Made in the Shade 2

"Which one of you is the Naruto I know?" Sasuke asked, after everyone had been assigned their teams and dismissed for lunch.

"I am—Both of us are," they both spoke at once.

The one with the bandage on his cheek rolled his eyes. "Take an orange and cut it in half, they are both still the same orange."

"We aren't halves," Naruto said.

"Fine use chakra to grow back the other half so you have two full oranges, the end result is still the same," Shadow said.

"You don't sound exactly the same," Sakura pointed out.

"Our bloodline activated early in me," Shadow replied. "Docs say it'll be another couple of years before his activates, so in the mean time, it's scrambling his brain and giving him a really low attention span."

"Don't put it like that!" Naruto groaned.

"Bloodline?" Sasuke asked curiously.

"Healing and longevity," Shadow replied. "Downside is until it kicks in at puberty, we have some... development problems."

"You haven't hit puberty yet?" Sakura asked Naruto, making him blush bright red.

"Sakura-chan, how can you ask me that?"Naruto hid his face.

Sasuke was about to ask, but Shadow shook his head. "I'm pretty sure we don't want to know."

As Sakura turned bright red from something she thought, and attacked Naruto, Shadow turned to Sasuke. "Wanna get lunch?"

"I think I do," Sasuke said, sounding faintly surprised.

Shadow snapped his fingers and a pair of Shadow clones stepped out into the hall before transforming into the pair of them and kawarimi with them so it looked like they were still there.

Seeing the two henged clones sitting in their spots and watching Sakura and Naruto run around the classroom Sasuke smiled faintly. "Good strategy," he noted, as they left.

Shadow henged into a nondescript genin, with Sasuke quickly doing the same. "How does Barbecue sound?"

"Like lunch," Sasuke said racing ahead so Shadow had to run to keep pace. He found this new Naruto tolerable, even more so than those rare moments when Naruto was.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

"She's just like him," the Naruto clone noted with some surprise, as the pink haired girl chased the demon carrier around the room.

"It's covered up by her high IQ and ability to concentrate on something for more than a minute," the Sasuke henged clone agreed.

"Nice to know our other self isn't an idiot for chasing her," the Naruto clone said as they saw the unconscious and carefree smile on her face as she chased Naruto around the classroom, similar to Naruto's own as he basked in the attention.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

"How many of you are there?" Sasuke asked as they watched a clone of Naruto pass the restaurant they were eating at.

"There is me and my other self, but we learned a jutsu that makes solid clones, so I have a couple running some errands for me," he replied. "Mostly just information gathering."

"Know anything about our new Sensei?" Sasuke asked.

Shadow created three new clones who immediately went in three separate directions. "Not yet," he replied with a grin.

Sasuke nodded a smirk on his lips. Maybe being on a team wouldn't be a complete pain in the ass.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

"Hey, old man," Naruto greeted the hokage as he entered his office.

"A shadow clone?" Sarutobi asked.

"I'm currently having lunch with one of my teammates, while my more burdened self flirts with our other team mate," the clone replied.

"So, what brings you by?" Sarutobi asked.

"I wanted to know why you used me as a stalking horse," Naruto replied.

The hokage nodded, seeing the medical reports and his own evaluation of the second Naruto were correct in terms of heightened intelligence and perception. "I knew that the two of you could handle him and had a team of ANBU nearby in case I'd overlooked something."

"You trust our combat capabilities, but not our acting abilities," the clone said in understanding.

"Subtle has never been your watchword, plus it served to show you that, despite containing a demon, there are still those who will see you for you," the Hokage explained lighting his pipe.

"It did at that," the clone agreed. "What else did I miss?" he asked curiously, knowing the Hokage likely had even more reasons than had been mentioned so far.

"The nin under my command, the forces that protect our village, got to see how you respond under pressure, that you could be trusted," the hokage said with a smile.

"How could you be sure I'd respond like that?" the clone asked.

"I know you, Naruto," the old man said with a smirk. "You could no more betray the village than I could stop the sun from rising."

The clone turned away to hide how deeply the Hokage's faith in him touched him. "The Hokage's hat is so awesome because you have to hide a hundred hats under it."

"More like a thousand," Sarutobi chuckled, "but don't worry, you'll get there. Now is there anything else I can help you with?"

"I'm in the market for information on a certain Jonin-sensei," the clone said.

"And how will you pay for that information?" the hokage asked curiously.

"Who has annoyed you lately?" the clone replied with a grin, thousands of ideas for new pranks forming in his brain.

Transcription by: Stephenopolos