It's been a while since I've updated, so I can only apologise for that. Been a tad hectic, but it's here now.

Quick recap, they've trained in the new style academy, done mainly taijutsu, there have been some revelations and bonding, overall feel-good stuff. In the next few chapters I'm going to be finishing off the remainder of their academy experiences and seeing how these new, better trained cadets can survive in the real world. Hopefully, as they're training as progressed, their activities can get a little hands on. Wish them and me luck!

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

Act 1 – Chapter 6 – Nature

"I'm going to crush you teme!" Naruto bellowed, pointing his finger triumphantly at Sasuke. "You've been lucky with spars so far, now it's my turn!"

Sasuke silently shook his head, not even bothering to respond. For the past two months, he had been lucky enough to not be selected to spar against Naruto. Since they had their new senseis, he had fought against literally everyone other than Naruto, with varying degrees of success. Some, like Shikamaru, were easy enough to blitz. His strength lay in his brains (and even Sasuke was willing to acknowledge that Shikamaru was seriously smart), not in his body. It was a simple matter to get in his face quick enough that he couldn't perform his trademark jutsu or lay any traps and he was easy to defeat. Some, like Sakura, were child's play for him. Without a clan style or any jutsu, his years of hard graft on the training field left him with an enormous advantage over her, in both speed and strength. Others, like Neji, Chōji and - here, he hesitated, a foul taste in his mouth - Lee were far more of a challenge. Neji's technique was flawless in his family style, making a single touch incredibly dangerous, whether in a simple spar or fight to the death. Choji's raw power had caught him unawares, allowing the pleasingly plump boy to connect with a solid hit that Sasuke barely managed to remain conscious for. He never made the mistake of getting into a slugging match with the Akimichi again. Lee was...different. His taijutsu had advanced even faster than Sasuke's own. In a straight taijutsu spar, he was fast becoming the sort of opponent you would regret underestimating. He was still not in the leagues of the Last Uchiha, but he was getting there.

Sasuke hadn't been picked to fight Naruto since the last time Mizuki picked the matches, and it had been a nice change of scenery if he was completely honest. For whatever reason, Mizuki always insisted on Naruto and Sasuke fighting, which just left the dobe angry and himself disappointed. Still…

"Surrender now dobe, it'll be easier on you." Sasuke stated simply, staring boredly at his opponent on the other side of the arena.

As expected, this simply riled Naruto up further, making Sasuke smirk internally. Far too easy.

"Hajime!" Kakashi sliced his hand through the air, leaping back to land on the roof of the academy, pulling out his book in mid-air.

Bolting forwards, Naruto attempted a full-frontal assault, hoping to catch Sasuke unawares. Unknown to Naruto, he succeeded, but the Uchiha were famous for many things, including an unbeatable poker face.

Sasuke was certainly not surprised by Naruto's tactics, the complete opposite. Naruto had shown very little aptitude for planning of any kind, so this was exactly the kind of move he was expecting. What was surprising was his speed! He was almost the same speed as Lee, and Lee wasn't that much slower than he was! Unacceptable.

Darting under the roundhouse, Sasuke planted his palm into Naruto's sternum and heaved Naruto away from him, hoping to create some distance for him to think.

'He's definitely changed things, his speed… and his weight. But he doesn't look like he's gained any. Training weights. He's holding back.'

Infuriated by his conclusion that the dobe was underestimating him, Sasuke exploded forwards with speed that was far beyond anything the class had seen so far. Swinging a foot in a high arc, his kick smashed clean through Naruto's hastily erected block and sent him bouncing across the floor of the arena.

Clambering to his feet, shaking his arms to get some life back in them, Naruto prepared to launch an attack with some shuriken, but was interrupted quite rudely by a vicious punch to the back of the head that sent him careening across the arena in the direction he had just been flung in.

Twisting in mid-air, Naruto launched several shuriken at Sasuke as he landed himself in a three-point stance with one hand still outstretched. Leaping sideways to dodge the shuriken that Sasuke had thrown back at him, Naruto launched volley after volley of shuriken and kunai, hoping to overwhelm his opponent.

"Not good enough dobe!" Sasuke called out, calmly deflecting the weapons that were on target with his own kunai, not bothering about those he could see were wayward. "If you're going for numbers, you're about a thousand short of troubling me!"

'After all this' Naruto thought to himself angrily, 'he's still not even broke a sweat'.

"Shadow clone jutsu!" Naruto yelled, summoning an impromptu ally to his side. Charging Sasuke down, he and his clone began throwing punches and kicks in random directions, attempting to surprise or outright overwhelm the Uchiha. Twisting between one Naruto's fist and the other's kick, Sasuke gripped the fist in front of him and used it to hurl one into the other, sending them both across the floor before one exploded into smoke.

Brushing himself down as he clambered back to his feet, Naruto glared at Sasuke. 'One's not enough, huh?'

"Kage bunshin no jutsu" Naruto called out, channelling more chakra into the technique and summoning three clones to his side. His clones fanned out slightly, forming a wide arc in front of Sasuke. With a silent signal, they charged once again.

"No, don't" Kakashi said, holding an arm out in front of Asuma. Asuma looked at Kakashi in surprise and anger.

"This is supposed to be a taijutsu spar, Kakashi! Not to mention Naruto has just used a kinjutsu in a simple spar with a comrade. We have to stop this." Asuma argued, hoping to make Kakashi see sense.

"That technique is not a kinjutsu for Naruto. For any others, yes, but not for him. There is probably no-one in the world that is better suited to using that technique than him. And this is not a taijutsu spar." Kakashi looked up at the sky with apparent guilt on his face. "I told them they could use any means necessary: ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, weapons… nothing is off limits, apart from maiming or killing."

The shocked faces on both his teaching colleagues and his young charges let him know exactly what they thought of this idea.

"Naruto and Sasuke have history, and they need to work it out. Naruto needs to see exactly what flaws are in his technique and abilities, and there are not many of the class that can go toe to toe with him in a taijutsu spar right now. His speed and strength are impressive; combine that with his ability to recover from almost any attack and you get a taijutsu user that basically cannot be beaten down except by a vastly superior opponent."

Kakashi gazed back at the spar, watching Naruto attempt to pull any trick he could think of to defeat Sasuke. "Sasuke needs to see that there is more than blood in this world. Just because he is from an elite family and is considered to be the best of the generation, it doesn't mean he can rest on his laurels. The most shocking thing to Sasuke in this fight is not that Naruto has grown; it's that Naruto has grown faster than he has."

Dodge right. Punch. Block. Elbow. Block. Block. Block. Block…

'Damnit, I haven't landed a single solid hit on him!' Naruto looked at Sasuke's stance, trying to find some hole or flaw in the Uchiha Interceptor Fist that Sasuke was so adept in. 'Just one hit would show him I'm serious. I can do this'.

Rising to his feet, Naruto's hands formed what was quickly becoming his trademark hand-seal, engulfing himself and the area around him in white smoke. Looking at the twenty clones or so that now surrounded him, Naruto smiled to himself.

Sprinting towards Sasuke, Naruto darted to the side, hiding in a wall of clones as they charged, hoping to blindside the raven-haired Uchiha. Seeing an opening, he bolted between two clones, only to meet an elbow descending towards his face. Knowing he couldn't block fast enough, he did the only thing he could think of. He dispelled.

Sasuke overbalanced on his swing, his body following the arm that fell unexpectedly far. Recovering sharply, he backhanded a clone that launched himself from his right and spun to deliver a straight kick to the clone to his left, but found his foot caught by another clone. Launching himself into the air, he used the clone as a springboard and brought his other foot around to deliver a devastating spinning kick to the clone's head.

A cloud of white smoke was all his foot connected with, causing Sasuke to overextend once more, this time in mid-air with no support, facing nowhere but the ground. With no leverage and no support, he had no way to block the clone he could see bringing his foot down in a classic axe kick.

Sasuke collided with the ground with an audible grunt, feeling his body compress heavily against the floor. 'I'm exhausted. I'm faster, stronger, more experienced than Naruto...but he just keeps going.' Sasuke's face set in a determined scowl as he rose from the floor onto all fours.

'I've got to work on my stamina, it wouldn't do to be exhausted in a real battle.' Sasuke smirked to himself, glad at least that he could take something from the spar. Looking over at his opponent, he was, only to himself of course, quietly glad that Naruto was laying on his back gulping in large quantities of air. Another few minutes of a fight of that intensity, and Sasuke would have been forced to either take things up a notch or surrender, and surrender was never an option.

"I can't believe he hit Sasuke-kun." Ino mumbled to herself, shocked at Naruto's progression.

"That Naruto has been working hard, he's come a long way" Kurenai said happily to Gai.

'Far enough I think' Kakashi said to himself thoughtfully, before clearing his throat loudly. "Alright, as promised, I think you're all ready to learn a little more."

Kiba stared at Kakashi blankly. "What do you mean Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi eye-smiled at Kiba. "We said at the beginning that none of you would move to more advanced topics until everyone was caught up to speed. As you just saw from that spar, the person that was last in the class just landed a solid hit on the genius of the class. I think that counts as being up to scratch." Kakashi's eye became a little harder as he gazed at the rest of the class. "That is assuming that the rest of you have been working just as hard, and that Naruto is still slightly behind you all. I assume that that is the truth?"

He smirked behind his mask as he clearly decided to ignore the nervous fidgeting amongst the class. In truth, they had all been working very hard, but even he was surprised at Naruto's growth. The boy was spending almost all his time training with Lee or training alone, driven single-mindedly towards a goal that he refused to communicate to any of his classmates or senseis. At the rate he was improving, he would be able to truly challenge Sasuke soon, and that would cause the growth of both of the boys to explode. He sighed happily: that was a day he would look forward to, training two ninjas of the highest heritage as they desperately tried to outdo one another. Maybe one day they'd even be able to spar with him too. Now that was a day to look forward to.

"Tomorrow, we are going to learn some rudimentary ninjutsu, ones that will make good use of your newly-honed chakra control. And don't worry" Kakashi added, looking pointedly at the three older would-be graduates, "there will be something to keep you interested too. In fact, the three of you are going to make wonderful training tools tomorrow."

The class looked apprehensively at one another, not sure whether it was the younger or elder students that should be worried. It was quickly and silently agreed that when Kakashi was involved, they should all be very worried indeed.

A heavy bag landed squarely at Tenten's feet, the top falling open as it fell to expose an enormous amount of dulled kunai and shuriken. A smile lit up her face as she looked at Kakashi like a puppy that had just been told that the world was made up of one big bone. Lee paled as he looked at her face, leaning across to whisper to Hinata. "This...is not good."

"I agree, Tenten is a very good shot. I hope they're not to use on us." With one look at the incredulous faces around her, she sighed. "It can't hurt to hope."

"Tenten, these are for you to throw at your classmates." Kakashi stated, explicitly and far too happily. "They are blunted so they won't penetrate - this of course will be of little relief after you realise just how much being hit with a lump of metal hurts."

Kakashi glanced at his fellow senseis as they shook their heads ruefully. They were right, he was really getting into this teaching thing. He really felt like he was getting through to these kids.

"We'll go through this activity for a few hours before we move on." The class just about managed to hold off on sighing in relief. This is Kakashi - just because an activity has an endpoint does not mean he won't do what he can to make it even more hellish. "Of course, if my criteria aren't met, we will be doing this activity every day until they are."

"He's insane!" Ino hissed to Sakura as they ate lunch, looking over her shoulder as if fearing he was behind them, listening.

'Futile really' Kakashi thought to himself, resting peacefully in the tree above the class bench. 'As though I'd let her spot me.'

"Who the hell gives Tenten almost unlimited weaponry and lets her loose? On anyone, let alone on CHILDREN?!" Ino exploded, rubbing her shoulders pitifully. Tenten had been kind enough to aim for non-vital and non-visible spots (so Ino had started getting a little more physical with her training, no-one said she had to give up looking the part), but Tenten didn't need to look quite so pleased with herself with every connection.

Kakashi's exercise was a simple one. To teach the basics of the Kawarimi (or substitution) technique, he first demonstrated the technique to them and then had them use it in a simulated combat situation. In less technical terms, they had to substitute to escape the unerringly accurate arm of Tenten and the less successful among them had more than a few bruises to show for their troubles. And as angry as they all may be at Tenten, after a few days of this being repeated each morning, there wasn't a single one of them that couldn't substitute out of the way at least nine times out of ten.

The one exception to this rule was of course, Lee. Being unable to mould chakra to form jutsus, he was incapable of performing this technique. Undeterred, Gai used this opportunity to go through more personal training with the budding taijutsu user, in order to compensate for what he was missing out on.

"AAAAAHHHH" Sakura screamed in shock as Kakashi appeared in front of her, knocking the food from the table as he stared into her face.

"Maa Sakura, so rude. You don't really hate me, do you?" Kakashi whined, thankful that his mask prevented his smirk from ruining his puppy dog eye.

Kurenai looked at Asuma sadly. "He really is enjoying messing with them far too much. He's going to end up scarring them."

Asuma returned Kurenai's look with a more thoughtful of his own. "He is having a lot of fun with this…"

The two of their eyes met as they considered the unspoken ending to Asuma's sentence.

'-why shouldn't we?'

"Ok everyone, today we're going to discuss the elements" Asuma announced cheerfully from the front of the class.

Not receiving his expected response, Asuma looked more carefully at his class. There was no doubt they had grown even further in the past few weeks, each of them now having an excellent grasp of the basic ninjutsu required to finish the academy. Granted, every one of them now hated every one of their senseis, but it was a small price to pay, whether for their success or for the fun that he and Kurenai had had with them was neither known nor cared about.

After concluding that joining in with the torment was clearly the most productive teaching method they could employ for this particular group of students, Asuma and Kurenai began thinking up more imaginative ways to tort- teach their students. They used every method they could think of, from Kurenai placing some of them in genjutsus to make them behave differently or approach an exercise differently, to Asuma joining Tenten on the throwing exercise, but only focussing on Tenten. That one Tenten especially disliked.

"Asuma-sensei?" Shino queried, his monotonous tone easily being heard across the class. "You have already taught us about the elements."

Asuma's smile widened slightly. "Yes we have, but not quite like this. This time you're not going to learn about the elements so much as you're going to learn about your elements."

He waited for a moment for this to sink in, before chuckling at the widening smiles on most of the students' faces. "Kakashi and I will test your element using this chakra paper." He brandished a small wad of paper in the air.

"Don't ask me where it comes from or what it does, I don't know. That is a very closely guarded secret in each village, I wouldn't tell you if I knew." Asuma warned, nipping any questions in the bud. Of course, he did know, but he wouldn't tell them that, just as he said.

One by one, the class proceeded to the front and channelled some chakra through the paper as instructed. There were many expected results, Fire being the most common as always in Konoha.

Kiba, Shikamaru, Sakura, and Chōji all had an affinity to fire, Ino and Hinata having an affinity to water. Shino, Neji and Lee had an earth affinity, Lee being surprised he had an affinity at all. Tenten was pleasantly surprised with having an affinity for lightning, it being able to improve her deadliness with her thrown and melee weapons.

The biggest surprises were Sasuke and Naruto. Sasuke's chakra paper crinkled to the centre before catching fire at the edges, demonstrating a strong affinity for lightning and a weaker affinity for fire. This was unusual for Uchiha, who were famous for their trademark fire jutsus.

Naruto's paper split into two pieces, both of which simultaneously caught fire.

"That's...unusual." Kakashi announced slowly, trying to make sense of exactly what it was he was seeing. "A twin affinity of equal strength is usually an indicator of a bloodline, but…"

Kakashi trailed off, not willing to get into exactly why he was so surprised. Normally bloodlines were passed down by parents, but Kakashi knew for a fact that neither of Naruto's parents had a bloodline, barring Kushina's Uzumaki traits.

"Ok" Kakashi continued, dropping the subject. "Chōji, Shikamaru, Kiba, Sakura and Naruto, you're with Asuma. Everyone else, come with me."

Kakashi began to walk away, considering the best way to teach a varied group about their different elements, especially considering one of them had two to work with. Two, at his age? That was worth thinking about. If you were born with two elements, it was usually a bloodline. Otherwise, you had one element and you learned the others. If Sasuke clearly was born with a lightning element, that meant he had learnt at least some of the fire element already. A jutsu perhaps?

Summoning several shadow clones to his side, Kakashi split his part of the class according to their elements with one clone accompanying each. Although Sasuke…

"Which element would you prefer to learn first Sasuke?" Kakashi asked. "With a natural lightning affinity, it will be quicker for you to pick up that element, but I leave the choice to you."

Sasuke looked thoughtful for a moment, before smirking slightly. "Why not do both at once?"

Placing his hands in a familiar seal, Sasuke called out "Shadow Clone Jutsu" and summoned a single clone to his side, albeit leaving both himself and the clone looking more than a little tired for their troubles.

"Let's go" both Sasuke's declared in unison, quietly proud that the past few weeks of desperately training capacity and stamina to catch up with the dobe of all people had paid off.

"WHAT?!" Naruto bellowed, staring over at the two Sasukes. "Sasuke can make shadow clones now?" He may have angry on the outside, but that was nothing to the storm that was raging inside of him. He had finally found something he could do that no-one else in the class could, even though there were three of them that were taught this technique, he was the only one that could perform it. Sasuke got close after a few tries, but couldn't muster the strength to create a solid clone. Chōji tried repeatedly, but he too didn't quite have enough.

Asuma laid a hand on Naruto's shoulder, causing the young blonde to look at him. "Don't worry about it Naruto, soon enough you'll all have your own niches. That technique is known by a great deal of Konoha shinobi, including all four of us senseis. All of you were going to learn it at one point or another, this just means you need to work even harder to find where you can stand out."

Asuma turned back to the rest of the group, continuing his explanation of fire chakra and how it was used. "Fire chakra is very powerful offensively, but lacks severely in the defensive department. In terms of sheer destruction, it is hard to match some of the legendary fire-style techniques, especially those made famous by the Uchiha clan."

At this he focussed his attention solely on Sasuke, or at least the one that had just arrived with the group. "Your family was legendary for its fire-style jutsus, that was part of the reason they were such mortal enemies of the Senju clan. Considering the Senjus' love for all things natural, especially the forests which they called home, a clan that specialised in using fire was both the enemy that they dreaded to face and dreamed to defeat."

Stepping back, Asuma ran through several hand seals before ending on the Tiger seal and blowing a large stream of fire that formed into a ball before smashing through a few of the target dummies placed at the other end of the academy training field.

"That was a very basic technique called the Grand Fireball jutsu. I won't bother explaining what it does to you -" he glanced towards the smoking trail it had scorched along the ground "- I think that's clear."

Asuma showed them the hand-signs and set them to working on the technique. He was fairly sure that the majority would be able to at least produce a little flame by the end of the day, seeing as how they all had the fire element as their primary nature, barring the two with two natures.

Setting them on their way, or in Naruto's case, a shadow clone on its way, Asuma turned to Naruto. "Now Naruto, my primary affinity is wind, which is very rare in Konoha. In fact, you and I may be two of the only wind-style shinobi in current rotation at the moment. As such, there is a fair amount I can teach you, but it is limited to what I have been able to pick up. There was no wind-style user to teach me when I was your age, so I had to develop my own methods and techniques, so bear with me if some of them are a little rough around the edges."

Asuma turned away and flashed through another few hand-seals. Inhaling deeply, he uttered "Fūton: Kaze no taihō!" (Wind-style: Wind Cannon)

Exhaling in a single, sharp burst, Asuma fired a ball of wind at a tree stood a little way away. As the class turned to watch the effect, the technique impacted with the tree and exploded, punching a hole clean through the tree, causing the top half to crash to the ground.

With stars in his eyes, Naruto was immediately begging at Asuma's feet. "Please Asuma-sensei, please teach me! That was so cool!"

"I'm glad you think so, it's my own technique" Asuma replied with a smile. "It took me years to figure out how to perform this technique, so watch closely."

Asuma repeated the hand-seals for Naruto, surprised to see that he picked up on them the first time. Considering the boy's memory was disastrously poor - as demonstrated by his abysmal test scores - it was pleasing to see that there was at least something that stuck in his head on the first try.

Asuma was about to go into greater detail about the workings of the jutsu when he was interrupted by angry yelling in the area of his clone and the fire-natured students. Looking over, he and Naruto bore witness to Sasuke storming away from the clone, before turning away and launching a fireball, similar in shape and heat if a little smaller in size, towards the training posts, destroying several and leaving scorch marks on the others.

"I told you that I had completed this exercise before! This jutsu is a right-of-passage for all Uchiha, so I took it on myself to learn it. Teach me something else!" Sasuke demanded of the clone, infuriated that he was finally being offered some proper training, only to find that it was useless to him.

"And I told you no. I admit, I didn't believe that you could do this technique; I was wrong. But that doesn't change anything. I will not teach you a second technique before the others have learnt their first; we're trying to close the gaps between all of you, not widen them." Asuma's clone stated simply.

Holding a hand up to forestall Sasuke's objections, he continued. "I didn't say that I wouldn't teach you anything at all, just that I would not teach you a second jutsu. Did you notice anything different about my fireball and yours?" Asuma questioned.

Sasuke sighed, knowing from first hand experience how stubborn these senseis were. Humouring them was honestly the only way to move things along. "They looked the same to me. They both destroyed the training posts they were aiming at." Sasuke paused, looking at the expectant face of his sensei. He sighed again. "Fine. Your's was bigger, but only slightly."

Asuma smiled, happy that one of his most prideful students was finally willing to notice something critical of himself. And it had only taken several months!

"Exactly." Asuma glanced around to the see the rest of the class listening in to their conversation and chuckled. "For once it's useful that you're all so nosy. Gather round, this will be useful for all of you to hear.

"The Grand Fireball technique is a C-rank offensive jutsu. It is quite powerful against a single opponent or a group, its main weakness being how easy it is to see and hear coming, and thus dodge. To make it more powerful, the flames can be made hotter, faster moving or the fireball larger.

"Sasuke's technique and my own were the same temperature, same speed, but different sizes. But, this is not the type of technique that you can simply overload with chakra to make it more powerful, as the chakra needs to be controlled and compressed into a ball. The more chakra pumped into the technique, the harder it is to control, and for a C-rank jutsu like this one, the limit on the chakra is really quite low.

"To make it hotter, bigger, faster, any kind of improvement at all, you need to improve your own chakra and control, to fine-tune the amount that is used. It is easy to put the correct amount of chakra into this technique; it's a decent amount without being too big for most people to use and too small to be effective. My fireball was bigger because, quite simply put, I'm better at using fire-nature chakra than Sasuke is."

Asuma ended on this painfully blunt statement, inwardly laughing at the outraged look on Sasuke's face. "Sasuke's natural element is lightning, and he has a minor affinity for fire-nature chakra. I was wondering how that happened, and now I know: Sasuke has spent a lot of time practising this jutsu, so much so that his chakra has automatically become slightly aligned to fire. My natural element is also not fire, but I have spent a lot longer working on it than he has, so my technique was stronger.

"I am going to teach you how to harness the element better. The first step to using an element is usually to learn some techniques of that element, and then progressing onto fine-tuning your control of the element in order to boost those techniques, and maybe even create some of your own." At this, Asuma looked pointedly straight at Sasuke. "I did say I would not teach you any more jutsus yet, but I will take you through this exercise so that you can learn how to better harness the element. Ok?"

Sasuke looked thoughtfully at the ground, remembering vividly Asuma's fireball. Even Sasuke himself would admit that Asuma's was more powerful. But Itachi's still made Asuma's look like an ember, such was his mastery of the technique. Is that how Itachi was able to use that technique like that, like no-one else seemed to be able to?

Sasuke nodded at Asuma. "Alright, I'll learn how to harness it first. But then I want a new technique. Deal?"

Asuma snorted at the genin-to-be. "It's a deal Sasuke." Normally he would have happily put the young prodigy in his place, but he knew full well that the class would learn this relatively basic technique a great deal faster than Sasuke would be able to begin mastering the fire element. He probably should have mentioned that it takes most people years to even get anywhere with it. There was a reason that usually only Jōnin level and over ninja created their own techniques.

Dismissing the class back to their technique, Asuma handed Sasuke a leaf from the ground, holding on himself. "The key to this technique is to ignite the leaf. It probably sounds stupid, but it's harder than you think. You have to focus your chakra into the leaf and change the nature of it to fire, before the leaf can be blown away from your hand.

To demonstrate, he held his hand, palm up with a leaf in the centre. Channeling chakra into it, the leaf flew up and off of his hand. "That's normal chakra. Just enough and it'll stick, too much and it'll fly away. But I promise you, use the amount it takes to make it stick, and it'll never burn. You have to use plenty of chakra and-" he held up his other hand in the same way, showing the leaf catching fire in his palm "-make it burn."

Asuma gestured with his hand at the trees around them. "This technique takes time and effort, but there are plenty of leaves. Hop to."

"Shadow clone jutsu!" Naruto shouted, summoning several clones to himself. "Let's try this again!"

His clones responded with a chorus of "Hai!" before the first one stepped up. Performing the hand seals as quickly as possible, he shouted "Grand Fireball Jutsu" before blowing out a decent-sized fireball from his mouth. At least, that's what was meant to happen. In reality, the fireball detonated in his mouth, dispelling the clone.

"Awww" the group moaned. The next clone stepped up, feeling slightly nervous. Sure it couldn't die, but a mouth full of fire? That had to hurt, if only for a second.

"Naruto is kind of impressive, isn't he?" Chōji asked, munching happily on some chips whilst he took a break to let his chakra restore itself. "I can't even make a clone, and his clones can make their own clones, which can then perform a jutsu that is taxing for any one of us to do. That's a lot of chakra."

He was interrupted by a collective sigh as another clone went up in smoke. "He definitely has a lot of chakra-", another clone exploded, this time taking two others with it, "-but I wouldn't exactly call that impressive" Sakura deadpanned.

Over the next two weeks, the students worked harder than they ever had before to try to master their respective jutsus. The majority got it, the exceptions being Sakura, Ino and Naruto. For Sakura and Ino, it was a simple matter of chakra capacity. Sakura especially needed to expand her reserves before she was able to perform the grand fireball without collapsing immediately afterwards. Ino was the same, though thanks to her clan training previously, combined with the lower chakra requirement of the Suiton: Mizurappa (Water Release: Wild Water Wave) meant that this was only an obstacle for a short time.

Naruto's issue was unsurprisingly his control. Given that both of the jutsus given to him by Asuma were C-rank jutsus that were sensitive to the chakra amount pumped into them, requiring more control for a higher chakra quantity, he had yet to have a clone survive using the Grand Fireball, and had managed no more than a strong breeze to come from his mouth with the Wind Cannon.

In fact, it wasn't until one of their infrequent breaks (that Naruto skipped out of frustration), that he finally made some progress. Asuma had taken pity on the boy and given him a different technique to learn. Naruto was still struggling with it, but far less so.

-Flashback!-

"Naruto, you need to eat something at least" Tenten attempted to reason with the panting boy in front of her. The rest of the class had given up trying to convince the legendarily stubborn blonde to join them, and instead were sat back enjoying the show of Naruto catapulting backwards with every attempt at the Futon: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough).

"I can do this!" Naruto snapped at Tenten, staring back at the trees in front of him that seemed to almost taunt him with their continued uprightness. For her part, Tenten just sighed and gave up, finally walking back to join the audience.

Breathing deep, Naruto tried to calm himself down. He didn't know why, but his chakra always got...wilder, the more worked up he got. It was one of the reasons he worked so hard to stay happy while he was younger, no matter how hard it was. The worse he felt, the more...unstable he felt. Back then, he thought he was sick. He cast a meaningful glance at his navel. 'Guess that was you though, huh furball?'

Forming his hand signs slowly, he allowed his chakra to flow along his coils, learning how it felt with every movement, every hand sign, every breath. readying himself, he funnelled his chakra through his hands to his palms, imagining it flowing forth like a raging torrent, unstoppable.

"Futon: Daitoppa!" he shouted, throwing his hands forwards as though throwing something off of him.

A howling wind exploded from his hands, ripping through the trees with incredible force, stripping branches from trees, even uprooting a few directly in front of him.

Spinning around, he flashed a massive grin and an eager peace sign to his classmates, immensely proud of his eventual success. Though he was internally quite disappointed at their lack of reaction, he reasoned that it did take a long time for him to get it right, people had probably stopped watching. How wrong he was.

The class sat, food halfway to mouths, eyes as wide as saucepans. Even Kakashi, eternally aloof as he was, raised an eyebrow. 'That was a lot of chakra in that attack. I'm surprised it held its form, though the Daitoppa is one of the few techniques that you can overload if you can control it. Only issue is, I wouldn't have thought Naruto could control it. Hm.'

Surprisingly, the first person to recover and run up to Naruto was Lee. "Yosh! Naruto-kun, that attack was truly incredible. The passion! The power! THE YOUTH!" he screamed, holding a triumphant fist to the sky, looking for all the world like it was his own achievement.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head bashfully. "Heh, it wasn't that great. Thanks bushy-brows."

"Actually Naruto, I would struggle myself to outdo that" Asuma commented offhandedly. "That jutsu is one of the ones you can overload, but to do it to that extent is not something a normal academy student would be able to do. I'm impressed." Asuma ruffled Naruto's hair proudly.

Naruto stared at the smiles in front of him, feeling himself try to avoid welling up. If this is what having friends, real friends felt like...he would keep his vow. No matter what.

"A survival exercise?" Sasuke queried, looking at the scroll he had just been thrown. "We've done these before. Is it not a bit basic?"

Kakashi chuckled, putting the rest of the class on edge. Kakashi laughing was never a good thing. "You'd think that, so did I. So I've...tweaked the parameters a bit."

Sasuke sighed as the class glared at him, though his Uchiha pride would not allow him to back down from any of them, he got their point. 'Ask a stupid question…'

Kakashi tossed another scroll to Naruto, waiting for him to unroll it and skim its contents. As he did, Naruto's eyes got wider, before he stared up at Kakashi. "Really sensei? This seems a bit much, even for you."

"Quit complaining and pick your teams. Unless you'd like me to pick them?" Kakashi threatened, causing Naruto and Sasuke to shake their heads rapidly. "Thought not. Pick."

Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other before sighing. Each holding out a hand, they struck a very bizarre pose. Backsides sticking out and wiggling, one fist clenched in the other hand, the class sighed whilst looking at them.

"Jan, Ken, Po!" Naruto and Sasuke chanted in unison.

"Ha!" Naruto yelled. "I always win at this! I pick first!"

Naruto placed a hand to his chin as he gazed at the lined up classmates, their faces ranging from hopeful to fearful.

"Lee!" Naruto called out, embracing with his friend that immediately launched into a bone-breaking hug with him.

"Yosh Naruto-kun! Thank you for picking me, I will not let you down!" Lee babbled happily, swinging Naruto around like a rapidly-turning-purple ragdoll.

"Shikamaru" Sasuke called boredly, his face perfectly matching his now teammate.

"Smart choice, pick the tactician. Sasuke's already thinking" Kurenai mused.

"Neji!"

"Naruto's going for power, that's fair enough."

"Tenten"

"There's a long-distance fighter for Sasuke, she'll be useful."

"Hinata!"

"Another close-range fighter for Naruto, he's got two people with very similar abilities in Neji and Hinata...not sure I would have picked both."

"Chōji"

"Powerful close-range fighter to compliment his long-distance teammate."

"Sakura-chan!"

"Heart over mind Naruto, really?"

"Ino"

"….Did Naruto really just let Sasuke have the Ino-Shika-Cho team?"

"Kiba!"

"Another close-range fighter? What's he doing?"

"Shino"

"Surprised Shino was picked last, he's stronger than a lot of his classmates. I suppose they just don't know him that well."

Kurenai paused in her commentary to look at her fellow senseis for the first time, noticing they were giving her some very funny looks. "What?"

"Where did you get the microphone and clothes?" Asuma asked, gesturing towards Kurenai's attire, which now looked much more like a sports commentator than the kunoichi that she was.

Ok, and that's a wrap! I'm not going to bother boring anyone with any more commentary than that, so I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you next time!