A/N: I thought I'd use this little space to answer some of my lovely reviewers! You showed your appreciation for me, it's only fair that I reciprocate.

theIrishWriter: I know that the manga had the chakra colours as being yellow, but I've always preferred the light blue they used for human chakra in the anime. It makes the bright yellow of his bijū mode more impressive in my opinion, which is always a plus. Whilst I also agree that there's no doubt Kakashi improved, I'm sure that training with an absolute powerhouse like Jiraiya caused Naruto's already significant chakra reserves to increase even further, not even taking into account the bleeding effect from the eight-trigrams seal. If anything, the gulf between Naruto's and Kakashi's chakra would have expanded, not shrunk, especially considering their ages.
From what I've seen, the kage bunshin is perfect for Naruto because it's impossible to overload: the more chakra you throw at it, the more clones you get. Perfect for someone with far more chakra than they can feasibly control.
For your question, all of their taijutsu will be augmented by their chakra, though some in some slightly different ways than others.

jojo061: I'm really glad to hear you like the story, always pleasing to hear your work is enjoyable. I agree with the updating, I have a few stories that I read that I have the same problem with, a problem I'm now guilty of! I'll confess, things got on top of me and it wasn't until I got a random follow weeks after publishing that this story even re-entered my mind. Hopefully I will be able to update more frequently, I'm thinking of slightly shortening the chapters to facilitate more frequent updates, most likely fortnightly, though I'm terrible at scheduling. Ideally no more than a fortnight, but probably somewhere between that and a week.

BDude0000: I'm happy that you like the story, I've always thought I might as well try my hand at writing, I've read almost every fanfiction on the site after all! I like the idea of different quantities and different densities; it's what I was alluding to when I referred to how heavy Naruto said his chakra felt. The fact that his chakra is dense (and thus extra potent) is definitely going to come in a little later.

And for my first Guest review… I have, I have, I have!

Thanks to all those that reviewed, and sorry to those that didn't but had the first few pages taken up by my responses! I like discussions about characters and plots and such (as you can see) and I dislike the idea that you guys won't get a response. If that bothers you, review and tell me. I'll then reply. Mmm, paradoxical.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, characters, plots, etc.

Act 1 – Chapter 3 – Preparations

"Argh, this is impossible!"

Naruto's frustrated cry echoed around the training field. Looking up from his book, Kakashi gazed over at him with barely concealed amusement in his eye. He really should have taken up teaching earlier than this, Minato was correct. Watching your young charges get angrier and angrier as they failed again and again was actually quite funny.

"You're still using way too much chakra Naruto" Kurenai patiently explained. "You have to find the correct amount to stick yourself to the tree without damaging it."

A step back from the scene would show two senseis, one looking reluctantly amused, the other not even attempting to hide his amusement. The object of their humour was the trainee in orange, vigorously rubbing his sore backside whilst loudly yelling at the tree in front of him. An outside observer would comment that the tree looked a lot worse for wear than the student, with cracked bark and jagged edges, even spots where small specks of light could be seen shining through.

'His first attempts truly were golden' Kakashi mused to himself. 'Only Naruto would be told it's a control exercise then use as much chakra as possible.'

In fact, Naruto had nearly put his foot clean through the tree, only stopping when he began to hyperventilate that he was being sucked into the tree. He then promptly fell on his rear for the first, but most certainly not the last time.

"Maybe we need to start you on something a tad smaller" Kakashi suggested, holding a hand up to forestall the expected objections. "I know you never give up on something, but don't think of this as giving up. Consider it… a tactical retreat. We'll get you a slightly different approach, and then you can come back to this exact tree with a whole new plan. You remember tactical retreats?"

Indeed, Naruto did remember tactical retreats. He, along with all of the other trainees, had been forced to participate in tactical lessons and subsequent drills. Whilst the drills were ok, he'd always been good at thinking on the fly anyway, the lessons were so very boring. At least, until Asuma had the idea of having Kurenai use genjutsu on them to recreate old battles in their minds. Seeing the Third Hokage in his prime really affected Naruto. He'd always seen the Old Man as a kindly grandfather figure: to see him raining down fiery missiles upon opposing armies like a vengeful god really altered the way he perceived the Hokage, and really the idea of a shinobi in general.

Being able to see the plans and tactics as they were carried out was incredibly helpful to many of the members of the class. Whilst there were many in the class that learnt perfectly well by reading the theory, and there were a few more that just innately understood the concepts behind them (damn genius Uchiha), Naruto was a physical learner. He learnt by doing and recreating, and seeing went a long way to making that process easier.

Begrudgingly, Naruto accepted his sensei's advice and turned away from the hated tree. "What now then Kakashi-sensei?"

With a slight sigh Kakashi considered the best advice he could give to his young charge. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, he looked up into the smiling face of Kurenai.

"I've got this Kakashi; go take care of the others" she reassured him. "We both know my control is excellent, and it's not just natural. After all, I've been training in chakra control my entire life; I've created more exercises than most people even know exist."

Kakashi eye-smiled in response, realising that there were probably fairly few people in the world better suited to teach someone control than his red-eyed colleague. With the wealth of experience she had in training this exact topic, she was by far the best one out of the four of them to teach the boy to control his unruly chakra. Kakashi, being the natural genius he was, always had very good chakra control without having to devote any significant time to the subject. Gai had honed his body to such an absurd degree that the only time his chakra ever even left his body was whilst summoning, and he performed that jutsu extremely rarely. Asuma had always just preferred to go with raw power over finesse, relying on wind chakra and those vicious chakra blades of his to slice his enemy to pieces, as opposed to trying to ensnare them in a genjutsu.

The only issue with having Kurenai teach Naruto to control his chakra was that Naruto's unique situation was so very different to Kurenai's. Whilst she had always had above average chakra control which she had fine-tuned to almost perfection, she had never dealt with the sheer quantity of chakra that Naruto had. As a genjutsu specialist, Kurenai's reserves were rather low, and considering what Kakashi already knew of Naruto's heritage and situation, he was sure that the blonde Uzumaki could become a veritable ninjutsu powerhouse with the right training. Given some semblance of control over his chakra so that he could efficiently utilise the reserves he already had, he would have the ability to launch successive ninjutsu and simply bury his opponents under a barrage of attacks.

Nodding in acceptance, Kakashi walked over to the other side of the training field to rejoin the other two senseis as they took the students through tree walking. Many students had already completed the task to a satisfactory degree, making it to the very top of the tree before steadily descending, to demonstrate complete control over the exercise, regardless of momentum or direction.

Others still had not quite completed it, but had made excellent headway and would no doubt have the exercise mastered by the end of the week. Each student that completed their task would be forced to repeat it until walking on any surface, be it horizontal or vertical, would be second nature.

Naruto had been distanced from the rest of the group for two reasons. The first and most obvious was his complete lack of progress. To be surrounded by his peers, each and every one of them entirely outperforming him on every attempt, was proving to be disheartening for even the legendarily steadfast young man. The second, and somewhat more devious of the reasons, was because it bred curiosity. By sectioning Naruto away from his peers, they were more aware of what he was doing, simply because he was doing it alone. This meant that there wasn't a single one among them that was unaware of Naruto's ill-fated attempt at tree climbing that almost punched a hole through the tree. For those who were struggling to keep their chakra levels sufficiently high to facilitate the exercise, this was an extreme eye-opener to just how big the gulf between their capacities was.

Even Sasuke was beginning to feel the drain from repeating this exercise so much, and he was actually succeeding! The dobe was attempting to ascend the tree and with each failed step was blasting it with a (compared to their class' levels) massive surge of chakra. With another scowl over at the enigmatic failure, Sasuke launched himself with renewed vigour at his tree, desperate and determined to not be outdone.

"Ok Naruto, we're going to start off with the very basics" Kurenai began explaining her idea to Naruto. "At the moment, your chakra is moving erratically" - she paused, seeing the blank look on his face - "moving randomly around your body. We need it to be more conscious, more controlled. I want you to recreate what you did in the classroom a few days ago for me. Gather your chakra and prepare to release it in a burst. Keep your eyes closed and only open them when you've gathered enough chakra to be able to release it. Ok?"

She took a step back to give him some breathing room and silently prayed that this idea would work. Truthfully, she was improvising here. Yes, she had told Kakashi that she could take care of this problem, but that didn't mean she was exactly sure how she would go about solving it in the first place. Normally chakra control problems only become an issue for chūnin or above, as their chakra supplies begin growing in their teenage years along with their bodies, but their training in control rarely advanced beyond water-walking. The idea that an academy student could have control problems of this magnitude was completely unheard of, certainly undocumented and thus there was no help to be had, no guidelines to be followed, just her and her student following along with her very best guess.

Naruto sighed to himself as he clasped his hands into the familiar Ram sign. He knew that he was having trouble, and he admitted that sometimes it was best to try again at a later date if no headway was being made, but this just felt like taking two steps backwards. He'd only just managed to access his chakra in the classroom before, and with his confidence in his abilities being at just about an all-time low, it would be so easy to just give it up. Admit defeat. Step away and declare it to be beyond him, not possible, out of his reach.

Shaking his head to himself, Naruto sighed again, trying to clear his head of his depressing thoughts. Besides, even if he gave it up, what would he do? He couldn't be a civilian: they all hated him, barring the Ichiraku family and the odd civilian or two which he saw in the street that would throw him sympathetic looks. He could never bring himself to become one of them. And after all, one of the most important people in his life clearly wanted this for him.

Naruto did not pride himself on his intelligence. Even as dense as he was, he wasn't dense enough to not be able to notice how dense he was. But, people he could understand. There may be social interactions that were outside of his scope, but that was not because they were difficult or complicated, purely because they were foreign. Living on his own for such a long time, he had to learn how to cope and be self-sufficient, and that included the healthy dose of street-smarts required to survive. Naruto knew when he was being played. Naruto knew when he was been lead on.

As far back as he could remember, the Old Man had told him tales of the legendary warriors known as shinobi: from the great battles they did, to epic missions where they finally won the day, saved the princess and were lauded as the heroes they so clearly were. Now, of course he knew better, part of Kakashi's 'education' about the shinobi system was explaining, in a frightening amount of detail, just to what extent the whole system was messed up. Training children to be able to sneak around undetected and straight up murder another human, all in the faith that their village leader, a man they know would always act in the best interest of the village, was not having them murder someone who, as hard as it was to find in their world, was innocent.

That was the key. The Hokage acted in the best interests of Konoha: if that meant that a rival businessman had set up nearby that was draining coin out of the village's coffers and so an angry village merchant raised the funds to have that businessman assassinated, well, it was all in the name of the village.

Naruto knew that there was nasty, gritty bits of shinobi life, but he hadn't when he'd signed up. The Old Man had ingrained into him so heavily that the best, the only way of life was the shinobi way, he'd almost cried from excitement and happiness upon being told he was allowed to join the academy. Snorting to himself, he remembered that the Hokage had even given him a choice as to whether he wanted to join up or not, as though that was really any choice at all.

But if the Hokage wished him to become a shinobi, he would try his best to not let him down. Regardless of how he'd maneuvered himself and Naruto so that Naruto would willingly choose this lifestyle, the Hokage had always acted with his best interests at heart. He had gotten Naruto food when the shopkeepers wouldn't sell, he had gotten Naruto shelter when the orphanage no longer wanted him. When the Old Man acted, he acted for a reason, and Naruto trusted him enough to believe that the academy and being a shinobi was really what was best for him. He just wished someone would explain why.

Searching deep inside himself for that well of energy, Naruto focussed on the euphoric feeling merging with his chakra gave him, allowing the memories of using his chakra to fill his mind and guide him to where it was located. Gritting his teeth, he drew on his chakra, allowing it to well up inside of him until he felt his body about to burst. Opening his eyes, he made eye contact with his female sensei, silently asking her how to proceed.

"Now, force it back inside" Kurenai answered his unspoken question with an unexpected answer.

In shock, Naruto forced the energy to dissipate, feeling it return to the flow around his body that was ever-present. "Why did you have me release it, I'd finally gotten it!" Naruto yelled, angry that all of his considerable effort went to waste.

"That was good, I could feel the chakra building up and you did well to hold it in. Now do it again, but faster" Kurenai replied, entirely unruffled by his outburst.

Grumbling under his breath, Naruto again began to draw his chakra out until he was struggling to keep it inside. Making eye contact once more, his shoulders drooped as he allowed the chakra to subside, following the mouthed order of his sensei to "Release". Looking at the unsympathetic gaze of his teacher, his shoulders drooped further. Something told him that this was going to be a very long day.

Kurenai cast a calculating eye over Naruto's form as he gathered his chakra up for roughly the thirtieth time. She could see his frame quaking from being forced to perform such an unnatural action so many times. Chakra, once formed, was designed to be released, at least until training had been undertaken to allow that chakra to be effectively used as a taijutsu stimulant. To force the boy to keep retaining that energy was no doubt uncomfortable and incredibly annoying for him, but it was serving its purpose.

Each time he gathered and released his chakra, he was, admittedly without any conscious thought or effort, becoming accustomed to feeling how his chakra moved. The speed at which he could gather his chakra together was reduced by a factor of five in the speed of a day. Whilst this left him as still the slowest in the class by some margin, the time delay between his intended generation of chakra and the actual act was enormously reduced. With a rye smile, Kurenai noted that the progress he'd made during the day was almost entirely down to single-minded determination. The first attempt at gathering his chakra had been slow, but Kurenai was unwilling to rush him as she could see the varying emotions rushing across his face. The boy was good at masking his feelings on a day to day basis, but get him thinking about things and his poker face was worse than Tsunade-sama's!

"Alright, that's enough Naruto" Kurenai said as she made eye contact with Naruto for the thirtieth time that afternoon. "Release the chakra you've built up, but instead of releasing a constant flow, I want you to try to release as much of it as you can at once. The aim of this exercise is to release a pulse of your chakra from your entire body. If you can complete this task, you will be ahead of your classmates, as none of them have gotten up to this point in their training yet."

Knowing that a statement like that would really fire up his determination, Kurenai expected Naruto to give it his all. She did not expect the result.

Naruto listened to his sensei's words, feeling relief at first that he was able to finish this exercise that had become, for want of a better term, torturous. That relief turned into a grin as he realised that by completing this exercise he would be able to finally surpass his classmates in something and show them he was not useless. Feeling his chakra almost at the point of overflowing, as it had been for the last twenty nine times, Naruto allowed that feeling to seep into his entire body. Taking a deep breath, he drew his chakra slightly inwards whilst pulling even more out from his core, feeling his chakra condense and his body tense like a far-too-tightly wound spring, and then forced his chakra from his body in a single powerful surge.

To the rest of the class, Kakashi signalling the end of their lesson was bliss. When they'd been told a few days ago that they were finally working with chakra, they were ecstatic. They were, of course, incredibly dismayed to find that Kakashi was no less a harsh taskmaster in terms of their chakra than Gai was for their physical fitness. Turning to collect their last sensei and her under-performing charge, they were shocked to see Naruto trembling with exertion as he physically fought some unseen force. The more perceptive amongst them could easily surmise that that force was his own chakra, considering Kakashi had earlier explained to them, after being asked for the eleventh time, that what Naruto was doing was a far more chakra-intensive exercise in order to get him used to the feel of his chakra. As he explained it, Naruto would have to temporarily work on his control in reverse, starting with some bigger steps as they didn't force him to separate his chakra into small amounts, something that would naturally be more difficult with a larger chakra supply.

All day they had seen Naruto work with Kurenai on this unseen exercise, all the while it appeared that Naruto was doing nothing. Although, judging by the fact that Kurenai's face got lighter and lighter as the day progressed, that assumption would be incorrect. To see the boy labour so furiously to complete what appeared to be an endurance task was daunting, especially when the implications were considered. They had barely ever seen Naruto tired, other than first thing in the morning (the boy was most certainly not a morning person), so the fact that this exercise could reduce him to a quivering mess?

The amount of chakra Naruto had built up at this point had created a haze around his body. Considering that the chakra was not yet supposed to be released, it was either a statement of just how poor his control was that he was unable to stop it leaking out, or it was a demonstration of just how much chakra the boy had built up. Knowing Naruto as he did, Kakashi found it easy to guess that it was probably a mixture of the two.

Seeing his two Hyūga students instinctively activate their dōjutsu to try to understand what Naruto was doing, Kakashi made to instruct them to deactivate them for their own safety, but was robbed of the opportunity. With his back turned, Kakashi missed the widening of Kurenai's eyes that would have signalled to him that his time had run out. Instead, he watched two of his students fall to their knees clutching their now-deactivated dōjutsu in pain. He did not, however, miss the tingling on the back of his neck that accompanied the surge of chakra that passed over his body and across the rest of the training field. Neither did his students, now stood gaping at Naruto who was bent double, panting and wheezing from the effort of such a mighty strain.

Straightening up, Naruto fixed Kurenai with a blinding grin. "How was that sensei?!"

From her position on the ground, where Naruto's pulse of chakra had landed her, Kurenai could only nod dumbly. Well, at least her training idea worked.

"Hokage-sama, they're asking every day at this point, we can't keep them quiet about it for much longer" Asuma explained to Sarutobi. "We've thrown in information about Naruto's physical abilities, heritage, parents and now he's demonstrated to them chakra levels well beyond anything they've been faced with before. There's not a member of that group that think he's not special in some way, they know he's from a clan and they know his stamina, both physical and in terms of chakra, go beyond what could ever be expected of an academy student. Surely, enough seeds have been planted for the information to be given to them now?"

Asuma's reasoning was quite sound, but there was more to it than he said. He, as well as the other senseis, could see how Naruto was affected by everything that had gone on around him. Whilst dangling the information in front of his peers had allowed them to open their minds to the possibility that Naruto was not the no-name, clanless orphan that they thought he was, but that he was someone who potentially had some quite significant background, giving only scraps of information had allowed him to make the connections, but still have no answers. It was quickly decided from looking at his face whenever anything along the lines of his heritage, lineage or differences from his peers came up, that the only thing that upset Naruto more than having no information, was having a little bit of information and the rest withheld.

"They're not quite at the point I want them to be" the Hokage replied, puffing gently on his pipe, seemingly not noticing it had all but gone out during Asuma's speech. "We will wait until the Fūinjutsu lessons have commenced and reached the topic of sealing into objects before breaching the topic with Naruto. Once that has been done, we will explain to the rest of the class during the Uzumaki portion of the clan history lessons about the Kyūbi being sealed into people, especially Kushina Uzumaki who died on October 10th, when the Kyūbi escaped her seal and she died in the process. That will let them know that it is possible to seal it into a person, it's traditionally been an Uzumaki and the dates will match perfectly to Naruto-kun's birthday, which will be brought up at the beginning of the day as celebration."

The embers on the end of the pipe began to glow as the Hokage sent some wind-chakra infused breath down the pipe to stoke the flames. "This way, they will reach the conclusion themselves, without it being forced upon them, and the more level-headed and intelligent of the group will placate the others and make them understand. When the class reconvenes the next day, the entire group will know, they should be largely ok with it, if a little understandably worried but Naruto will have gained a great deal of respect both for his burden and his history."

Asuma smiled at his father as he finished spinning his tale. "You've seriously thought all of this through, have you told anyone your final plans for this?"

"No, you're the first one" the Sandaime admitted. "That's the reason I was so willing to help out with some of the lesson planning, and had so many suggestions as to content. You know how much I despise paperwork of any and all kinds at this point. Why in Kami's name would I volunteer for more? Even I cannot lightly break an S-rank secret. Once put in place, an S-rank secret can only be spoken between those authorised to speak and hear of it. I can speak to you about it, because you have prior knowledge and are a jonin. Speaking to academy students? Too low rank, no prior knowledge, that's treason for me as well. That's the only reason i haven't told Naruto-kun myself at this point. Tomorrow, I will repeal the S-rank secret concerning his status as the Kyūbi jinchūriki and explain the situation to Naruto-kun. He will have the evening to think, before hopefully he will become distracted by learning much more about his family, whilst his classmates will gain enough information to deduce his status as the host. Two days Asuma, two days and you're home free."

"Just how long have you been planning this Hokage-sama?" Asuma queried, knowing full well that his father was famous for his brilliant plans laid far in advance. You don't earn the moniker of 'The Professor' by lacking in the mind after all.

"Since I first agreed to Shikaku's idea" the wizened old shinobi smirked happily behind his pipe. "If anyone deserves to benefit from all of this, it's that boy Asuma. People would find out and accept him for it eventually. I'm just helping things along."

Asuma nodded thoughtfully to himself. "So tomorrow you tell the gaki?" At the Hokage's nod, he continued. "Maybe it would be worth having us senseis there. We've gotten pretty close over the past few weeks of training, he especially looks up to Kakashi. I think it will help to have some support."

Sarutobi smiled kindly at his son. "I appreciate the offer, you're probably right. I'm sure the boy is going to have a great deal of anger at me for keeping this from him for so long, but this way you can get rid of any ill feelings he may have towards you for keeping it from him before the next day of school."

Asuma paled, realising that they would most likely be blamed as well for hiding the information from the jinchūriki. "How do we manage this without forcing him away from us? It's obvious he trusts people quite easily, but how easily does he forgive people that break that trust?"

The Sandaime grimaced, for one rare moment his considerable years showing in his face. "We will simply have to appease him." Reaching into his pocket, he threw a sizeable roll of ryō notes to the surprised jōnin.

"Now, where was the address for Ichiraku's…"

Hey all, here's the latest update. Fair amount quicker than the last one I'd say, but I'm not 100% sure on it. I felt it was needed to place the final piece of the set up to explain Naruto's...'circumstances', but I'm just not sure how well it flowed.

I decided to put a little bit of a twist on the S-rank secret side, because it's always just been a case of, when I read a fanfiction where they explain it to the kids early on, someone just says "by the way, Kyūbi is stuck in Narutos stomach. Kunai, scroll, blah blah blah" and job done. I thought an S-rank secret should be more than that. This is a death-sentence-for-leaking level secret, this is heavy stuff, I just think that even the Hokage needs to be a bit careful about how it's handled. Just because he makes the laws doesn't mean he's above them, right?

As for the manga at the moment...there are no words. I'm not sure what's happening to be honest. There's a big fight, Sasuke wants to kill Naruto, Naruto doesn't want to kill Sasuke. Sasuke says "I want to do it alone", Naruto says "You'll become just like Itachi", Sasuke replies "Itachi's dead, YOLO. Except for me. YOLO for you. ILF" (that's I'll Live Forever). I always find in the biggest fight scenes, there's massive explosions, but it's the anime that excels in displaying them, so that's what I really want to see. Physical embodiment of Susanoo vs Naruto with Sage Mode and Sage of Six Paths Chakra? Animation please!

Please leave a review, let me know what you liked, what you think could be improved, it's always nice and helpful to hear. Thanks for reading!

Toodle-pip.