AN: hi all, Well the masses have spoken or rather haven't, Sasuke's mother lives! Though she probably won't play a very large part other than either mellowing out Sasuke slightly so he's not so angsty or fuelling his resentment of his older brother by comparing them in favour of Itachi … who knows? On another note, the Village Elders, a few people have criticised the Hokage's decision not to publically punish them for their attempt to pass an illegal mission to Itachi. The reasons for this are three fold, one as per canon the political situation was such that a united front from the Village Elders and the Hokage needed to be maintain that is not to say that they did not receive a very strong slap on the wrist in private and a reminder of exactly what their role and specific duties actually were. Two, it was deemed that much of the blame fell to Danzo who had manipulated all involved without their knowledge. And three, by letting them off it placed Hiruzen in a very strong position politically speaking as the Elders, knowing how wrong they actually were and the possible ramifications of their actions, were left hanging as it were waiting for the other shoe to drop and so were much more likely to back up the Hokage in the future as they did not want to get on his bad side once more. A complete contrast to canon when letting them off had weakened the Hokage's position as it sent the signal that as long as they could cover it up the Elder's and Danzo were free to do whatever they pleased.

In this chapter Naruto completes Ninja Academy, mainly because not much happens action wise and also because I want to get to the action quicker. For relationship and character development you might have to read between the lines, sorry but I'm impatient. Fair warning it is long!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto; I just think he's awesome.

Warning: May contain spoilers and/or clichés, if you are bothered or offended by either; why are you reading fanfiction?

'thinking'

"speaking"

jutsu

demon speak

Chapter 13.

Iruka-sensei had explained the Ninja Academy ethos to Naruto one afternoon over ramen a couple of years after he had graduated. Apparently the Ninja Academy's curriculum was designed to provide only the basics of ninja techniques with the expectation that students would expand upon this in their own time. After all they were learning to become ninja and one of the basic tenets of being a ninja was the ability to gather information. To this end the first six months of the Academy was dedicated to information gathering, code breaking and the idea of looking underneath the underneath.

For the first two years the school day was broken up into specialty classes with various teachers coming in to instruct on everything from hand seals to Taijutsu stances, escape techniques to stealth skills, Genjutsu basics to Shuriken and Kunai throwing, and so much more. The last two years were devoted to refining these skills and to understanding village and shinobi history, thus building strategic knowledge, and these classes were conducted by their first and second year home-room teacher and one assistant, Iruka and Mizuki.

Lectures on ninja history were not only used to teach strategic thinking by examining the battles and plans of past shinobi, they were also deliberately boring in an attempt to teach patience. Students were expected to be able to pay attention even when overwhelmingly bored all whilst recognising retaining key strategic points and hints for further training opportunities that were liberally sprinkled throughout the lectures. Such as the mention of jutsu used which could lead the students into the private study of the various elemental styles, Genjutsu or even Fuuinjustu. Patience was deemed a necessary skill for a ninja as contrary to popular belief many ninja missions were anything but exciting.

Survival training exercises would periodically occur throughout the school term and would consist of learning what was safe to eat, how to build an undetectable shelter and how to manually make fire and find water. During these lessons instructors would casually mention that the camp fire jutsu or the water creation jutsu would make such tasks much easier but would not elaborate. If questioned they would only point the students toward the Camp 5 which they could find in the Academy library if they chose to look. The Camp 5 was a series of five E-rank elemental jutsu designed for overnight missions. Water Style: Refreshing Leaf, extracted drinking water from freshly picked leaves and could also be used to dry clothing after heavy rainfall. Fire Style: Breath of Ember, would light any small campfire even when the wood was damp. Earth Style: Softening Earth, softened the ground making it easier to dig a fire pit even on rock and to prepare a soft sleeping mat. Lightening Style: Glowing Fist, created light for as long as chakra was pumped into the jutsu. Wind Style: Hidden Smoke, dissipated camp fire smoke so as to avoid detection. Knowledge of these Jutsu guaranteed extra points on the final jutsu exam but this fact was not widely known.

The Academy Three introduced the students to jutsu creation but it was up to the students to widen their repertoire themselves by accessing the low rank jutsu available at the Ninja Academy Library and the Konoha Public Library and in their own Clan Archives. This was why the Libraries contained such a large number of beginner guides freely accessible by Academy students with subjects covering many E and D-rank jutsu, various Taijutsu styles, jutsu theory and basic Fuuinjustu scrolls. Henge, Kawarimi and Bunshin no Jutsu were chosen to be taught in the Academy not only because they were E-rank and thus easy to learn and cast but also because they formed a security measure to allow for the easy escape of Genin and students in the case of attack.

There was actually two ways to graduate from the Academy, the first way was the standard completion of the Graduation Exam showing competency in all subjects instructed in by the Academy and consisted of a written exam, an accuracy test, Taijustu competency spar and the casting of the Academy Three. The second way to pass was based on the underlying lesson of information gathering and was accomplished by displaying a mastery of a skill learnt outside of the Academy and by doing so plus having the endorsement of an acting shinobi of the village, such of the case of Rock Lee and his specialisation in Taijutsu, guaranteed advancement to the rank of Genin. This was why early graduation was possible and why at the end of the third year of Ninja Academy students were given the opportunity to take the graduation exam with permission from their guardians and again half way through the fourth year and then again at the end of that same year. Whilst other clan students were encouraged to attempt early graduation, the children of the Clan Heads were expected to complete the full Ninja Academy curriculum, giving them time to learn the intricacies of their family jutsu and to complete the other lessons required of them to fulfil their future political roles. Naruto, however, being impatient to prove himself had taken the opportunity for early graduation the first time around, which explained how Naruto had failed the test not only once but thrice.

The first day of Ninja Academy was almost a repeat of the first day of the second year of Pre-Academy. Even though he had warned himself Naruto that all his friends were children right now, he had still made the mistake of picturing them as he had last seen them and so the first day had been taken up by him sitting in the back row chuckling to himself about how cute everyone was as chibis. Though the blank look in Iruka-sensei's eyes whenever he looked in Naruto's direction sobered him up some.

Naruto had also been surprised by the fact that the small child he had saved only weeks before had been in fact Hinata. In actual fact Naruto had saved Hinata before but had forgotten as her reaction to him when he had originally greeted her on his first day had left the impression that she, like everyone else, hated him. Now realising that her rapid blush and inability to look at him was just because she was shy, Naruto smiled and nodded at the small girl before taking his seat.

Over the next few months a shy, on her part, friendship flourished between them and Naruto was pleased to see it was only friendship. Though Hinata's declaration of love had warmed his heart during his first lifetime with unspoken of possibilities, the thought of having the same kind of relationship with the young girl before him left him feeling quite queasy, after all he was over sixteen years older than the child. Wanting to encourage this friendship as he had missed his shy yet caring friend , Naruto endeavoured to build a sibling like relationship with the young girl so he could encourage her to grow stronger that much quicker.

Though his relationship with Hinata grew quickly as his rescue of her had opened the doors, his relationship with the other Rookie Nine was not going quite as well. Ino and Sakura who were still holding a grudge over their disastrous first meeting were still a lost cause. Sasuke was locked in his feelings of Uchiha superiority and was still overcoming the loss of his father and was as such emotionally inaccessible. Shikimaru just wasn't interested and where Shikimaru went Choji followed, Shino was locked in his own little world as his colony took up most of his attention and Kiba was still trying to claim alpha status in the class and was thus resistant to overtures of friendship.

All of this was further hampered by Naruto's own social ineptitude as his overly familiar attitude rubbed his future friends the wrong way. Naruto had never had the best handle on social norms, never having experienced them much as a young child. Most of his early human interaction had occurred between himself and adults such as Teuchi Ichiraku and the Hokage as children tended to avoid him unless they were picking on him and so he just did not understand many social ques. Much of what he knew was gathered through observing those around him but often this led to some mistaken beliefs. Thus Naruto had come across as weird and obnoxious to his peers as he tried too hard to fit in the first time and now that he was trying to make friends with the nine year old versions of his old friends whilst he himself was also physically nine but mentally sixteen, made know that right attitude to assume that much harder.

The fact that his teachers often singled him out for ridicule and undeserved punishment did not help win him many friends either.

Naruto had been pleasantly surprised to realise, contrary to his belief, that his various teachers did not actually hate him. They were in fact, like many other shinobi of the village, quite ambivalent to him though their indifference leant slightly towards the negative. Which left the conundrum of why exactly they insisted in systematically sabotaging his education, as more often than not he was sent out of classes when key information was about to be given on one excuse or another, during Taijustu lessons his stance was adjusted so as to cause discomfort and a lessening of potential power in his strikes, and his test and papers habitually marked incorrectly.

A little extracurricular snooping of his teachers' papers both in the staff room and in their homes provided the answer. After the Kyuubi attack and the subsequent rebuilding of the village, many of the daily workings of the village had been handed over to the Civilian Council to run whilst the Ninja Council concentrated on rebuilding the village's reputation and coffers. Whilst many of these civic assets, such as the power station and the public library, were handed back to the Ninja Council's control, the various village Academies were not. This included the Ninja Academy.

As such a large number of the teachers at the school were in the Civilian Council's pocket and it was the Civilian Council that chose to follow Danzo's suggestion, even though he was proved to be a traitor, that a weak Jinchuuriki was a controllable Jinchuuriki.

Naruto had only sighed as he realised that he wasn't going to be learning much over the next two years, at least until Iruka-sensei became his full time teacher. Though he already knew what the teacher's would be teaching and though this gave him more time to focus on building relationships with his peers and his own training, he was still saddened by his teacher's and the Civilian Council's attitude but in no way discouraged.

At least his relationship with Iruka-sensei had improved after the first month to something approximating their previous relationship and all it had taken was a fight with three enemy kunoichi in the hills surrounding the village. After his earlier overtures of friendship to the young teacher, including a respectful yet affectionate attitude and exemplary behaviour in class on Naruto's part, was met with little response, Naruto had fallen back on the plan to recreate what had happened before to change his teacher's attitude to him. Whilst grumbling that it always took imminent danger for Iruka-sensei to look at him properly, though Naruto supposed he could not blame the man.

Falling in with Habachi and friends' plans to humiliate him through a so called test of courage was easy enough to accomplish, as was making sure Shikamaru was close enough to overhear and thus inform Iruka-sensei. Though it was a stroke of luck that Kakashi was in the village at the time submitting his quarterly report, before he was to head back out on his mission again, and so available once more to not only remind Iruka of his goal as a teacher to inspire the will of fire in others, and to also defeat the three enemy kunoichi flushed out by Naruto.

This point had caused Naruto some concern as he wasn't quite sure of the date of this little episode but it seemed that the "Set Point in Time" theory was at work again.

The second year of Ninja Academy saw no real improvement on his relationship with the others, though he did see two major successes during that year. The first was a curtailing of the Fangirl situation in the class that had led to the nonfulfillment of potential of his female comrades in his first lifetime.

Sasuke's drive to be the best fuelled by comparisons to a genius older brother, memories of his father's disappointment in him and expectations from his surviving Clan had secured his place as the top student of the class during the first year. His so called 'mysterious' brooding nature, typical of the Uchiha blood and his inherited dark, good looks, only emphasised his idol-like status for the majority of the pre-pubescent girls of the class and so the Sasuke Uchiha Fanclub was born once more.

Soon enough the girls started to take more care with their appearance and giggling groups of girls poring over unrealistic romantic tales began to appear during the lunch break. A distinct drop in their physical performance also occurred as the young girls endeavoured not to perspire in front of their crush. Seeing where the wind was blowing, Naruto decided to correct the damage before it could occur and knowing he could do little to stop their obsession, after years of dealing with Sakura; he endeavoured to redirect their energies with the liberal use of the Transformation Jutsu and logic wrapped up as rumour.

Soon enough the idea that what Sasuke Uchiha, top student and next in line to become Clan Head, was actually after in a potential partner was a tough Kunoichi equally as dedicated to becoming stronger as he was, rather than the long-haired, waif-like princess of popular belief. Resulting in a rapid increase in the physical capability of the whole class as the boys seeing the girls' efforts to improve, and thus win the love of the Emo-king, did not want to be left behind and they too stepped up their game.

The second success of the year lay in the hatching of one Hinata Hyuga from her shy, introverted shell. Already the supportive friendship she enjoyed with Naruto had been slowly opening Hinata up, but it was one event that occurred halfway through the school year that secured her transformation.

Naruto in an effort to better understand his young friend and to help her overcome her crippling shyness had been attempting to build her up through compliments only to be met, time and time again, with rejection as the young girl protested that she was in fact weak, despite all evidence to the contrary, leading one day to a discussion on strength during the lunch break.

"No, no, N...na...na...na...naruto I...I...I...I am not st…st…st…st…strong at all! I a…a…a…am very weak. I can n…n...n...not e...ev…ev…even win o…o...o…o...one match against m...m...m...my little si…si…sister and she i...i…i…is four years y…y…younger then m…m...m…me!" Hinata protested once more totally flustered by the praise she had just received from her bright friend.

Naruto tilted his head quizzically as he studied the blushing girl, "and why not. Is she actually that much stronger than you?"

"I am j...j...j...just that weak! I do… do… do not w...wa...want to hurt her!" she wailed in response.

"Well of course not. She is your sister after all." Startled Hinata looked up and met Naruto's eye for the first time; no one had ever said that before. "But training is different though I suppose. I mean you're not trying to hurt her, just to show her where she needs to improve. That's the purpose of a spar isn't it? That way you are making each other stronger. If you think about it by going easy on someone in that situation is actually harming them more than any punch or kick could do, as you are giving them false belief in their abilities, that could really come back to bite them later on if they ever face someone stronger than them."

Hinata had never thought of it that way, not one person in her Clan had talked about making your partner stronger only about how by defeating them you were proving your worth and by showing mercy you proved only your own weakness. But if what Naruto said was true, then by hitting her sister when she saw an opening then she was preparing her sister for the future thus ensuring her survival and making her stronger.

"I don't mean for you to take this the wrong way Hinata," began Naruto recalling her attention to the conversation, "but I want to ask you this. Why exactly do you want to become a ninja?"

"I…" began Hinata hesitantly, taken aback.

"What I mean is… well look, you know how I want to become a ninja because I want to be Hokage one day?" Hinata nodded, her friend had made no secret of this fact.

"Well do you know why?"

Hinata shook her head.

"Well, I want to become Hokage because that is what the strongest ninja in our village becomes. But I want to be the strongest ninja not just to be powerful, that would be wrong and quite selfish after all. I want to become the strongest because then I would know that I am enough, enough to protect my precious people from harm, enough to protect this village which I call home and enough to protect the ideals by which I choose to live. And that's how I know that I can become strong enough. A friend once told me that to become strong, to become truly strong, then you must have someone to protect and you know what? I truly believe that this is so. In fact I have based my nindo on it. So I ask you again Hinata Hyuga, Why do you want to become a Kunoichi?"

Hinata was silent as she thought until finally she murmured, "I wish to become a strong Kunoichi capable of defending both my family and my comrades and prove myself as an excellent leader for my Clan. I want to change my Clan, unite it and make it stronger. I want to protect my precious people and help them grow." Her voice growing stronger as she continued, her stutter completely gone.

"And that is why you are strong Hinata Hyuga," Naruto pronounced before asking, "Now can you tell me more of this training you get at home that forces you to fight your sister and exactly what your family says to you?"

This conversation not only led to a complete one-eighty in Hinata's attitude from that day forth but also in the most ambitious of Naruto's pranks and the first to be carried out on a Clan family during this time period.

A week later the Hyuga Clan was plagued by a ghost, a shadow, which flitted just within their periphery and hid within their much protected blind spot. Try though they might not one Hyuga managed to catch a glimpse of the shadows identity and no attack was made, though it did frayed their nerves causing them to jump at shadows for days afterwards. A week later the shadows objectives were made known not only to the Clan but to the village at large as hundreds of posters were found plastered throughout the village depicting candid photographs of Hyuga family members in compromising positions.

Neji Hyuga was caught raiding the Clan refrigerator for chocolate dressed only in a sleep shirt obviously late at night, Ko Hyuga (Hinata's bodyguard) was captured reading an icha icha novel while supposedly on watch, Hiashi Hyuga the Clan Head was captured snuggling a cute little kitten a soft smile on his usually stoic face and Henken Hyuga (Clan Elder and Hinata's harshest critic) was captured dressed in his wife's lingerie posing before a floor-length mirror and applying lipstick. Each poster depicted a separate Hyuga in once humiliating situation or another and beneath each picture was written these words, "Before pointing out the weakness in others, perhaps you should look at yourselves first. Hey, Hyuga-san?"

Just before the end of that year the news of the demise of the last remaining exiled Uchiha finally reached the village. Many had criticised the Hokage's decision to allow the disloyal Uchiha the option to leave the village as too soft, but all too soon did his detractors come to realise that the banishment was actually a death sentence disguised as mercy.

Perhaps the exiled Uchiha may have had a chance if their ninja skills had actually been as good as their Jonin status implied but for far too long had they relied on the Sharingan to influence their capabilities. The ability of the Sharingan dojutsu, to copy Ninjutsu and Genjutsu and to record whatever the user sees, resulted in the technique granting the user a temporarily photographic memory whenever the dojutsu was in use so this knowledge could be stored without overloading the mind of the user. As such all the techniques copied by the Sharingan were only made available when the dojutsu was active.

By sealing off the Sharingan, the Hokage had reduced the fighting capabilities of the exiled Uchiha as, due to their family's arrogance and belief in their dojutsu's superiority, the only jutsu they had learnt without it was the Academy Three and the Fire Jutsus traditionally taught to the children of the Clan. Thus making them easy targets for the Hunter-nin from Kumo and Iwa who set out after them only days after they had been entered into the register of Missing-nin.

It was then that the second part of the insidious seal used was made known as all attempts to remove the eyes of the captured Uchiha's resulted in the bodies exploding thus destroying the eyes and whoever was in the room with them. Attempting to unseal them or to kill the captives resulted in the same reaction.

The Hokage had recalled Jiraiya to help him design the seal so that it not only sealed the Sharingan and alerted the village should any of its bearers approach the village, but also to include fail safes, one of which stored small amounts of the bearers chakra which was then released in an explosive force should the Uchiha be killed. Should attempts be made to remove the eyes of alive Uchiha or the seals removal be attempted by anyone other than the castor, the Uchiha would also explode in the same manner. Attempts to breed from the captives also proved ineffective as the last of the seals fail safes rendered its bearer infertile, which accounted for why it had taken so long for the last Uchiha to be killed.

Third year of Ninja Academy saw the return of Naruto's iconic orange jumpsuit and a stepping up of Naruto's pranks to the next level.

After much soul searching Naruto had come to the conclusion that, much like Lee and his green-spandex suit, a Naruto without orange just wasn't Naruto. He had also come to realise that in order to keep the same team he had before and thus keep the timeline as close to the original as possible, a reclaiming of the dead-last mantle was necessary, and if nothing else the orange suit did force people to underestimate him.

His original suit had been purchased from a shinobi outfitter owned by a civilian who had been the only one willing to sell to Naruto when he had gone in search of new clothes after he had finally outgrown those provided with his apartment. Only that morning the shop keeper had been despairing on how he would unload the unsightly training suits which had been made to the wrong specifications. Originally they were meant to be one of his best sellers featuring as they did the Uzumaki swirl on the back, which was sported on the back of the village's shinobi uniform, as well as the Namikaze swirl on the shoulder commemorating the village's hero complete with memorial knot work hanging in front. But instead of the blue and forest green colouring he had stipulated in the order, the outfits had arrived in garish blue and orange.

When Naruto had finally arrived after being turned away from all the other stores he had tried, the shop keeper had been more than welcoming to the village pariah, seeing in him a chance to unload his unwanted stock which otherwise he would have had to have thrown out. Resulting in Naruto receiving enough outfits to be able to wear the same thing for an entire month without the need to wash even once if he so wanted.

It was to this store Naruto headed once more, having bypassed all the other stores knowing what reception he would receive, to be met once more by the effusive welcome of the shop owner. Even though his new uniform cost an astronomical amount he was more pleased than he thought he would be to see the orange jumpsuit again, but it was the malicious nature of the man's smile, that Naruto noticed for the first time, as they finished the transaction that later led to the man's comeuppance and Naruto's greatest prank to date.

When the man awoke the next morning, beside his sleeping wife, surrounded by his bedroom furniture but most obviously in his lounge room he was understandably befuddled. Confused the man wandered into his dining room, now made over as his lounge room once was, complete with curtains and pictures on the wall. Upstairs where his bed room once was, he found his children sleeping in their beds, their toys scattered about as they had left them in their room the night before and where his children's room used to be he found his dining room set up, though somewhat cramped, with the wine glass he had forgotten to return to the kitchen the night before, prominently displayed on the table. Though he called in the police, the squad of which was made up of an Inuzuka and a Hyuga, no clue was found to identify who did this to his family or how it was accomplished and so this incident joined the many unresolved occurrences that had haunted the village over the last few years.

The success of this prank encouraged Naruto to start on the next stage of Operation Prankster King, though he continued his small scale public pranks to maintain his reputation, Naruto turned the focus of his stealth pranks away from civilian targets deeming himself ready to tackle more challenging objectives. Throughout the rest of that year and into the next the various ninja run departments in the village were hit by a mysterious individual who would infiltrate their security.

Though no damage was ever done, the morning after each hit a multipage, handwritten document would be found on the desk of the Department Head, detailing exactly how the security measures of the facility had been breached and just how easily the perpetrator could have sabotaged operations, say by dropping poison pellets into the village water supply, sabotaging the explosive tags stored in the ANBU storeroom, or by releasing the prisoners in the T& I department holding cells.

Naruto had initially been disappointed that the so called secure facilities of the village had security measures not that much more difficult to overcome than the various noble houses he had previously targeted, but was later pleased by how quickly it had become that much harder to gain entry. Amongst the village elite, whom were made aware of the mysterious infiltrator, it was conjectured that the raids were perpetrated by an individual of Jonin strength, signified by his liberal use of clones (as in the reports left) and by the fact that no clue as to his identity or to the fact that he had even been there other than the reports on the Department Head's desk was ever found.

Perhaps now the village would be better prepared for the troubles ahead as previously years of relative peace had resulted in a relaxing of standards, which in turn had led to the widespread infiltration of foreign spies from the various hidden villages and from Konoha's home grown threats.

Two months into that year Naruto also realised at last an overture of friendship from his peers, other than Lee and Hinata, which came surprisingly enough from Shikamaru, though Naruto felt that he should have expected this, for all though Shikamaru was his laziest friend he had also always been his most curious. After failing various attempts to make friends with the Rookie Nine during the first two years, Naruto decided to change tack and not to try as hard, trusting that he would eventually gain their friendship as he had before, even if it did have to wait until after the academy.

To that end Naruto decided to concentrate more on his private training endeavours, though he did make the concession to have some of his study clones read up on topics he knew his future friends were interested in, in the hopes of facilitating conversation later on. Naruto was pleased to discover that just as his friends had helped and supported his training in the time before, in preparing to please his friends in this way his own current training benefited as well.

When studying up on Shoji for Shikamaru, Naruto was happy to discover that his understanding of strategy and the history lessons that Iruka-sensei taught improved as well. Studying cooking and food culture for Choji improved his own cooking skills and nutritional input. Animal psychology books improved his understanding of not only Kiba but also enhanced his understanding of the actions of those around him and helped him better manipulate their responses. Not wanting to leave Sai out, though he knew it would be years before he would see the boy again, Naruto even studied painting techniques, which resulted in the appearance at random intervals of large murals throughout the village in alleyways and on the side wall of shops and government buildings, depicting famous historical battles and iconic Konoha shinobi of the past.

But it was the study of entomology for Shino that delivered the most productive result for his own training as his research on wasps and bees led him to the formation of his H-class or Honeycomb Clone. Normal Kage Bunshin used chakra to construct a shell only slightly less resilient than flesh into which the remaining chakra formed copies of the originals internal structure making the copy indistinguishable from the original by dojutsu users. The problem with this was that most of the structure of the clone was on the outside, much like a bubble, and if that structure was pierced or disrupted with enough blunt force trauma, the whole clone would pop. However if you could form chakra shells around each of the individual parts that made up the clone, then it would become that much more durable, like a honeycomb.

To this end Naruto set about constructing a clone made up of many other clones that formed each individual organ and muscle of the resulting clone. Soon enough he realised that for the clone to succeed a certain amount of knowledge of human anatomy was needed, so he would know what clone went where, but this was easily enough to find in the Library. Initially the casting of these new clones took a lot of concentration but once the design was set the clones became that much easier to cast as a lot of the construct became automatic as Naruto's subconscious mind took over. It took five months to complete but when it was finished, Naruto could not be more pleased.

Though the technique had its drawbacks, it took a lot of chakra to cast and no memories could be transferred from it as all Naruto got was white noise as if hundreds of people were speaking at once, these were more than made up for by the durability of the clone in combat and its 'badass' cred. For if the clone did sustain damage, only the 'clones' in the immediate sight of impact would dispel resulting in a clone that whilst missing an arm, leg or even part of its head was still able to continue fighting.

There was no need to study for Ino and Sakura, however, as they had still not forgiven him and he knew that there was nothing he could study anyway to ever hope of understanding either of them. Sasuke was the easiest to reconnect to; all he had to do was prove himself as a rival though this was made trickier by Naruto's deliberate failure at every test.

Early on Naruto had decided not to send C-class clones to class but to attend himself, as he did not want to cheat his friends or his teacher. Instead he would send five of these clones off each morning to his private training ground to work on chakra control exercises and techniques with enough chakra each to create forty clones apiece. Due to the massive amount of chakra control exercises that Naruto and his clones had completed, his control by this point was such that his c-class clones lasted double the amount of time as when he first created them and so he did not have to worry about them dispelling too often throughout the day.

This only left him with the problem of how to make the school day bearable as he had soon come to realise that he knew much of what was being taught already despite not paying much attention the first time. Playing pranks on the teachers only ate up so much time and so he came up with other ways to pass the time such as using a different obscure code to write out his class notes week after week and it was this habit that finally captured Shikamaru's attention.

On that particular day Naruto had been translating the day's lesson into Morse code by using his leg to tap out the dots and dashes under the table. He had been seated about three desks away from Shikamaru whom he had thought to be sleeping like on any other day. That is until Shikamaru decided to confront him about his classroom activity during lunch.

"Well what else could I do to make the class more interesting?" he had asked in reply to the probing questions, "We can't all sleep as much as you can Shika."

"How troublesome," came the reply to his 'new' nickname, and yet from that day on Shikamaru chose to spend his lunch breaks with Naruto and Hinata. And where Shikamaru led, Choji was soon to follow.

Not long after Kiba made his way into the group once he had overheard their plans to prank one of the teachers. For Naruto had fallen back onto his old habits when interacting with younger friends, as he had done so with Konohamaru and crew, by organising training missions for his new friends to complete disguised as pranks.

Finally the day of the final Graduation Exam came again, though in order to gain access to the Forbidden Scroll and thus excuse his knowledge of the Kage Bunshin No Jutsu; Naruto knew that he had to fail it once more. Knowing that he had to fail but wanting to do so with a bang, Naruto had decided to move his most famous of pranks up by one day and so early that morning the village echoed once more with the sound of childish laughter and the angry shouts of shinobi as they chased a young boy, covered in paint, throughout the village.

"Ha, ha, ha, you can't catch me," called Naruto as he paused on the roof of a building to address his pursuers, "You're just jealous that you don't have the guts to do what I did! Losers, wannabes! Blagh!" he finished as he poked out his tongue and the chase resumed.

Jumping over roof tops, ducking down alleyways, Naruto finally lost the maddened crowd after using the most basic of ninja tools the camouflage sheet. Turning as he laughed at their gullibility, Naruto came face to face with a most irate Iruka-sensei.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei, what are you doing here?" he asked totally relaxed.

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here? You should be in class right now! Don't you know the graduation exam is today? You already failed two times already and you can't afford to fail again, Naruto." And so saying the Chunin grabbed his student's shoulder and shushin'd back to the classroom.

"All right student's, take your places," he called out as he watched Naruto climb up to his seat; "We will begin with the written portion and then make our way outside for the accuracy test. Remember; try your best and good luck."

Students sporting brand-new, shiny Hitai-ate mingled with their proud parents and siblings as they gathered outside of the Ninja Academy building, their families excited and somewhat apprehensive now that their children had become shinobi of their village. Sitting forlorn and overlooked Naruto rocked back and forth on the old swing, the very picture of misery.

He gritted his teeth as his advanced senses allowed him to hear the whispered disparaging remarks about his apparent failure. Though he knew it was necessary for the plan that did not make it any easier to plan.

Turning away from the concerned gazes of his friends he looked off to his left just as Mizuki-sensei approached him from behind. Naruto grinned evilly as he heard the words of greeting from his deceitful teacher, 'Gotcha!'

That night Iruka lay sleepless musing over his most confounding student, one Naruto Uzumaki. By all accounts the boy should have passed. He was quick, clever and obviously more talented than he appeared and yet he just did not test well.

In class he appeared attentive, always taking notes and watching everything his teachers did, answering every question asked of him correctly … and yet he failed every test. His Taijutsu was in a word chaotic … and yet no one could land a hand on him. He would duck, dodge and weave around his opponents as if dancing with them and yet his style only had a passing relationship to any known Taijutsu used in the village.

His ability to analyse his opponents was particularly perplexing, as he only needed to observe the other for a moment to get a handle on their movement, so much so that he could point out their tells, those inherent movements of any style that let your opponent know what move you were about to use next. But the way he did so was like a master who had years of experience watching how each muscle moved as they refined their own style, as was seen by Naruto's ability to correct his opponent's stance mid fight and point out where they were going wrong and how they could fix it to gain better results.

Naruto's chakra control was very good as shown by his ability to cast the Transformation and Replacement Jutsu without smoke, other than the deliberate creation of said in his idiotic Sexy Jutsu, and yet he could not perform Genjutsu or the even easier Clone Jutsu. Iruka just did not know what to think and then there was the meeting held only hours earlier with the Hokage.

"Iruka," the most venerable village leader had began, "I Know how you feel. You grew up just like Naruto not knowing the love of a mother or father. The warmth of a family."

Iruka's thoughts spiralled out of control as he remembered once more that terrible night, when the heavens clashed and the Demon had appeared taking with it his beloved parents. Just as the memories threatened to swamp him the sound of loud banging came echoing from his front door as a familiar voice called out, "Iruka-sensei wake up!"

Answering the door quickly, Iruka found Mizuki, his teaching-aid on the other side.

"Iruka-sensei you need to come to Lord Hokage's immediately. It's Naruto. He stole the sacred scroll!"

"You mean the Forbidden Scroll of Sealing? NO!" screamed Iruka. 'Oh Naruto what have you done?'

Naruto sat at ease later that night as he rested his back against the large scroll behind him. He had spent the last three hours training so as to appear suitably scruffy and was now waiting for the main event to begin. His clone had long since finished copying down interesting looking jutsu from the Forbidden Scroll and had dispelled after sealing the new scrolls under the original's belt, his trap was set and now all he had to do was wait.

After the ROOT had raided his apartment Naruto had felt a need to secure his more secret papers about his person. Luckily the ROOT agents hadn't found his notes on future events, not knowing to look for them, but he wasn't so confident that he would be as lucky next time and so he had turned to sealing as a means of securing his secrets.

He had always been planning to take up Fuuinjustu anyway, not only because it was very useful but also as a tribute to his teachers and his mother whose Clan was well known for the art, and so he had dedicated a fair amount of clone hours to the study, using the guides freely available in the Public Library. Much had been made about the difficulty of Fuuinjustu study but Naruto could not see what everyone was talking about as he found the various sealing matrixes and formulas almost too easy to understand. 'I mean learning to read was harder.'

Before long he had managed to finish all the books available in the library, making him a level one journeyman in skill, but had to wait until he became a Genin to access any more advanced scrolls as per his deal with the Hokage. But using the skills that he already had it was easy enough to etch sealing seals along the underside of his leather belt that held up his shuriken pouch, into which he could seal his papers, spare rations and anything else he could care to seal away.

Hearing a noise coming from the forest just in front of him, caused Naruto to sit up and look towards the tree line surrounding the small clearing in which he sat as he felt Iruka's familiar chakra signature approaching.

"Oh I found you Iruka!" he called out cheekily as he raised one hand to point at his obviously irritated teacher.

"Idiot, I found you!" his teacher huffed out as he entered the clearing and walked towards his errant student. "What have you been doing? Do you know how much trouble you are in?"

"I've been training of course, how else did you expect me to learn one of the jutsus in that scroll so I could pass?" asked the boy pointing to the large scroll lying in the dirt behind him.

"Naruto, where did you get that scroll?" asked Iruka slowly, starting to feel like something else was going on than just a stupid prank.

"Oh that, Mizuki-sensei told me about it and about this place too! He said that if I learnt a skill from this scroll I could still graduate. He said it was a secret test given out to special students." said Naruto ingenuously.

"Mizuki" mouthed Iruka silently as he realised what was going on. Just then multiple kunai came flying towards the pair, acting quickly Iruka pushed Naruto out of the way and raised his hands up into a defensive position as he was pinned to the wall of a nearby wooden shed by the throwing knives.

Naruto was not too worried about Iruka sustaining too much damage here, as the wounds had been superficial before, but he did want to avoid letting Iruka be hit with the large fuma shuriken if possible.

"Nice job finding him," called out Mizuki as he appeared on a branch above them. "Naruto hand me the scroll."

"No! Don't do it Naruto, that's a dangerous scroll that has forbidden jutsu sealed within it, don't give it to him even if you die," Iruka instructed as he pulled out the kunai in his jacket and legs thus freeing himself.

"What is going on?" asked Naruto in seeming confusion.

"Mizuki tricked you, he was only using you to get his hands on the scroll, there is no secret test." explained Iruka as he took a stance, kunai in one hand.

Naruto adopted a serious face as he stared up at his traitorous teacher.

"Naruto, there's no point in you having the scroll. I'll tell you the truth," called out Mizuki slyly.

"No don't!" called Iruka desperately trying to interrupt.

"Twelve years ago … you know about the Fox Demon being sealed right? Since that incident a new rule was created for this village, a rule that was never meant to be told to you." Mizuki continued evilly.

"What rule?" asked Naruto.

"No stop!" called Iruka, though he was ignored.

"The rule that nobody is allowed to tell you about the fact that you are the demon fox!" screamed Mizuki spitting hatred with every word.

"Stop it!" called Iruka once more.

"You, Naruto, are the Nine Tailed Fox, that's why everyone hates you. You were the one to kill Iruka's parents and destroyed the village." Mizuki finished staring at the young boy avidly waiting for his despairing reaction.

Naruto tilted his head to the side quizzically and asked calmly, "You mean Captain Fuzzypants? … You think I'm Captain Fuzzypants. I'm not Captain Fuzzypants. Sure he's awesome and everything but he's not as awesome as I am." Naruto's gaze became vacant as he continued, "Well you're not." a pause, "no you're not … no you're not … as I am currently winning at 400 to your 398, I am definitely more awesome than you are." Looking at the two shocked shinobi in front of him he explained, "Sorry about that, where were we? Oh yeah! I'm not the Kyubbi, I'm his container dumbass."

There was silence for a moment as the two shocked shinobi looked at each other then at the young boy, "Naruto," ventured Iruka hesitantly, "You call the Kyubbi Captain Fuzzypants?"

"Well yeah, but only for another three months and two days. He lost a bet." explained the boy still totally calm.

"You're in league with the beast!" exclaimed Mizuki, "Die!" The Chunin began to surge towards the boy arms raised up ready to throw the enormous shuriken in his right hand. Iruka shook off his shock and moved forward to intercept. When all of a sudden a cloud of smoke erupted behind the rampaging Mizuki as the rock directly behind him transformed into a clone of Naruto and hit him on the back of the neck with the blunt end of a kunai, knocking him out.

"Well that went well." mused Naruto, still eerily calm as he walked towards Iruka, "Are you okay sensei? You were hit pretty badly before."

Iruka, once again shocked by recent events, didn't know what to say, "How long have you known?" he asked.

"Known what?" returned Naruto confused.

"Known that you contained the Nine-Tailed Fox, of course," Iruka almost shouted at the boy in frustration.

"What! You mean what he said was real? I thought he was just spouting bullshit to throw me off. You mean it's really in me?" Naruto seemed to pale as he fell to his knees, grabbing his hair with both fists he leant forward as he gasped for breath apparently starting to hyperventilate, "You mean I am the beast. That's why everyone hates me? I'm (gasp) a (gasp) monster (gasp)."

"Aren't you laying it on a little thick Gaki?" asked a deep voice from the back of Naruto's head.

'Hush up, Captain Fuzzypants and watch the master at work.'

"I should never have agreed to that bet," grumbled the voice as it faded out.

Iruka raced forward and fell to his knees in front of the boy, "Oh no, no, no, no, no, Naruto!" he cried out as he took both of the boy's fists out of his hair and held them in his hands, forcing Naruto to look up into his face, "You… Are… Not... The... Beast!"

Gazing into the tearstained face in front of him he continued, "Naruto, you must have been in a lot of pain. I know how lonely you must have been searching for someone to acknowledge your existence. I'm sorry Naruto if I had only done a better job, you wouldn't have to feel this way. Naruto you are different from the demon fox. Though you are clumsy and not very hard working, you know what it is to feel pain in your heart. I acknowledge you as one of my excellent students. You are not the demon fox. You are a member of the Hidden Leaf Village. You are Naruto Uzumaki!"

"Iruka-sensei, Arigato." Naruto chocked out through his tears as he surged forward to hug his sensei, overcome to once again hear those wonderful words of acknowledgement from his favourite teacher.

"Come now Naruto, dry your eyes. I have something for you." said Iruka as he wiped his student's face with a spare bandana. "Here close your eyes."

Naruto sat back on his heels and closed his eyes and soon felt Iruka remove his goggles only to replace it with his own Hitai-ate. "Congratulations on graduating Naruto, you are now a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf." the man exclaimed as he sat back and smiled at the young man in front of him.

Naruto grinned his widest smile as he rubbed the back of his head with one hand in embarrassed glee, "He, he, he."

"Now you grab the scroll and I'll carry Mizuki and let's go see if we can't sort this whole mess out." said Iruka as he stood up.

"Yosh!" cried Naruto as he too surged to his feet.

'See I told you it would work,' thought the new genin as he walked home later that night his hands resting comfortably behind his head.

"Yes well anyone else would find it suspicious, even with your ability to cry at the drop of a hat. You're just lucky that your teacher was still in shock form the blood loss." grumbled his companion.

'Well you must agree that those acting lessons I got, or rather will, get from Koyuki-hime are awesome," answered Naruto complacently.

"Hey Naruto wait up!" called out a voice from behind him.

Turning around Naruto saw Iruka racing towards him from down the road; he stopped and waited for the Chunin to catch up.

"How about we go get some ramen to celebrate, I want to have a chat with you before you head home to make sure you're all right." explained the man as he stood before him.

"That sounds good Iruka-sensei, lead the way."

Side by side they sat down at the counter of Naruto's favourite ramen stand and ordered.

"So Naruto you are a Genin now." Iruka began, "You know it only gets harder from here on out. But I want you to remember that you are not alone, you will have your teammates and the rest of the village's ninja there to watch your back."

"Oh I know Iruka, don't worry, and if I have any need for advice I'll always have you to ask won't I?" Naruto replied as he peered over the counter impatient for the noodley goodness to arrive.

"That you will," chuckled Iruka comforted by the boy's optimistic response even after that night's traumatic revelations.

Just then Teuchi set the bowls of steaming ramen in front of the pair and there was silence for a few moments while they both dug in. After the edge had been taken off their hunger, Iruka decided to continue with his gentle questioning.

"So the Hokage explained everything for you all right Naruto?" asked the concerned teacher. After the incident in the forest, Iruka and Naruto had made their way back into the village, an ANBU had met them at the village gates and explained that the Hokage had witnessed the entire incident and had requested that Iruka go to the hospital to seek medical attention, whilst Mizuki was taken to the T&I department and Naruto met with the Hokage himself.

"Yeah, the old man explained about how a kunai can be sealed into a scroll, but that the scroll does not become a kunai because of that. It's a little convoluted but I got the idea." Naruto answered off-hand, more interested in the fresh bowl Teuchi had just put in front of him.

"That's right, I taught you all that in the second year didn't I?" mussed Iruka good naturedly, "But I must say you surprised me being able to learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu. That's a high level Jutsu that just not any shinobi could learn as it takes a lot of chakra. It's even more amazing as you can't even manage a normal clone."

"Well I've always had a lot of chakra, that's why it's impossible for me to perform genjutsu, I just have too much power and not enough control. It's a common problem for Uzumaki's or so I have read." answered Naruto.

"What do you mean?" asked his teacher in confusion.

"Well I'm an Uzumaki right? Well according to the Clan books at the library, the Uzumaki were well known for their large chakra reserves and the potency of their chakra allowing them to easily create the high level seals that they were known for. Well I've always known that I had large reserves. You remember that exercise that we did in the first year to unlock our chakra by reaching deep inside ourselves to find it. You said that the less we had to reach the larger our reserves were, right?" asked Naruto and was answered by a nod from Iruka.

"Well I didn't have to reach, it was already there." explained Naruto as he turned back to his noodles.

Iruka gaped at the boy as he tried to assimilate this new information. "But wait a minute, if you can't perform Genjutsu then how come you can do the transformation jutsu, that's just and illusion after all and I have definitely seen you do that one, particularly that idiotic version of yours." asked the Chunin triumphantly as he thought it had caught the trickster out.

"Well," drawled Naruto in an embarrassed tone, "Strictly speaking my transformation jutsu is not technically the same as that taught in the academy." He confessed as he rubbed the back of his head with one hand.

"How is it different?"

"I call it my True Transformation Jutsu. When Hokori-sensei was teaching the hand seals in the second year, he would always find a reason to send me out of the classroom so I had to spy on the third years to learn how to do it. But they would move their hands too fast for me to see all of the signs so I had to guess a few. It took me awhile but I finally got the hang of it and the True Transformation Jutsu was born." explained Naruto, "It wasn't until the third year when you became our teacher full time that I realised my jutsu was different from everyone else's but I decided not to change as mine was more useful. As it didn't have any of the drawbacks that you explained the original had."

"Here I'll show you," Naruto quickly ran through a series of hands signs and called out, "Transformation Jutsu."

A puff of smoke covered the boy and when it cleared Iruka found himself staring into his own face. "Here feel," his mirror instructed as the disguised Naruto grabbed Iruka's hand and raised it up to his face.

Iruka's face adopted a look of amazement as he slid his fingers over his doubles features clearly feeling the ridge of the scar that adorned his own nose over a full head higher than Naruto's own more diminutive height. "How is this possible?" he asked.

"Well my best guess is a lot of chakra." Naruto answered in an exact copy of Iruka's voice. "At a guess I would say it takes as much as creating ten shadow clones."

"Wait," said Iruka incredulously raising a hand up in the air, "you can create ten shadow clones? And cancel this jutsu before you answer, this is really freaky."

The Iruka double created the ram seal with his hands and called out "Kai." In a puff of smoke Naruto reappeared. "Well yeah, I can create even more than that, shitload of chakra remember." He answered cheekily.

Iruka sat back on his stool non-plussed.

Naruto smiled mischievously at the shocked shinobi and turned back to his bowl, picking it up he slurped up the last of the broth and stood up as he put it back onto the counter.

"Well I better get going. It's team placements the day after tomorrow, right? I'll see you then. Thanks for the ramen Iruka-sensei and don't worry I'll be all right." and with that the most surprising Genin turned and left the through the ramen stands curtain.

Iruka stared down into his own empty bowl as he tried to get all Naruto's revelations clear in his head. He looked up when he heard Teuchi's deep chuckling to find the man standing in front of him idly cleaning the counter with an old rag.

"He's a surprising young man isn't he Iruka-sensei?" asked the ramen stand owner good naturedly.

"Yes that he is," returned Iruka with sudden strength, "I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't manage to surpass all the Hokage's one day. Not surprised at all."

…