NEW DAWN
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For the Sake of Deja Vu
~ Forenote ~
Sorry it's late, I was stuck on another of my Fic's
I have added a list of the groups of jutsu mentioned during Ebisu initial lesson to the note of Chapter 2.
The scrolls Sasuke had given him were obviously copied from the Uchiha library by different people. Which meant Uchiha-hime had kept all the notes and such about jutsu from his clansmen.
The three scrolls each held a jutsu, and the author's notes on learning them. All three were C-rank ninjutsu, one of each type of wind jutsu.
The Air Bullet, was an impact type. It compressed air into a ball and sent it to impact with whatever you aimed it at. It was also one of the Frequently Flying Five, alongside the Dragon, Water, and Mud Bullets and the Lightning Fang.
The Vacuum Palm was a blast type, creating a current of air that would blow the target away. It was one of the Advance Affinity few alongside the Fireball, Water Flow Spout, Filling the Glove jutsu, and the Static Palm which was more commonly called the Shocking Grasp. Each of these were the jutsu used when teaching shinobi to fully convert their chakra into the element of their affinity.
The final scroll held the Cutting Breeze. It was a more advance cutting type than the Cutting Palm jutsu, which Ebisu had mentioned when covering the Traveling Ten.
The Cutting Palm was used to cut minor things like rope or bark or grass. Next in the Traveling Ten was the Moisture Spout which basically created condensation in an area to gather water from the air itself. Then there was the Air Shift, using chakra to push air into motion which blows away smoke and scents. After that was the Friction Thumb Spark which created a minor spark of flame used for lighting fires and the Static Pinch which gathered static buildup in the air and could produce light.
The Soil Shift, slightly shifted loose soil, softening the ground for sleep or for digging a fire pit. Increasing this skill allowed the user to perform the Soil Subshift that extends downwards to dispose of waste. The Earth Shift was larger still, and could move large amounts of earth for making fire pits, trenches, or shelters without actually digging.
The final jutsu in the traveling ten was the Casting Veil, an area wide henge that disguises your camp as what it was before you began setting up. It could also be used for many other disguises but that was the use that got it into the traveling ten. The tenth skill was not a jutsu but instead it was the use of sealing scrolls to pack, carry and unpack all your things.
Naruto would have to learn the Cutting Palm by working downwards from the Cutting Breeze it seemed.
The three selected jutsu would more than get him started learning to use his element. Uchiha-hime had chosen well.
Tucking the scrolls into his pocket, Naruto walked to the closest tree and snatched two leaves down from it. He knew that Sasuke could hold a leaf to his forehead. The genius had done it often enough in the academy, so Naruto passed over that one.
They would begin with holding a leaf to the back of each of their hands. As he described the first step, he reminded Sasuke that he would have to teach each step to Sakura, so he needed to pay attention to how they were explained as well.
Attaching the leaves to his own hands, Naruto did the first few of the basic stretches he had learned from Ebisu. When the Uchiha Genin mirrored his actions without losing his leaves, Naruto moved on to the next step.
He stood on one leg and used his foot to pick a leaf up and move it over, then released it and repeated the motions with his other foot.
It took Sasuke several tries to pick up the leaf with his foot, but once he had that, moving it and releasing was easy.
Naruto had him repeat it twenty times, instructing the other Genin to have Sakura repeat it the same number as well.
By the time they finished to this point, his clone had returned with the strapless Geta. Three pairs, one in each of their sizes. Naruto gave Sasuke his and Sakura's, and waited as the older boy quickly put the kunoichi's away.
Naruto didn't have much difficulty attaching his feet to the geta. However when he picked his foot up, he release as he would when taking a step up a wall.
Giving a nervous chuckle, he repeated his step.
With Sasuke following him, Naruto began a lap around the Uchiha compound. Every so often, one of Sasuke's Geta would come off, and the instructing Genin would make them return to the gate and start over.
He told the Uchiha that he needed to make ten laps around the compound on the geta, without allowing them to slip off before he could continue.
As Naruto understood it, this was meant to build up both the chakra capacity required, as well as the leg muscles being used to hold one's body upright.
They spent most of the morning working on those laps. Unfortunately, they ran out of time before Sasuke could make all ten.
So they headed to the mission's office to meet their team.
0o0o0
Waving at his other teammate, Sasuke followed Naruto into the mission's office. Sakura was waiting there already. And much to Naruto's apparent surprise so was Kakashi-sensei.
The fake's questioning of the man's presence so early, received the answer that the Jonin was hurt by his student's low opinion… and then the one eyed shinobi pulled out that book and flipped to somewhere in the middle.
Turning to the kunoichi, Sasuke began whispering to her about his new training. After she heard what he was describing, Sakura whispered back. "Do you remember where sensei was when you used the Grand Fireball jutsu?"
"Yes, he was standing on top of the water." The Uchiha understood where she was going "Do you think that's what Naruto's teaching me?"
"It's at least a Chunin level skill for sure. I mean, I haven't even heard of it until our test, and if one of our Academy sensei could do it, don't you think we'd have at least heard something?"
Which brought question. "Where did Naruto learn it then?"
Sakura was deep in thought trying to find an answer when their team was called for mission selection.
Deciding to tell her about the bet later, Sasuke resolved to discover the truth.
0o0o0
The days of that week passed much the same.
Naruto sent a clone to his lessons with Ebisu who finally covered all the lectures he had planned and moved onto tactics exercises in which he would ask the clones how they would do one thing or another based on the situation.
Naruto would have to go off by himself and meditate before lunch, but that was a simple matter. This way was the only sure method of reading the feedback without missing anything. After their mission they would race back to the training ground and Kakashi would set Naruto and Sasuke sparing while he gave Sakura her task.
Each time it was something to do with building endurance. The first training session had been the laps, but the second one was climbing a rope. When she made it to the top she had to come down with a ribbon their sensei had placed.
She had to get all of the ribbon's down, before she would be finished. Elbowing Sasuke when Sakura slipped and almost quit, brought the boy to encourage her.
The next day Sensei had her dodge as he threw small pebbles at her. He only stopped when Naruto stepped in. Sakura had been hit several times by that point. She had a nasty looking gash on her cheek and she wasn't able to stand on one of her ankles.
So Kakashi gave her the day after that off. Only to try repeating the cycle when she came back the next day. Which luckily for her was interrupted by Sasuke's own training injuries.
Sasuke had finished his ten laps on the second morning of their private training and so they headed over to the hill Ebisu-sensei had described to him. It was steep, but not vertical. So when they climbed up it, if Sasuke was going to fall he could just lean forwards and catch himself.
As Naruto knew from his memories of learning it last time, running gave them the momentum they needed to get to the top in one shot. This clashed with his instructions of taking it one step at a time. And when his clone had asked, Ebisu told him to start with the run to get the Uchiha used to the climb, but don't move on until he could do it with deliberate steps.
He had that down the same day. And so they agreed to start at the wall the next morning. He finished both the wall and walking up the tree in only a matter of hours. It seemed that the earlier steps had helped much more than Naruto thought.
At the time they only had about an hour left before they had to leave but Sasuke was on the clock here so Naruto took him over to his families dock on the Uchiha lake.
He laid flat on the dock with his chest and arms hanging over. Placing both hands on the water Naruto tried to duplicate the method he used with his feet. It only took him a few minutes but Sasuke needed the entire hour to be able to hold himself up.
The goal there was to perform on hundred push ups off the face of the water. Sasuke was soo close.
Agreeing to skip lunch for this was one thing you didn't do when you could make clone go get your food. So while they waited on the food to arrive Sasuke extended himself so that only his feet were on the wooden dock, while the rest of him hung over the water.
His hundred pushups had to be slow or his body's momentum would unbalance him, but he had them done before the hour was up.
Sasuke had completed the water walking training the next day. It had only taken four days for the Uchiha to learn how to water walk. And now that he had, he needed to unlock his sharingan as they had agreed. The only way Naruto could think of to do that was to do the leaf exercise on his forehead while on the water.
When that didn't do the trick, Naruto sat right there on top of the water to meditate and force himself to remember how the last Uchiha had unlocked his doujutsu last time.
He knew that the tree walking training had been during that mission, but he couldn't seem to pull anything new up. All he could remember was a great sorrow and rage at the Uchiha's death. So instead of focusing on his sharingan, Naruto decided to try it from the other angle.
The tree walking training.
He focused on Sasuke as the boy climbed up the tree beside him, he would keep pace with his rival step for step. But it didn't seem enough. He had stayed out after Sasuke headed back and he fell asleep.
Breathing deeply Naruto tried to remember waking up. And a face flashed in his eyes. The girl!
She was soo cute! But Naruto could also feel this sense of despair. He didn't understand how he knew, he couldn't even remember it actually happening, but Naruto was sure he had watched her die!
It was brief, but he could almost see her running. Towards something or away from something he wasn't sure, but that proved to be the key. He could remember thinking that she was too fast!
Opening his eyes, Naruto leapt up in triumph.
He knew what they needed to do.
Looking over at his teammate who was still standing on the water with a leaf attached to his face, Naruto reached down into the cool lake and picked up a rock.
0o0o0
It was time for him to start teaching Sakura. As per the bet, Sasuke told her that he would agree to go on a date with her only if she could learn the skill in three days.
Their sensei had given her the day off again today. He had wanted to make her run laps again but when he saw all the wounds Sasuke had received from Naruto, again, the Jonin relented and had her tend his injuries.
At the same time he told Naruto, they were going to spar and both of them vanished. Leaving the two real Genin to themselves.
Even with his sharingan activated, Sasuke had missed their movements as they rushed from the mission's office towards the training ground… Of course, there was the possibility that they had just been clones dispelling. Since it seemed both of them did that now.
From what Naruto had taught him, the Uchiha benefited greatly. Once he figured out how to channel chakra into his eyes he learned that Naruto was channeling it into his muscles. Sasuke didn't even need to copy that, to figure out how to do it himself.
And that led him to a new possibility for Naruto's improvements. His chakra capacity was enormous! And if Sasuke could increase his own speed by putting chakra into his body, then so could Naruto, and he had more than enough chakra to explain the sudden increase in speed.
But as Sakura said, that still didn't account for his improved intelligence. It only explained how he could so easily hide his speed, which was probably the same thing all advanced shinobi did.
So he dropped the matter and told her about the deal. Not mentioning that fact that the offered date was part of a bet, as per their agreement.
The Pinkette was excited and determined to win her date. Sasuke told her the deadline was three days. It had taken him four, and he doubted she would be able to match him… But deep down he worried. He had been wrong before, and Naruto, the fake Genin, had bet that she would be able to do it… so what did he know?
0o0o0
One arm pulled up, as the other reached higher. Sakura hung at least half a kilometer up. This rope she was climbing was connected to a tree at the top of a cliff, she had been told to climb down and bring one hundred large rocks back up.
That wasn't as hard as it sounded now that she could channel chakra into each fiber of her muscles. And she had been so smug as she awaited her chance to show he sensei what she could do.
She had half planned to simply walk down the cliff without the rope… but her sensei seemed to be a step ahead of her. He instructed her that the rocks had to be brought up two at a time.
One on the bottom of each foot!
Even so, Sakura couldn't stay down about the training, no matter how exhausting it was, she would meet it with joy.
She was going on a date tomorrow!
Her inner self was completely occupied with what she would wear and how she would rub it in Ino-bunta's face.
The afternoon she'd had off so she could tend to Sasuke's wounds and been wonderful!
First, he had her attach a leaf to her hand and move through a few basic stretches. They were similar to the ones they had learned at the academy but they were more specific. She didn't even feel the effort of the leaf as she memorized the stretches Sasuke was showing her. The twenty leg swings were slightly worse. Her ankle was still paining her.
When he told her about the next step she asked to do the laps the next morning. She needed to soak her leg and wrap it for the run. That had taken the longest out of all the steps in the process, but she had gotten through them without needing to restart even once!
Sasuke admitted he had needed to restart many times. And because of that, it had taken him more than one day. The rest of the exercises all the way up to the water pushups were simple for her to master in an hour. The walk up the hill, was once up and then down, the climb up the wall was the same, and she didn't even leave a mark on the tree.
If not for the fact she had to do fifty of the On-the-water push-ups, she would have finished them all that morning. She had to wait until after her second set of laps assigned by their sensei before she could wearily take on the challenge of walking across the water.
However, before she went home on that second day, she had learned to water walk.
With a groan about making Naruto suffer, Sasuke dropped to his butt and put his head in his hands. Not exactly the response she had wanted, but He eventually asked what she wished to do for their date.
Sakura wanted to go off and shout her victory to Ino. She wanted to sing in joy… but she had been too sore to do anything. So she went to bed. Keeping Sasuke's comment about eating in mind, the next morning she decided she had burned enough food, she could splurge a little, and devoured the food her mother had cooked for breakfast…
Shamefully, she had eaten every last scrap she'd been given. And then, in her glutenny, she'd asked for more! Sakura didn't know what had come over her, but she had eaten until her belly was distended! She felt devastated. How was she ever going to fit into the outfit her inner-self wanted to wear?
Seeing her distress, both her parents began laughing. But their answer to her plight was simple, and she would already be stuck doing it. She had to burn it all off! Train until her body was thin again.
And so, Sakura pulled herself one more arm length up the rope. Below her, hung a pair of large stones attached to the bottom of her sandals with chakra.
She couldn't wait to tell Ino. She had a date!
0o0o0
Uchiha-hime had actually been nervous about his date with Sakura. Naruto half thought that the boy would simply be the cool and uncaring rookie he had always been.
It was actually kind of cute to see him primping himself up for the date. Every so often he would shoot a glare at Naruto as they did their mission at a rushed pace the way they always did.
Naruto could remember how last time around, they used to drag it out, lazily performing their task with as little effort as it took. Perhaps that was why sensei was actually training them this time around? Naruto had been urging them to finish their missions quickly so they could get to training, and they never spent much time on the mission at all.
Once it was finished, Naruto and Sasuke squared off for their daily spar.
Now for what happened next, it needs to understood that Naruto hadn't been ready. He didn't mean to do it. He hadn't wanted to ruin their date. But, it happened anyway.
For the last few days, while Sasuke had been training Sakura, Naruto had returned to Ebisu's care. The man had restarted his training by going over all of their taijutsu together and then having a light spar.
They had moved on to having another round of clone dodging.
When Naruto had done well with that, and had avoided most of the injuries, Ebisu gave him permission to parry attacks. They covered redirecting and maneuvering attacks for a few hours and the next day he set some clones on him once more! His movements had to be ingrained. And so they did this for a few hours as well.
The day after that, he was taught how to directly block a strike and which strikes to block. This had been the morning before Sakura told him she had done it!
Not that he doubted her.
And so, the morning before the date arrived, and Naruto had been given a final clone defence challenge.
Learning to counter attack.
Sadly this took far more clones and much more time. But by the time he headed out for his mission, every fiber of his body knew how to maneuver an enemy's attack away and hit back as hard as he could.
So when their sensei said that instead of dodging practice, Sakura would be sparring with Naruto today, the boy wasn't ready. Throughout the week and a half that they had been sparing, Sasuke had been getting faster and stronger.
Naruto didn't use his chakra to spar with him, but it was still a hard spar for the boy. He only barely managed to not get hit most of the time.
Sakura wasn't that good.
When the pinkette attacked with the kind of punch she used back in the academy, Naruto reacted with instinct.
His left hand quickly swept her incoming left hook to the side, and placing his right hand on her elbow, he hyperextended it until there was a snap and then as his left hand pulled her in closer, his right hand flicked forward into a fist that impacted her square in the face.
The three swift motions flowed from him almost instantly, and were over before any of them realized what had happened.
The punch gave out a crunching sound and Sakura flew backwards. As she hit the ground, she began to shriek!
She seemed unsure whether to grab her broken arm or her gushing face. Sasuke was at her side in the blink of an eye.
Naruto however, could only stand there, eyes wide, and paralyzed in shock at what he'd done.
Kakashi-sensei didn't say a word, he simply tapped his foot waiting for them to continue the spar.
Gaining his sense of time back, Naruto rushed over to see if she was okay. And to beg for forgiveness. It had been an accident! Honest! He hadn't thought she'd jump into the punch. Sasuke looked at him as if he were crazy. But admitted, he also didn't think she would try attacking with a straight hook against an opponent of his level.
Finally getting bored, the Jonin gave his input. "Um... are you two going to keep going or is one of you giving up?"
At that, Naruto bolted up angrily and shouted at him. "You lazy azshole! She's hurt! Shouldn't she go to the hospital! And besides that, shouldn't a Jonin have been able to see that she wasn't dodging and done something!"
The Jonin simply shrugged, "Well the match is still going and since neither of you have won or quit, leaving would be a forfeit."
Pulling herself up, Sakura shot an angry glare at their sensei, and threw herself at Naruto with as much hate as she could dredge up.
Unfortunately for her, she had done this while the orange Genin was still facing the other way.
And he reacted once more, on instinct.
0o0o0
It had been a month since team seven had been formed, and Naruto still hadn't found a way to ensure they were placed on that mission. He had done what he could towards helping his teammates get stronger, and he knew that there were at least two more months until the break in which Iruka would be assigned to help in the mission's office once more.
But what if the mission was requested before then?
After all of his meditation, Naruto had only recalled a few more hints at what had happened during that mission. He could remember sitting on a boat as it passed under an unfinished massive bridge. And he could remember the man who had requested it.
The drunken old man hadn't been in the village yet. Naruto had clones watching for him. But he didn't know what to do if he ever saw him.
Silently, Naruto finished his morning jog. He was no longer needing to catch his breath, and he had finished the run in only twenty eight minutes. That meant it was time for him to do another lap, which was fine with him.
His morning runs had become the part of day he dedicated towards his…
Past? Whatever.
Outside of that mission Naruto had also remembered a few more things about his life before he died. One was that Shikamaru had made Chunin. Naruto wasn't sure how or why, but it was a clean memory.
So far he had been able to remember few clearly, starting with his graduation and the bell test, and then he remembered the actual mission assignments they had received during that first week. After that the mission's became a blur as he must have simply glossed over them while focusing on his training outside of the missions.
He remembered the day Kakashi sensei gave them their applications for the Chunin exam. He didn't remember much about the exam itself, except that he had made it to the finals and Hyuuga Neji had done something to piss him off.
Then there was the feeling of dread. The same one he felt for the cute girl from the blurry mission. He knew the old man was going to die during the finals. Was it a heart attack? Or did he fall off the balcony?
As much as Naruto wondered what happened, he didn't know. It was possible he had only found out afterwards. If the opponent he got after his victory against Neji had beaten him, then he might have been knocked out before the old man died.
Of course there was also the month in the middle of the exam, when he met the toad sage. Odd as it was, Naruto was certain the guy had been standing on a frog statue behind the women's bath. While Naruto completely believed that that would be where the guy was, it was harder to think anyone would build a statue like that and be dumb enough to put it there.
Still, he had sent a clone to check every now and then, to see when the frog statue would appear.
He had also figured out why the guy was so awesome… Because he was the man who had trained the Yondaime! He was also the one who wrote Kaka-sensei's pervy books, but that didn't really matter to Naruto.
What did matter was that the Genin could remember going with him to find the next Hokage! And then something about large boob's… But knowing Ero-Sennin, that would have little to do with anything he needed to remember. So Naruto passed over the memory there, in lieu of the memory of Sakura weeping at the village gate.
The mission to return Sasuke to the village was an ever present image in the back of his mind. He could still feel the crushing weight of his own blood in his throat.
Other than the image of Sasuke's brother which he couldn't place along the memory timeline, that was all he had. He could clearly remember almost everything about Ebisu sensei, but that was clear to him since he met the guy.
Ebisu-sensei was almost nothing like what he remembered. He was calm, and patient and actually wanted to help. Vaguely Naruto wondered why Konohamaru didn't get the same treatment. But his mind was really focused more on the fact that Ebisu seemed to have changed almost overnight… or over-day as it were. Naruto was almost certain the change had happened on that first day when he had done the clone lecture.
Since then Ebisu had begun training Naruto in almost everything, he had began Naruto's clones working on cutting the leaf, and they had almost completed his taijutsu training. Naruto's mixture of his old style and what Ebisu taught him, turned out to make his randomly perfect motion's mixed into the haphazard and often unbelievably crude motion's an effective countermeasure against almost every style Ebisu could use.
Naruto got the feeling that the man was more frustrated by his accidental style's effectiveness than the fact he was getting beaten.
While Naruto sparred with his sensei, the clones worked. Not all of them had been assigned to the leaf, others had been given stones they were told to hold small stones on certain parts of their bodies as they ran against the current on top of a river.
The idea was to get him used to channeling chakra out of every part of his body while still being able to move. It also helped to increase his chakra control to a level at which he would be able to perform the jutsu they were working on.
They began by trying to have him spin on the river while holding leaves to his skin. That didn't work for a variety of reasons. First he blasted the leaves off, so they tried stones instead. While that helped, Naruto still ended up going down the river.
So putting the spin on hold they simply made him run against the flow of the river while holding the stones.
They could build from there.
When Ebisu asked why not try the spin on the ground, Naruto stubbornly argued that he didn't want to leave any marks on the ground from his learning the spin.
The Jonin didn't understand why it had to be hidden, but he accepted it after only a mild dispute.
The clones set to split the leaf eventually managed to cut it. All the way through. Thanks to Asuma-sensei's suggestions. The elder man had explained wind manipulation to a fine point when Ebisu-sensei had asked. The two Jonin had discussed it for hours it seemed.
At least, it took hours for Ebisu to tell Naruto everything he had learned.
From the leaf, they took the next step and began cutting other things, such as small strips of wood, and then bark, and moving on to actual branches. According to Ebisu the final two steps were cutting a waterfall and then cutting through a full grown and living tree with one's feet. But those were in the highest extremes and it wasn't likely he would finish them by the upcoming exam.
0o0o0
While Naruto was making progress with Ebisu, his training with team seven had been stunted. Because of her broken arm, Sakura couldn't spar. She couldn't do half of the endurance training Sensei had planned for her. So instead, she ran. And since he was the one who had caused it, Naruto ran with her.
As they had ran during that first day, the pinkette told him how her date had gone. She was angry with him for certain, however she had also spent most of the previous afternoon being cared for by Sasuke-kun.
So she could forgive him.
From there, they spent the laps around random parts of the village talking about one thing or another.
From what she had told him, She spent her mornings studying for her Iryonin tests. She had perfect scores with the academic side just as she always had. However unlike in the academy, her practicals were also perfect. Even with only one of her arms useful, she was able to not only keep up, but surpass the students who had been there before her.
Thanks to the water walking training she had received, her chakra control was leagues above the others. Kenko-sensei had simply rejected the idea that she had gone from a leaf on her forehead to running on water in only two days.
When she was able to synchronize her chakra to match the woman's on her second try, the Iryo-Jonin changed her tune. The medical instructor had fast tracked her lessons to match her learning curve to the point that after three weeks of going to the clinic every morning, she was already being taught to refine the diagnostic scan for viruses.
At the same time as their laps around the village, Sasuke had began training to use his doujutsu and was sparing with the one-eyed Jonin. What ever it was they had talked about a couple weeks ago had flared to life a raw dislike between them. Thier sensei would now randomly put Sasuke in a genjutsu that made him trip or stumble. The Uchiha was able to escape it more often than not but he still got caught pretty often.
During their spars however, Kakashi was slow and methodical, and highly unreadable. He only ever used the most basic combinations however his finesse at them made his movements more than enough to counter anything the Genin could do.
Uchiha-hime spent his mornings working on his ninjutsu. Naruto's clones had reported a few tidbits of his progress. The boy had finished a jutsu to hide giant shuriken in fire, and began trying to create a Dragon Bullet that was blue instead of yellow.
Asking Sasuke about it, got the clone caught, but not dispelled.
Surprisingly, the Uchiha answered without hesitation. The first form of it was the fire ball. Which was normally red, or orange. Depending on one's skill with it, the flame could turn yellow. The fireball could also change size. His normal Fireball jutsu was about an arm's length to a meter wide. But his Grand Fireball could become up to three meters wide depending on the amount of chakra added.
The more chakra, the bigger it got. However the better it was converted into fire, changed the flame's color instead of the size. If he could get it hot enough it would turn blue. He couldn't do that with the Fireball yet, however the Dragon Bullet was different. The Dragon Bullet would add compression.
By forcing the Fireball into a smaller space, the fire got hotter on it's own, and the more chakra you added, the more fire would be compressed into the ball. This meant adding chakra would make it hotter.
Once the jutsu turned blue it was called the Imperial Fireball, Grand Fireball or Dragon Bullet. Signifying that the chakra density was high enough for the jutsu to be raised by an entire letter rank.
He had already been able to create a blue Hand Torch. Which he created so Naruto could see the change. It was a small flame coming out the back of Sasuke curled palm. Air was sucked into the tunnel created by his closed fingers and thumb and a flame came out the other side. At first it was yellow, but as the Uchiha refined it, the jutsu turned blue.
After their mission and training, both of the boys would help Sakura gather her medical supplies from the various training grounds in the village. In one of them, Naruto felt a loathing from his past. He could remember fighting some snake-freak grass kunoichi. His memory was almost certain that the forest had been one part of the Chunin exam. He also knew that the grass ninja gave him the creeps for some reason.
The second month since they became Genin began with a C-Rank.
It was the first mission they had been given, in which his sensei had specifically told him to go all out with his clones! The Silver haired Jonin had actually asked him to make the clones before they headed into the mission's office and collected the C-rank.
The point of the mission, was gathering certain berries. It took a good amount of patience to get at the ones needed and he had to be able to tell the difference. Some were one color for ripe and others were other colors when they weren't. There would be a few different harvests over each season, the first was just before spring, when the smaller berries would ripen, the second would be late in the spring when the larger ones would. And finally there were a couple in the summer and one in the fall for the average sized ones.
Naruto could remember doing this one before. It had been given to several teams. At least one team would be there every day of the harvest. Naruto hadn't used his clones for that because they would get dispelled every time the were poked by a thorn.
This time though, Naruto's clones were a little more careful and they were able to pick all the berries in that day. They were told that they would be called back in about a week to pick the next batch as they ripened.
When word of his abuse of shadow clones got out, they were hired to til a large field. The work went quickly and they were given a C-rank Price when they finished it that same day. Soon many other farms had begun requesting them.
This was how Naruto found his solution.
The time displaced Genin finally figured out how to ensure he would get the mission he could barely remember. Because his ability to use clones made him the perfect guy for a mission like building a bridge, which as far as Naruto could remember was the only thing that made sense…
All he had to do was convince the drunken guy who requested the mission, that their team was the best!
But if he just ran up to him and volunteered then the man would probably get suspicious. And worse, what would his teammates think if he led them into a mission that was going to go bad!
He couldn't knowingly risk their lives like that and remain their comrade. Even if he did remember them surviving, things had already began to change, how could he guarantee they would live this time around?
For that, Ebisu's words at the teahouse came to mind. Making your teammates stronger will only make you stronger with them right? This must have been what he meant! The stronger they were, the less he had to protect them.
He could do this. They could do it.
But they didn't know what he did… And he wasn't about to try convincing anyone that it was real. So how could he get them to accept the mission without making it look like he had planned it?
And furthermore, how could he even convince the man that they were the best team? If he just started telling him how good they were, the drunk would think it was just bragging, but if he told him specifics the man would think he was a spy.
And something in his gut told him that the guy was hiding things anyway.
So what could he do?
Ignoring the secretive aspect for a moment Naruto decided to simply ask for help. It wasn't too strange to ask how to get other people to request them for more C-ranks. And with the few requests they had already gotten he would be avoiding anything weird. So he asked the one man who should know exactly what he needed. The man that Naruto knew had to get people to hire leaf ninja.
0o0o0
"Hey Jiji! You don't look very busy, so can I talk to you for a bit?" Sticking his head into the Hokage's window, Naruto received a groan from the village leader.
"Naruto, that entrance is for specific people such as anbu and those with my personal permission." The stern parental voice held only a hint of amusement.
"I didn't really want to deal with the traffic of the long way." The Genin replied as he entered the rest of the way into the office.
Turning toward the boy, the elder began filling his pipe. "Alright Naruto, what is it you need?"
"You know how those farms have been requesting team seven because of my shadow clones?" The boy asked.
When the Hokage nodded, Naruto moved to his core question. "Well I was wondering what I should do or say if I wanted to get other people to request us for mission's like that."
The Hokage instantly understood what Naruto was getting at. He wanted to know how to get more of them to hire his team for D-ranks that would be worth C-rank pay when finished the way his last few had been.
Internally the Sandaime considered his ward's current finances. Ebisu had began showing him how to shop correctly and explaining the right prices by now, so Naruto should have been able to make do with his monthly stip…
Damnit.
The elder berated himself for his own stupidity. The boy was no longer receiving a stipend. He had to make due with only what he made from his D-ranks. And that meant that the additional cost of buying proper foods wouldn't be as covered as the man had thought.
It had been his intention that repairing the overcharging issue would permit him to start buying healthy foods again. However with only D-ranks as income, the price decrease may have been the only reason he could afford to keep himself fed this last month at all.
He would have to resolve this issue as well. Ebisu reported that Naruto had taught his teammates the water walking skill, they should be ready. "Naruto, I can see if your sensei would like to start taking fully C-ranked missions if you are short on cash."
At the Hokage's offer Naruto felt a stab of panic! If they received a new C-rank before the one he remembered, they might not even be here when it was requested!
"No!" The Genin responded hastily. "I don't want anything like that! I just want to get more of the ones we're getting now. You know, with my clones."
"Well I suppose if it's fine with your team, I could set aside some solo missions for you?" The elder suggested.
"I don't need to separate from my team, I just want to know how to get people to request team seven more."
Naruto's panicked face was not too well hidden. He might not have wanted his teammates to know he was low on finances, or he might have a particular mission in mind…
Either way, the Hokage understood. "If you would like to advertise, then I suggest you use the same skill you wish to advertise. Send a few clones to the village square, and to each of the gates."
The elder could have grinned at the boy's widened eyes. "If you've ever just watched the market district, you'd see how it's done. You have something to sell and you tell the streets themselves about it. Don't speak to any one person in particular, but to the paved road. And above all else, make sure to tell the truth, and focus on the team as a whole. If you only talk about yourself then no one will take you seriously."
Well that was a simple answer… Naruto was a little shocked that that was all he had to do. Grinning at the old man, the Genin thanked him and fled out the window towards the market district.
0o0o0
It had taken him a few days to figure out what he wanted to do, and even then, his extra-sensei had suggestions to make it better. The main suggestion was a sign that read:
ADVERTISING CLONE
NOT THE REAL PERSON
The bold letters were worn on each of his clones as they henged into one member of the team or another.
He would send them out early in the morning and they would only dispel as he slept so that he wouldn't need to remember all the boring hours. If they ever did see the old drunk, they would send their own clones to report instead of risking feedback loss.
As villagers passed he had his clones step out for each team member's showcase. As the one henged into Sasuke stepped forward, the clones spoke about the abilities of the infamous Uchiha princess, with his rookie of the year title. Next it was the great 'Cherry Blossom' with her unusually high intellect and legendary perfect control! An aspiring medical ninja who was considered by the Medical Training Corps. to be a prodigy not seen since Tsunade herself.
Whoever that was… Ebisu had also modified his words too.
And Naruto, the Autumn Leaf Army! Able to make hundreds of clones that could actually do the work along side the real members of the team.
He had originally wanted to call himself the Orange Shadow Army, but as the pervy Jonin said, shadows weren't orange and that name would only give away his primary skill if it made it to the bingo books. Besides, he wasn't always going to be in his orange outfit. Autumn Leaf Army had been the Jonin's 'sensible equivalent'… whatever the hell that meant.
And finally, the Legendary Copy Ninja! Who was reading a different book this time...
Team seven saw the clones the second day he sent them out. Naturally they asked why, so he quickly responded with the Hokage's own words. He needed more money. He was no longer getting his monthly fund and the D-ranks were barely covering his rent and supplies.
Kakashi visibly thought about it, before shrugging and pointing at the two other Genin "If they are okay with it, we can start taking two mission's a day."
Uchiha-hime instantly voiced his "Definitely!"
While Sakura pondered Naruto's living situation. Either he was an orphan barely able to buy food, or he was a fully trained shinobi used to a Jonin's salary. Naruto needed more money. And besides that, Her own medical supplies weren't cheap. That was one of the reason's she had team seven looking for the herbs she wanted instead of buying them… another reason was so that all of them could recognize them in the wild, but that wasn't the issue right now.
Of course none of them said anything else about the clones, even after they saw them again. It was safe to say they wouldn't care if he kept them up for the next month and a half. And by the time the man came to request a mission, it would be a regular thing.
~ Note ~
Naruto now had three actual wind jutsu to learn, but before that he must be able to manipulate wind chakra.
0o0o0
Sakura thought waterwalking was advanced because when team seven first saw Kakashi walk up a tree in canon, they had no idea it was possible.
0o0o0
Yes Naruto threw rocks at Sasuke until he activated it, the Chakra control and the need to see faster are what allowed him to do so.
0o0o0
There is no way that all three of them could learn to water walk without Kakashi having found out. And since his goals towards her seems to be boosting her endurance why not add increasing her chakra capacity to it as well.
0o0o0
It only took Sakura a few minutes to learn to tree walk the first time, and now she has all the added steps to refine the process. She should be able to learn the water walking skill at least just as fast.
0o0o0
Sakura finally got her date! (I may or may not go over it when Sakura talks Ino)
0o0o0
Only a few more months before the blurry mission. I think they'll survive don't you?
Most items in all my Naruto fan-fictions will be based off of T8: Retroversion's timeline. Many of these details will be universal across them all.
Meaning any mission or OC, or other major details will be included, based on their background and trigger events.
{This will not include Kurenai's conspiracy or Hinata's abuse}
While T8: Retroversion will be my main Fic, Five others are on my list to work on at the moment: LATE Naruto: Life After the Ends; Uzumaki: A Lone Fox; The Thousand Ninja; Village Hidden in Plain Sight; and Wisdom of Chance. Descriptions on profile.