking at him uncomprehendingly. It hadn't sunk in for her. Sasuke was looking at him with murder in his dark eyes. And Kakashi was looking at him as though he were waiting for something.

What does he want? Naruto wondered. A thank you?

Kakashi admitting that Naruto had impressed him caught the blond off guard, especially with how hard the bastard had been on him from the start. He wanted bask in the praise, but the damn jounin had put him between a rock and a fire breathing Uchiha.

Who are you going to try and get a bell from? Me or him?

And suddenly Naruto realized that Kakashi had been there. He'd been listening.

If I'm wrong, it's on me.

That's what this was about. That's what this had to be about.

Trust your instincts.

"If I take this, I'm not worthy of being a Konoha shinobi," Naruto said, watching closely for any reaction from Kakashi, any hint of whether or not he was on the right track.

There was nothing. The jounin just calmly met his gaze with his single exposed eye.

There's no turning back.

He knew what he had to do. And he knew how to make Sakura and Sasuke do it too.

Naruto tossed the bell to Sakura, who almost fumbled catching it in surprise. She looked between the two boys, flinching as she met Sasuke's hard stare.

"I, uh, well," Sakura tried to speak. "I didn't really do anything, so I don't deserve to pass. It should be Sasuke-kun or Naruto, and if Naruto doesn't want it, then, uh…"

Sakura tossed it to Sasuke rather than try to figure out what more to say. He snatched it out of the air, glaring at Naruto. His knuckles were white with how tightly he clutching the bell, and Naruto wouldn't be surprised if the metal was warping.

"I don't need or want your charity," he spat out, addressing Naruto instead of the girl who'd given him the bell. He flung the bell at ground in front of Kakashi's feet.

"Well, that's seriously odd," Kakashi mused. "I was under the impression all of you wanted to shinobi. I hate to disappoint, but if you all want to go back to the Academy together… too bad. You all pass."

"…and then he showed us the Memorial Stone," Naruto concluded, having just finished relaying his day to the Sandaime Hokage.

"It sounds like you've had an interesting day," the Sandaime commented, leisurely smoking his pipe.

"Interesting isn't quite the word I'd use," Naruto grumbled. "Hey, is there any chance I could take another look at the Forbidden Scroll?"

Sarutobi raised an eyebrow. "Has forbidden taken on a different meaning while I wasn't looking?"

"Maybe?" Naruto tried. "Nah, I just want to look over Kage Bunshin more carefully. I wasn't smart enough to pay attention to the details when I learned it. Although it would be super awesome to check out some of the other stuff. I was too focused on learning Kage Bunshin to really look at anything else."

Sarutobi chuckled. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't be so terrible to let you read up on the Kage Bunshin––only the Kage Bunshin, mind you. It will have to be another day though, as the scroll is safely locked away due to a recent attempt to steal it."

Naruto had the good grace to blush at that. "Ehehe, sorry about that."

"Is there anything in particular you wanted know about?"

"Yeah. I mean, I want to know everything about it, but right now I really want to know how the memory transfer stuff works, and how much I can mess with that." Having to experience Sennen Goroshi secondhand was a big factor, but this was something he'd been wondering about even before that horrific experience.

"Unfortunately, the scroll doesn't have much to say on the issue. Never before has anyone used the technique so prolifically, and many aspects simply haven't been discovered or ironed out. If this is something that you think is important, I recommend speaking to the Yamanaka clan on the matter after you've figured out what you can on your own."

"Yamanaka? You're saying Ino can help me?" Naruto asked, disbelieving. That seemed impossible.

"Not her specifically, but her clan knows more about the mind and memories than anyone else in the village, perhaps even in the Elemental Nations. Your best bet would be her father, the clan head, but he's a very busy man. You might have to put in a mission request if you intend to take up a lot of his time."

"A mission request?"

"It's common to pay for another ninja's expertise in these matters. Training, help with jutsu, that sort of thing," Sarutobi explained. "Depending on how far you want to go with this, it would likely be at least a B-rank. You can set up a consultation to determine the extent of the project for the cost of an E-rank mission, but I'm sure Inoichi wouldn't charge for the initial talk. Many shinobi don't."

"That's more involved than I thought it would be," Naruto admitted. It made sense, but it was also making him feel kind of guilty. Gai had been training him for free. Lee was the man's student, but the he had no obligation to spend time helping Naruto.

"Too much so?"

"No," Naruto replied resolutely. "I'm sure it'll be worth it." The memory aspect of Kage Bunshin was one of its best features, and even the chance that it could be made more versatile had to be explored.

"I'm glad you've taken such an thorough approach to your training," Sarutobi praised, and Naruto couldn't help beaming at the old man. "Now, is there anything else on your mind?"

Naruto's grin faded a bit as he thought about it. The dream with the Kyuubi had been bugging him all day, and the clones he'd sent off to brood about it hadn't gotten anywhere productive with their thinking. Although they had managed to find a reference to a clan that had been wiped out by the Second Shinobi World War.

"Ne, Jiji," he began awkwardly. "Am I an Uzumaki?"

On the surface, it was a stupid question. He was Uzumaki Naruto. Of course he was an Uzumaki.

But had the Kyuubi been telling the truth? Was the Uzumaki clan real, and were they important. Was he one of them? And had the old man known about it and not told him?

"Yes."

That's it? Naruto wondered.

"Of the Uzumaki clan from Uzushiogakure?"

"Yes," Sarutobi admitted.

"Why has no one ever told me about them? Why didn't you ever tell me about them? Do you know who my parents were?"

Sarutobi sighed tiredly. "I do know who your parents were, and I'm sorry I've never mentioned anything about it to you before. Your heritage, like your status as the container of the Kyuubi, has been hidden for many reasons. Your safety chief among them."

"Am I missing something here? My name is Uzumaki Naruto," Naruto said flatly. "How exactly is that hiding the fact that I'm an Uzumaki?"

"It's a bit counterintuitive, and rather tricky," Sarutobi said, chuckling a little. "But there are some oddities about your situation that make it so that having your name be Uzumaki actually makes it so people think you're less likely to actually be one. Like your hair for instance."

"My hair?" Naruto said incredulously. "Why does everyone keep picking on my hair? Even the damn Kyuubi says it shouldn't––"

"The Kyuubi?" Sarutobi cut him off suddenly, his gaze hard. "You've been in contact with the Kyuubi?"

"Uh, I wouldn't say contact, exactly." Naruto tried to explain the situation as quickly as he could. "I had a dream last night, and the Kyuubi said I was an Uzumaki, and something about my hair and my chakra, and then some woman came and kicked his ass and I woke up."

"Start from the beginning, and tell me everything," Sarutobi ordered.

So Naruto did, in as much detail as he could remember.

"This is unexpected," Sarutobi told him, after he'd finished. "You should have come to me about this when you woke up this morning."

Naruto hung his head, dejected.

"It's not your fault," Sarutobi reassured him. "No one warned you about this, so there was no way you could have known. Just keep that in mind from now on."

"Ok," Naruto agreed. "Now can you please tell me what the deal with my hair is? It's really bugging me."

"If you insist," Sarutobi said amusedly. "The vast majority of the Uzumaki clan had red hair. A blond Uzumaki would seem an impossibility to anyone who remembers them."

"Red hair, like the woman in my… dream, or whatever?" Naruto realized.

"The proper term is mindscape," Sarutobi said. "Coincidentally enough, this is also something that will require Yamanaka Inoichi's expertise. I'm afraid that this a potentially very dangerous situation, and I'm going to have to insist that you see him today. This isn't a personal project, so you won't have to pay for anything. You may end up learning things that will help you with your Kage Bunshin, so you can consider that a bonus."

"Oh, that makes sense. What exactly will I learning?"

"At the very least, I want you to be able to exit your mindscape under your own power. We'll worry about anything else after we find out more about what happened."

"Ok."

"Drop by the Yamanaka Flower Shop at 10 PM. Inoichi will be told to expect you."

A flower shop? Actually, that would explain a lot about Ino.

Everything was a bit overwhelming. Talking to the Kyuubi had been a big deal for him, but he hadn't really thought about what the old man would think about it. There was still one more issue though.

"What about my parents?" Naruto asked.

Sarutobi paused for a long moment. "If you ask me to tell you who your parents were, I will tell you."

"That didn't count as me asking?"

"Do you trust me, Naruto?" Sarutobi asked.

"Of course I do," Naruto replied instantly.

"Then will you trust me when I say there are good reasons for me not to tell you right now?"

That's not how it's supposed to work, Naruto thought in frustration.

"Can you tell me those reasons?"

"I can tell you one of them. You knowing will increase the chances of other people finding out, and I would prefer to put that off as long as possible."

"Who they were was that important?"

"There are many factors involved. Can you please just try to trust that I know what I'm doing?" Sarutobi pleaded. "This isn't a one time only offer. If you decide that you absolutely need to know, you can come and ask at any time, so don't feel as though if you don't ask now the knowledge will be lost to you forever."

"I do trust you, but how am I supposed to just… How long?" Naruto changed tracks abruptly. "When do you think it'll be a good time to tell me?"

He was angry. How could the old man do this to him? Dangling the identity of his parents in front of him and then playing the trust card? This was torture.

"At the rate things are developing, no later than six months."

Naruto's hands were clenched so tightly his fingernails were drawing blood.

"I can't promise I'll wait that long, but I'll try," he bit out tersely. He stood up abruptly. "I need to go hit things now. Thanks for being straight with me."

"Naruto-kun," Sarutobi called out as the boy practically fled the room. "They would be very proud of you."

"That went about as well as could be expected," Sarutobi murmured. "You have something to say, Kakashi?"

A basic illusion faded away to reveal the silver-haired jounin leaning against a wall.

"I don't even know where to start anymore," he admitted.

"Just start with the concerns you had before my conversation with Naruto," the older man prompted.

In that case, Kakashi knew exactly where to start.

"Gai's been training him."

"Why Gai and not you? Is that the issue?"

It took every ounce of restraint he had not to yell at his Hokage. "Yes."

"How long do you think Gai has been training Naruto?"

Kakashi blinked at the non sequitur. He thought about the boy's physical conditioning and his proficiency with Gouken. Factoring in Gai's teaching ability…

"Four months. Maybe five or six, but at least four," he hedged.

"Naruto has been training with Gai for less than a week."

"No," Kakashi denied. "That's impossible."

"Not with the way Naruto's been using Kage Bunshin."

"What are you saying?" Kakashi asked suspiciously. "Kage Bunshin doesn't work like that. You can train a little bit with it, but nothing to that extent. Especially with subconscious experience like muscle memory."

"It never struck you as odd that the Kage Bunshin was on the Scroll of Forbidden Seals?"

Kakashi was surprised. "It's actually on there? I thought it was just on the fake version you gave Naruto."

Sarutobi smiled over his interlocked fingers. "Fake version?"

"Yeah the fake… no. It was real?" Kakashi said in shock. "But you knew what was happening the whole time. Why would you let him have the real scroll?"

"To give him the opportunity to learn Kage Bunshin off of it."

Can you stop dancing around the point already? Kakashi knew better than to say that aloud. "Why that in particular?"

"Kage Bunshin was the only thing on that scroll he even had a chance of learning. If he'd tried to learn something else, perhaps something more impressive sounding, he would have failed completely. The technique on the Forbidden Scroll is not the same one you use. It is the original version, which is why it's a hijutsu. High chakra cost is not enough to earn a place on that scroll."

Kakashi was beginning to get an inkling of what was going on. "The original version? What's the difference?"

"Memory transfer," Sarutobi explained. "Every single iota of the clone's experience goes back to the creator. Every thought, feeling, and impulse, no matter how irrelevant. Which is why he can train his muscle memory. For most people, that makes the technique near unusable. Any more than a few minutes of memories is a risk for brain damage. It has a very limited range of applications. If you tried to copy Naruto's training you'd end up with your brains leaking out of your ears."

Kakashi was horrified. "And you didn't warn him not to do it?"

"You think me foolish, Kakashi-kun? We've known that Naruto would eventually be able train like this since he was four years old."

"So all of that––The Gouken, the jutsu, the seals," Kakashi realized, "he was making those seals, wasn't he. All of that was learned in the last week? That's unbelievable."

"Ah, Konohagakure no Jutsu. It's marvelous, isn't it? It even interferes with my Crystal Viewing Technique. Another consequence of the perfect memory transfer is that your fun with Sennen Goroshi is going to bite––or stab, rather––you in the ass."

Kakashi paled as he realized what the Sandaime was saying.

So that's why he was so pissed off. Fuck.

"We're not going to be able pretend he's talentless anymore," Kakashi noted. He managed not to sound accusing.

"No, his rapid rise in skill will not go unnoticed for long. In fact," Sarutobi rooted through the papers on his desk until he found what he wanted, "we intercepted a report on Naruto and Sasuke that we believe was headed for Otogakure. There was information about your test. Not much, but enough to show us that someone has been poking around with far too much interest."

"That just happened a few hours ago."

"Yes, Otogakure is certainly begging to be noticed."

"You didn't answer my question. Why Gai and not me," Kakashi persisted.

"Ah, Kakashi-kun," Sarutobi sighed. "A shinobi must look underneath the underneath. Oh don't look at me like that," he said as Kakashi's eye visibly twitched. "That piece of wisdom is older than I am. My primary motivation was never making it look like Naruto wasn't a real threat, although that was a convenient bonus. I could have let you start training him when he was five or six. I'm fully confident that you would have turned him into a fine shinobi. But if that was what I wanted, I would have trained him myself."

"You?" Kakashi blurted out.

"I have taught before," the Sandaime said dryly. "I believe you may have even heard of one or two of my students."

"Sorry, that's not–"

"I know." Sarutobi waved off Kakashi's apology. "I have a cabinet full of detailed training plans for Naruto, dating all the way back to a week after he was born. Several of them I even wrote myself. If that was the direction I wanted to go in, I could have made him a match for you by now. I'm sorry Kakashi, but if I had wanted Naruto trained like that I would have been the one to do it."

As much as it rankled Kakashi, it did make sense. "Ok, but why didn't you train him then?"

"I was going to," Sarutobi said, replacing the spent tobacco in his pipe. It lit itself with an elegant display of fire manipulation. "The psychological and physiological reports projected the optimal starting time would be when he was seven years old, although he was scheduled to start chakra control exercises a year earlier."

"What happened?" Kakashi had never had any inkling of this. It had always seemed as though there was never any intention of training Naruto.

"It was his sixth birthday, and we were celebrating at Ichiraku's," the old man reminisced. "He was to begin the preliminary stages of his training later in the day. He asked me what a Hokage was, and I told him. I suppose I was in an odd mood given the circumstances, but the explanation I gave him wasn't meant for a six year old. I told him fully and honestly what I felt the Hokage should be, and he understood. Not completely, but enough that it amazed me. He told me, in that utterly serious way that only children can be, that he would be the Hokage one day." Sarutobi smiled sadly. "And I believed him. I still do. The Will of Fire isn't just a motto or a meaningless war cry. It's a resolute strength of spirit, and Naruto-kun has it as strongly as I've ever seen."

"And after that, you decided not to train him?" Kakashi was baffled.

"Oh, I have been training him," Sarutobi said mischievously. "In a way that no one, not even he, has noticed. Rather than guiding his development down the path that I think is best for him, I've been letting shape himself. Like when I 'scold' him for one of his pranks. I let him know where he went wrong, and he absorbs that information and uses it to plan his next one better. Knowing that he could use Kage Bunshin to make up for any lack of training later on, I was free to train him to himself."

"What does that even mean?"

"What is a good example… ah, yes. When the Academy teachers started deliberately helping Naruto less than the other students. I could have stepped in, made them aware that I knew what was going on, and everything would have straightened itself out. Instead, I waited. Naruto began working harder, looking for the answers on his own. Sometimes he would succeed, and sometimes he would fail. And sometimes he would exceed success. Pay attention to his Henge if you want to see something amazing. It wasn't a fair position to put a child into, and I was ready to stop the instant it looked like the pressure was getting to him. But he never gave up. The harder he was pushed, the more stubborn he got."

"So, you're teaching him to rely on himself?" Kakashi asked as he tried to wrap his mind around it.

"Rely on himself first, yes," Sarutobi agreed. "The closest I ever gave to handing him anything was letting him take the real Scroll of Forbidden Seals. It was up to him to choose to learn Kage Bunshin, and to actually learn it. He reacted even better than I could have hoped for, his interest in Ninjutsu skyrocketing. I admit to cheating a little bit, when he visited the library in order to research more about jutsu."

"Cheating?"

"Oh, I may have placed a rather convenient book where he might find it. Just a little something I wrote a long time ago that I think was a bit underappreciated."

Kakashi had a sneaking suspicion. "That wouldn't happen to be 'Fundamentals of Ninjutsu', would it?" Minato-sensei had tried to make all three of his students read it, but the tediousness of the exercises was ridiculous.

Sarutobi smirked. "Why yes it was. I hid the fact that I am the author somewhat, so he wouldn't automatically come to me every time he had a question or a problem. He may eventually figure it out, but I want him to struggle through it on his own for now."

"Isn't that kind of mean?" Kakashi pointed out.

"Konohagakure no Jutsu is a very basic exercise, warped nearly beyond recognition. When I saw what he was doing, trying to push that exercise further and further, I thought it was a good teaching exercise. He would learn that there were dead ends, even with clones. If I had actually been training him, I would have told him he was wasting his time and to move onto something more fruitful. And that is why Naruto will end up far better training himself."

Kakashi was reminded rather forcibly that Orochimaru had been the Sandaime's student. The cunning of the traitorous sannin was infamous, but it was easy to forget that he'd learned it from his benevolent teacher. It was sounding like Naruto's stubbornness had been specifically engineered to complement the original Kage Bunshin. Which was seriously scary. And brilliant.

"And to finally answer your question, I did not have Gai train Naruto," Sarutobi continued. "I did direct Naruto to a training field where they would eventually cross paths. Incidentally, it barely took a day. With Gai's teaching style, I didn't even have to warn him not to stifle any creativity or oddity on Naruto's part."

"What if Naruto didn't want to train with Gai?" Kakashi asked. Gai would probably train an Iwa genin if he thought they had the Flames of Youth, but Naruto running away screaming could have been a distinct possibility. It was the sensible response to seeing those eyebrows for the first time, after all.

"Then he wouldn't have gotten trained," Sarutobi explained simply. "If he ignores the opportunity, he doesn't get anything."

"So you just conveniently place opportunities in his path, and he manages to take advantage of them?"

"For the most part, yes," Sarutobi said proudly. "He's done exceptionally well with that. He's missed some of them, but only one that is rather important."

"And that would be?"

"A brilliant young woman apprenticed in the Cryptoanalysis squad. He could have asked her for help understanding jutsu theory, but so far he's just been having fun annoying her. It is understandable that his first instinct is to rely on himself, but he'll hopefully learn that he can collaborate and ask others for help. As long as that isn't his first recourse."

Kakashi was beginning to see how far reaching the Sandaime's plans were. "So that's why you pointed him in Yamanaka-dono's direction rather than giving him specific help."

"Yes. I do have a fair idea of how he could achieve what he wants with the Kage Bunshin. But rather than just giving him the answer, this way he learn about it in a way that gives him the opportunity to do much more with it. And to realize when and how he can make use of other peoples' expertise. Forcing him to pay for Inoichi's help will clue him into the fact that he doesn't have to know someone and be on good terms with them in order to ask for their assistance. It will also pressure him to spend more time working on Fuuinjutsu to make some money. Although those particular lessons are going to be stunted by this mess with his seal."

Kakashi frowned. "So that's a real problem then?"

"Oh yes," Sarutobi said gravely. "The Kyuubi has never had that much control over its hosts' mindscapes. By all accounts it shouldn't even be possible. Minato made some odd modifications to the seal created by Mito-sama, but nothing that should allow anything like that. Jiraiya has theorized that Minato may have been able to leave an imprint of himself in the seal, but Kushina's presence in there wasn't something there was even a hint of. I'm sorry, but Naruto will be meeting Jiraiya a bit earlier than planned so that we can get a handle on this."

"So Jiraiya-sama is definitely taking him as an apprentice." It was to be expected, but it was still severely disappointing to have Naruto snatched away from him before he even had the chance to become the boy's mentor.

"Not in the traditional sense, but he will be taking a significant role in the boy's training. You can still teach him," Sarutobi added at the dejected look on Kakashi's face. "But you cannot guide his development––only open doors when he has already pushed in that direction. It will be hard when you see him making mistakes, or doing something weird or pointless, but you absolutely must let him explore his limits. If he asks a question, you can answer. If he asks for help, by all means help him. With Kage Bunshin, he can afford to waste time or even try dangerous experiments. This is a delicate time in his development. His fundamental approach to learning is being built around his massive chakra reserves and ability to abuse Kage Bunshin."

"Understood, sir." Kakashi had mixed feelings about this, but it was better than not being able to train the boy at all.

"I understand that this approach has been very hurtful for you, and for that you have my deepest apologies," Sarutobi said sympathetically. "Even the slightest nurturing of things that remind you of Minato's style could be limiting Naruto's full potential. This is part of the reason I don't want him to know who his father is yet."

"Because he'll try to be more like his father rather than learning what's best for him," Kakashi realized.

"That is correct," Sarutobi confirmed. "Although the ridiculous names he comes up with for his jutsu and tactics should be fine to leave alone. He's certainly taking after Minato in that respect. Or perhaps that's just the result of too much exposure to Gai and his student. I've also removed any detailed references to the Uzumaki clan's Fuuinjutsu from the village records, so that he'll explore that branch with an open mind. I'll put them back once he's established a good foundation based on his own understanding. It shouldn't take very long at all to get past this critical stage in his development, and then it should be fine to train him however you like."

"You said you'd tell him in six months?" Kakashi asked, getting excited at the prospect.

"Oh, far less than that I would imagine. Six months is just the absolute latest I possibly put off telling him, and I certainly don't intend to push it back that much. It's just that nobody is going to overlook him in the Chuunin Exams."

"He'd make a pretty good showing even now," Kakashi agreed, considerably happier than he'd been at the start of the conversation.

"Indeed, although not quite good enough for what I'm hoping."

Kakashi's brow furrowed as he tried to figure out what the old man was up to. Sarutobi just smiled enigmatically.

AN:

There we have it.

How's that for a Good!Manipulative!Sarutobi that is (kind of) consistent with canon? It was hard to reconcile the fact that he cares for Naruto, is really smart, and does absolutely nothing to prepare Naruto for the inevitable conflicts. I hope that the conversation between Sarutobi and Kakashi turned out all right. Its purpose was to explain a looooot of stuff, and making it flow like an actual conversation was difficult. I'm also hoping that the way Sarutobi dealt with Naruto, and the subject of revealing the identity of his parents, came out believably.

I'm not particularly picky about how the bell test goes, although I usually prefer it if they don't magically realize that the answer is teamwork, and come up with a plan that somehow needs all their skills to work properly. So this version of Naruto tries to analyze it… and sort of gets it? Although not in a way that Kakashi likes. I don't see the bell test as an actual test, but a lesson where Kakashi is trying to bond the team together. Also, the idea that two-thirds of graduates who have their forehead protectors are kicked out of the program is ridiculous. It makes more sense to me if Kakashi is just trying to scare them to make a point.

I feel bad for Kakashi. I haven't been very nice to him. And Naruto looks at everything he does in the worst possible light. Like how Naruto somehow managed to pick up Kakashi's late excuse thing from Gai, so he thinks that Kakashi is mocking him. And Sennen Goroshi? That's not going to make anyone like you very much. Except maybe Orochimaru.

The pace should pick up after this, so expect future chapters to be shorter. I'll also be dialing back on the nitty gritties of Naruto's jutsu creation now that you've seen how he goes about it. The stage is pretty much set with this chapter, and I've run out of plot holes to fill. For now. Because a B-Rank clone that a bunch of jounin know how to make really deserves a place on the Scroll of Forbidden Seals. Right.

Speaking of plot holes, I want to thank Lake25 for bringing up the fact that Sarutobi's book being credited with only his first name (Hiruzen) was weird. I'd forgotten that I needed to address that point. Also, credit for what was going with Naruto's sudden burst of speed when Kakashi ended the test early goes to GenoBeast. I'm still working on how that's going to turn out, but the inspiration comes from one of his ideas.

Another major theme I was exploring was skill level. Naruto's starting to come into his own, but he can barely manage to even inconvenience Kakashi at this point. Kishimoto ended up with this weird escalation of skill level that I'm trying to avoid by establishing the difference between an elite jounin and three fresh out of the academy genin rather explicitly. I won't be describing skill with terms like 'genin-level' or 'low jounin-level', because they don't actually say anything useful. The variation in things like speed or chakra control is too spread out in accordance with particular specializations to tie to rank. And my interpretation of who wins in a ninja fight isn't strictly linear. It's more like a really messy rock paper scissors type thing. Something more along the lines of .

Fuuinjutsu is badass. There has to be a reason why even novices can't just carefully copy seals. So that's what I came up with that on front. This way of looking at it was something originally slated for a time travel fic I've got on the drawing board, so that I didn't have to explain the slow grind to awesomeness. Time travel fics are nice that way.