"Blood drops keep falling."
Naruto could appreciate taking it slow. Enjoying nature, chilling with friends, getting lectured by your teachers, and so on and so forth. After all, these were things that he didn't get to experience until he was six.
That didn't mean he had to enjoy it, though. Especially when he had other things he'd rather do.
"Naruto, would you just listen to me!?"
His sensei was just as beautiful and strict as ever. Though the frown on her face only showed one of those qualities.
She never did take a liking to his pranks. A real travesty, if you asked him.
Not that anybody did. Or needed to. He was pretty good at letting his opinion be known.
"I mean-just look at what you did to the Hokage monument!" Here, she gestured to right outside the window of her office.
And look he did. He was just as impressed with his work as the first time he had gazed upon it.
He had turned the Hokage monument into a drag party with nothing but a few colors of paint and his imagination.
Not that anybody had seen him doing it. Really, for a village that was full of ninja and constantly patrolled by the ANBU, they had never caught him, not once.
Even Aris could get away with doing stuff like this, and she wore bright orange. Bright. Motherfucking. Orange. Admittedly, it was pretty rad, but still. Not a stealth color.
He was honestly starting to find it kinda boring. If it weren't for his nature and overly dramatic acting, they wouldn't have a clue who did it.
"Moi? Why, I would never do something as atrocious and utterly despicable as turn the Hokage monument into a work of art! Truly, madame, you wound me." So his acting was something you'd expect to see in some fancy-dancy play, but what could he say?
He had a love for the dramatic.
His teacher did not, judging by the the twitching of her brows. A gesture he had come to known as the sign that her temper was about to explode. Now he couldn't let that happen, could he?
And so, he did what he did best.
Go off the rails.
"Your beauty really does shine it's brightest when you are smiling, sensei."
Her blush was barely even noticeable this time.
She had long since grown used to his constant flirting. And the flowers. And the love notes. And the not-so-innocent drawings. And everything else.
At this point, he just did it because he thought it was fun. Though he would admit, she was adorable whenever she received one of his "gifts".
Though he had noticed that she had potted all the Amaryllis' he had given to her. Guess she appreciated what they meant (1). He thought they fit his sensei perfectly.
Flowers had become his second favorite way to convey meaning. Quicker than a drawing, more to the point than a letter.
Though the latter two tended to be more accepting of blood. Bloodying a flower tended to subtract from it's meaning, rather than add to it.
Letting out a sigh, his sensei decided to give up on her pointless pursuit.
"Just, show up on time for the graduation test tomorrow, okay? I'm fairly confident you'll pass, but that's only if you show up, Naruto-kun."
He gave her his best winning smile.
"For you, Iruka-sensei? Absolutely."
The blank stare he got in return for his efforts showed him exactly how much she believed that statement.
Before she could decide to continue the lecture, however, he was out the window.
He had better things to with his time than sit and listen to his teacher scold him, no matter how much he liked her company. Or the scolding.
It had been a quick six years. Time sure flew when you were having fun.
He had grown to a solid five feet in height, though no matter how much he exercised, his muscles refused to grow any larger than they were. Which was basically a swimmers build. A shame, really. He imagined overly bulging muscles would do a lot for his image.
He had taken to wearing red. A lot of red. A red long-coat, red leather gloves, red leather boots, and a red-tinged black vest over a blood-red shirt. Complete with a red sheath for his favorite sword.
His chosen ensemble, besides not actually being made entirely out of leather, was great for blood stains like no other clothes could be.
He had pulled off 63 pranks, 11 of which were village wide.
He had finally beaten his Rosa in a spar. Something he was quite proud of. Right up until she took off her training weights.
He then learned the meaning of masochism all over again.
Right before he beat her again, winning a bet.
He now called her Rosa-chan.
He had completed the water walking exercise. Shortly afterwards, he had the idea to use chakra to lessen his connection the ground. In essence, he had redeveloped high speed skating.
It was great for chases.
He had unlocked two Mangekyo jutsus. Amaterasu and his very own, Uteki (2). Something he was sure Sasuke would be jealous of, if she knew.
Sasuke still did his best to ignore him, though she no longer outright avoided him.
Naruto had decided to keep the other side of his heritage a secret, for now. That way, he could actually use the Sharingan as a trump card, instead of as a crutch.
His father had finalized his divorce with Kushina, something which Naruto found surprising. Just went to show it wasn't all about him, he supposed. On the other hand, he and his father continued to coexist in harmony.
It might have helped that they were both left behind by Kushina and Aris a short while after the academy started. Apparently, all Minato had been told was that Aris wished to be trained in use of the Kyuubi's chakra, and Kushina had decided that leaving the village would be the best course of action if she wished to train Aris.
After all, It would be bad if Mari lost control of the kyuubi inside of Konoha. Especially since she carried the Yang, which meant her chakra balance was all over the place.
It was probably for the best, considering Minato and Kushina could hardly stand each other anymore. Naruto was honestly kinda glad he didn't know why.
Luckily enough, they were perfectly capable of holding down the home turf while Aris and Kushina were gone.
Or Minato was, anyway. Naruto had moved into his own apartment.
Not like Minato could blame him. The house just felt . . . empty, without Aris and Kushina there to brighten it's walls. Minato himself had taken to using the Hokage's quarters kept within the tower.
Besides family matters, Naruto had also been making some more . . . practical use of his time.
The Red-light district used to be a criminal hotspot. Now? Now the only people of ill-refute there were women of the night and thieves.
Seemed all the murderers and rapists he killed weren't exactly missed.
Probably helped that nobody could identify what was left of them as anything that belong to a human.
Something he was glad for.
He may have enjoyed the bloodshed, but he didn't much care for the thought of leaving grieving widows behind.
Good people looked best smiling, after all. And anybody willing to grieve had to have at least a little good in their heart, right?
Although, it was rather annoying that the remaining criminals had gone into hiding. It made honest work like his rather difficult.
His apartment was a fairly nice place. A little large, perhaps, enough for about three people besides him to live there if they wanted to. A kitchen overlooking the living/dining room, which was complete with a nice, wooden dining table, led to a bathroom, and after that, two bedrooms. One of which he had thrown a whole bunch of nice mattresses all over, covered said mattresses in blankets and pillows, and the other which looked like a fairly ordinary guest bedroom, with a queen-sized bed, a window, a nightstand, and a closet.
All in all, he thought the place was made for sleep overs. Not that anybody agreed to sleep over. Even Iruka had refused! What, did she think that he was asking for the good old triple X?
Actually, she probably did. Woops?
Moving through the apartment, he thought about his plan for tomorrow. About how to pass the test without his Sharingan.
Admittedly, if he kept his eyes closed during the test, nobody would notice, but all the same . . .
It would be embarrassing to have to use the Sharingan just to complete the Bunshin jutsu, of all things. And it would gave away he had it to anyone who wasn't in the know.
And considering the level of incompetency that seemed to be rampant in the village, that number was probably fairly large.
His chakra control had improved leaps and bounds, but the furthest he had gotten to mastering the standard bunshin without his sharingan had been about 60 clones. Way too many.
Using the sharingan, he could see his chakra flow, and with the increased processing speed it also granted him, he could manipulate said chakra flow almost perfectly. Especially if he utilized Uteki.
. . .
Oh well.
Agonizing over it won't do me any good. I'll do some more training, and If I can't get it tonight, I'll figure something else out. Easy.
He failed the test.
That one phrase should be enough to explain why he's sitting on a random rooftop in Konoha, agonizing over what to do next.
He stopped, however, when he caught a familiar scent on the wind.
"Figured I'd find you camping out somewhere up here, Naruto."
Looking behind him, he wasn't too surprised to see him up there.
Mizuki had always struck him as something of an oddball.
Now he knew why.
"Say, what would you do if I told you there was still a way for you to graduate?"
Minato had never seen it coming.
All he had to do was leave a few pictures of Rosa he had snapped while she was in the shower on his desk, and Minato was out cold.
He went ahead and left those behind. After all, who would believe that he, not even a genin, had taken naughty pics of a career ANBU?
He did his best to stifle the maddened giggles.
He did remember to grab the scroll on the way out, though.
Naruto quickly came to a stop at the meeting point Mizuki had described to him, and wasted no time reading through the scroll.
His memory may be fallible, but as a being made of nothing more than Yin chakra, Kyo had a spectacular memory.
He got through a fair amount of it before he heard movement.
Rolling the the scroll back up, he turned to where he heard the movement.
Where he saw Iruka-sensei pull herself out of the brush.
Turning on his sharingan, he saw something interesting. Two somethings, to be exact.
Before Iruka could react, she already had a shuriken embedded in her throat.
'She' then quickly turned back into Mizuki, and fell over, gurgling.
It was times like these he was glad he had done projectile training on the side. He may have prefered up close and personal, but there was something to be said about the look of surprise plastered on the face of Mizuki's soon-to-be corpse.
Turning over to where he saw the second something, he decided to call her out.
"You can come out now, Iruka-sensei."
When she did, he was surprised by what he saw.
Shock.
"You alright there, Iruka-sensei? You look a little wobbly."
Snapping out of it, she turned towards Naruto and saw . . . concern?
Steeling herself, she asked her question.
"Naruto, why did you betray the leaf!?"
The confused look he gave her said it all.
"Betray the leaf? When did I do that? All I did was kill Mizuki and steal this scroll, which I was gonna return soon-ish anyway."
Seeing the look of confusion on her face, he continued.
"Did you not know Mizuki was a traitor? I thought it was pretty obvious, once I took the time to think about it."
At first, the mere suggestion left her shocked.
But then she thought about it.
Thought about Mizuki's recent focus on the villages secrets . . .
Judging by how pale she got, she had just pieced it together herself.
Naruto frowned.
Pulling himself to his feet and turning towards her, he continued.
"C'mon Iruka-sensei, keep it together. I really wouldn't know what to do if you fell apart here."
He was surprised, though not unhappy, when she fell into his chest.
He was unhappy when he heard her begin to quietly sob.
"Uh . . ."
He supposed seeing a friend, a partner, you had known for well over six years turn traitor did that to a normal person.
Heck, might have done it to him too, if he didn't see it coming.
As Naruto wasn't a normal person, he really didn't know what he could do to help her.
So he did what he did best.
He followed his instincts.
He gave her a good hug.
And got a good handful of her ass, while he was at it.
Iruka recovered quickly, Naruto noted.
Quickly enough to give him a fairly solid beating, anyways.
He, of course, enjoyed every second of it.
It was made all the more enjoyable by the fact that she wasn't crying anymore.
Such a lovely time would surely haunt his, uh, lesser dreams.
Judging by the look on Minato's face, Naruto judged that he and Sarutobi had been watching the events play out in the crystal ball.
"Naruto." He greeted.
"Pops." Naruto returned.
Quickly suppressing the urge to strangle his son for his lack of delicacy (he'd make do with the fact that Iruka had done it for him), he continued.
"You have returned the scroll?" At seeing his son nod, he passed him a blood red ninja headband, complete with the symbol for Konohagakure, the Village hidden in the leaves.
"Then consider yourself promoted. Report to the academy in two days time for team assignments. Dismissed."
After holding up the headband to the light, Naruto passed his father a quick mock salute and a grateful, loving glance, and then tied his new headband around his upper right arm, and made for the door.
Only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder.
Looking to see who it was, he feigned surprise when he saw Sarutobi.
"Hey, Jiji. What do you need?"
Taking a quick glance towards Minato, he saw he was conversing with Iruka.
Now was his chance.
"Is it true you took some rather . . . scandalous photos of one Ketsueki Rosa?"
Naruto flashed him a mischievous smile.
"Why, I'd never." He then handed him a few more of said nonexistent photos out of his nonexistent collection.
Sarutobi quickly handed him some Yen for his troubles.
"See you later, Jiji."
Naruto then made for home. He imagined he didn't want to be there when the recently returned Kushina heard about the photos.
He was well aware he wouldn't be able to avoid Rosa, however.
(1) An Amaryllis means "worth beyond beauty". I thought it fit.
(2) Means raindrop. You already know what it does, if you read the last chapter.
Rewrite 678: Complete.
There may be somethings I missed, but I wanted to get the rewrite done so I could continue on with the story. Let me know what you think.