Oh my god, that's embarrassing. I accidentally replaced this chapter with the last chapter when I was making some edits to chapter seven. Ominous Enigma, I would love to give you a bit thanks because you are the worlds biggest life saver. That was really embarrassing, sorry about that and I hope that everybody enjoys chapter seven in all of it's 'glory'. But I also noticed that I put my personal theory up, the one that Naruto is two years older than everybody else in the Konoha 11 and people sunk into that like a pack of viscous wolves over the dead corpse of a deer.

Damn! I should say stuff like that again if I get that many reviews over a chapter. There was like five different people like "That's not true and here's why" all over that. But again, I apologize again for the lack of chapter seven and I probably ruined the first part of chapter eight for most people. This is going in the Top 10 Most Embarrassing things to every happen to me. Right under the time when I got pants on the playground in third grade (Yes that actually happened, my friend grabbed ahold of me when I was on the monkey bars and got my pants instead).

Let's not forget about the time I tripped on the stairs with a slushy in my hands and this was at school. Or how about... why am I telling you all this? You know if you could just forget those last few lines that would be nice. But I'm just kidding because anything I post on Fanfiction (about my personal life) I can tell my friends. Anyways sorry about the miss-hap with the last chapter and I hope that you enjoy this chapter. Also I know that the Uchiha Clan's Downfall, or the Uchiha massacre happened when Sasuke was in the Academy, I don't know exactly what year but I'm going to assume that it's his first year. If anybody want's to clarify which year he was in that would be wonderful. But to answer the question some people have been having, the answer is going to be yes Naruto is going to get involved with the Uchiha massacre. But it's going to happen next chapter. Maybe the chapter after that, but it's going to happen dammit!

Chapter Eight

And the Sands of Time Flow

It had been almost two years since Naruto had taken lil' Sasu under his wing and the boy was improving immensely. Seriously, lil' Sasu could keep up with Naruto for and hour and thirty minutes before he couldn't go any longer. But then again Naruto was ruthless with his shadow clones. He didn't even need to use his wires, his fighting style was brutal all on it's own because Sasuke found it impossible to counter with his own Interceptor Uchiha Style. Sasuke didn't have the Sharingan (Like Naruto did) and found it rather difficult to counter Naruto's unpredictable moves.

Naruto over the last two years had not been lazy either, he'd been mainly focused on his fuinjutsu and with almost twenty shadow clones working on it around the clock, Naruto had made some pretty heavy advancements. But sadly his level had remained static, but his relationship with Mikoto and Sayuri had not. Mikoto was the mother that Naruto never had, kind but she could be strict when she needed to and Sayuri was the sister he never had the best mix of caring and fun loving.

Lil' Sasu was the grumpy younger brother that he wanted but could do without, but Naruto was sure that secretly lil' Sasu adored him. That theory had yet to be proven but Naruto was absolutely sure that it was true.

"Punch harder! Are you trying to give me a massage? Because if this is the extent of what you can do then you might as well give up!" Naruto roared at Sasuke who only tried harder and harder to beat Naruto into a pulp, all of his attempts of course were failing. Naruto grinned as he grabbed Sasuke's wrist, flipped him up into the air and slammed him hard into the ground.

Naruto jumped back as Sasuke got up from the attack and again rushed at Naruto.

"Tsk tsk lil' Sasu if you expect my tactic to work on me then you've got another thing coming at you." Naruto smirked and Sasuke growled before throwing a wide right punch. Naruto returned the favor in kind with a brutal upper cut to the chin that clipped Sasuke, but it knocked him off balance. Naruto did a low spin kick and knocked Sasuke into the air before Naruto got up and caught him just before he hit the ground.

Hearing clapping behind them, both boys turned around to see Mikoto and Sayuri having a small picnic at the edge of the clearing and Naruto and Sasuke got up to go join them for lunch. Sitting down, Naruto thanked Mikoto as she passed him a pair of chopsticks and a cup of ramen that already had ramen noodles in it, half ready he just needed to wait another minute.

However Sasuke proceeded to dig into the tomatoes that he so loved, Sayuri dug into the sweets that she loved, Mikoto just sat back and watched as everybody ate. Sasuke over the years had lightened up around Naruto and things weren't as tense as they were that first night they ate dinner together. And on that night Naruto found that Sayuri would be going to the Academy with him, and they would spend the next four years in the Academy with her and whoever else was going to the Academy next year. He'd also found out that Itachi was Sasuke's older brother, and until he became Anbu he'd been the best brother that anybody could've had.

But when he got into Anbu, Sasuke's father had started looking at Sasuke and wondered why Sasuke wasn't a genius like his older brother. So trying to get his father's recognition Sasuke started training. Then Naruto came along and for two years they trained together, and Sasuke was becoming more like the bundle of joy that he used to be with Naruto slowly replacing Itachi as his older brother figure.

Naruto after his ramen finished, began digging in to it slurping down the noodles as fast as he possibly could. Sayuri and Sasuke stopped eating only to watch in horrid fascination as Naruto finished off the noodles and gave a great belch.

"Naruto one of these days you are going to choke and I'm going to laugh at you if you don't slow down when you eat. How can you know that ramen is so great when you don't even stop to taste your food?" Mikoto laughed a bit at Naruto who was suddenly left with no more lunch to eat while Sasuke and Sayuri finished their food.

"Okay Sayuri you are going to participate in a training exercise that only the most fit ninja's can take part in." Naruto's face suddenly got super serious and his tone indicated that he wasn't messing around. Naruto put his hand on Sasuke's shoulder and then yelled "You're it!" before running away.

It took Sasuke and Sayuri a few moments to realize what Naruto had done before they stood up and Sasuke started chasing Sayuri in an attempt to catch her and not be it. He knew that he had no chance of catching Naruto and there was little chance that he could catch Sayuri but he was willing to try. Sasuke and Sayuri both dashed towards the end of the clearing and headed into the woods in a game of tag.

While Mikoto and Naruto watched them go.

"You know that those are for Sayuri right?" Mikoto asked Naruto as he began chowing down on both hers and Sasuke's lunch. But Naruto didn't seem to care and it wasn't until after all the food was gone that he spoke up.

"Yeah it's for them, but they're not here and it would be a waste to just let food spoil out in the open like this. But anyways, would you like some help with packing all of this up?" Naruto smiled before he helped Mikoto pack up all of the dishes and the cloth before making sure she was set to head back to the small section of the village that was reserved for the Uchiha.

Naruto however stood in the middle of the training field, waiting for both Sasuke and Sayuri when they would burst into the clearing. He waited for three minutes before they dashed into the clearing, Sasuke still on Sayuri's tail. Both of the stopped and looked at Naruto before looking around for Mikoto.

"Where's mother?" Sasuke asked.

"She headed back to your home, however those sweets an tomatoes were absolutely delicious." Naruto smirked as he watched both of the Uchiha siblings rage at Naruto eating their lunch.

"That was our lunch!" Sayuri shouted at Naruto who simply shrugged before smirking, "It wasn't yours the moment you ran off in a game of tag."

Naruto was forced to dodge a hail of kunai from both Sayuri and Sasuke as they tried to get the person responsible for stealing the rest of their lunch and when they had run out of throw-able weapons, they both engaged in a round of taijutsu, two on one with Naruto kicking both of their butts. It wasn't funny how badly he was winning so Sasuke broke off of the taijutsu and jumped back to quickly collect the shuriken and kunai that littered the ground while his sister who was better at taijutsu than him tried to defend against Naruto's onslaught of attacks.

Naruto was then forced to dodge as the combination of both Sasuke and Sayuri started to make a come back. It was hard to fight a taijutsu battle at the same time that he was dodging kunai and shuriken. But Naruto remedied the problem when he caught a kunai and threw it back at Sasuke who let up the storm of flying objects for a second and gave Naruto the opportunity to put Sayuri down. then he worked Sasuke and he went down relatively fast.

"Now you see why me taking your lunch was inevitable. Bwa ha ha ha ha! You can't win I'm to powerful!" Naruto switched into his best villain voice and laughed at the two siblings who slowly got up and began laughing with Naruto before Sayuri launched a surprise punch at Naruto who easily caught the sloppy punch.

"Beware Captain Tomato and Sweets Girl, the School Yard Bully is here to liberate you of all your food!" Naruto laughed again, this time at the silly names he gave everybody on the spot before he twisted Sayuri's arm and somehow launched her into the air before catching her princess style and then letting her stand up on her feet.

Sayuri crossed her arms and gave Naruto the evilest glare that she could, Sasuke did the exact same thing and Naruto just smiled and laughed.

"I'm going to be visiting Aurora if you two want to come with me."

"Whose Aurora?" Sayuri stopped giving Naruto the evil glare and asked suddenly super curious.

"She's a fox kit that I found a few years ago and I handed to the Inuzuka's so that they could train her a bit seeing as she was a wild animal. I've been paying for her food and the few years of training that she's had so far. It's something like 1000 a week that they asked for. Come on if they're in a good mood you might get to pet some of the puppies!" Naruto shouted the words 'pet the puppies' over his shoulder as he turned and ran towards the Inuzuka estate and Sayuri despite before worn out a few moments before took off after Naruto, wanting to pet the puppies.

Poor Sasuke was left in the dust and then when he realized that he needed to catch up Sasuke took off towards his sister and his new older brother figure. When he caught up Naruto laughed, and apologized before giving the tired young boy a piggy back ride. Naruto and Sayuri took off at a light pace over the roof tops to avoid the street traffic and made their way towards the Inuzuka compound which was a fair distance from the training ground that they were using.

When they got there, Naruto put Sasuke down and knocked on the gates. They met with the guard and he was kind enough to let them into the compound and lead them to Tsume, who was the clan head.

"If it isn't my favorite brat!" Tsume greeted Naruto with a large smile, "And he brought more brats! That's a surprise."

"This is Sayuri and Sasuke. Sayuri came because I said the word puppies and lil' Sasu came because he didn't want to get left behind. Speaking of little people, how's lil'Kibi doing?"

Tsume chuckled at the name that Naruto had given Kiba, and his nickname for Akamaru was Aka'puppy, "The brat's fine, now come along Aurora's been excited for this visit for a while. Little thing's been the sweetest thing here at the compound but she's got a temper."

"How so?"

"If you piss her off, she turns into a buzz-saw of claws and teeth. Kiba and Akamaru learned that the hard way. Both of them are missing chunks of hair and they stay away from her kennel like it's the plague. Pretty funny if you ask me." Tsume laughed as she led the way to the kennels, she was the only one who had the key to Aurora's kennel.

"Oh by the way brat, payments over due brat. That's 1000 ryo due right now before I let you see the fox." Tsume smiled before turning around and sticking her hand out for the ryo that Naruto owed her. It was only a few seconds that the money was in her hand, with 500 extra.

"Sorry about that, I've been training lil' Sasu so my schedule's been pretty packed lately." Naruto smiled as Tsume turned back around and again led the way towards the kennel with Aurora in it.

When they got there, which wasn't long Tsume opened up the cage and Naruto was knocked over by the red fox that was half the size of the of Inuzuka adult dogs. Aurora had grown in the past few years that she'd been it the care of the Inuzuka and now she was long enough to lay on both of Naruto's shoulders and wrap her tail around his neck like a scarf.

"Hey Aurora, I missed you to!" Naruto lay on the ground while Aurora licked at his face. Finally getting Aurora off of him, Naruto held Aurora up before setting her down on the ground where she then proceeded to jump up onto Naruto's shoulder before licking him on the face once more.

"I'll tell you what, go take Aurora out for the day but bring her back before sunset. She needs more exercise anyways." Tsume said before turning towards Sayuri, "So you want to pet the puppies now?"

Naruto chuckled before slipping something into Sayuri's pocket and then he disappeared. Sayuri found that what Naruto had slipped into her pocket was almost 5000 ryo and a note that said, "give her the money". It was five minutes that Sayuri was then petting the puppies in the kennels.

XXX-Few hours later-XXX

Naruto was resting on top of the Hokage monument, petting Aurora's head as she slept on his lap. The breeze was soft, everything was nice. He would be getting into the Academy next year, as well as the Dragon egg that he'd gotten from his fight with Shax. That would be hatching next year and he hadn't really found anything on how to feed a dragon. He didn't know if it was going to hunt out the local population of food from around Konoha or if all the produce was going to be gone within the month. He didn't know if it ate anything at all.

Naruto looked at the sun, which was quickly hiding behind the horizon and decided that he needed to take Aurora back to the Inuzuka kennels. It had been fun rough-housing with her and then resting and relaxing on the monument but now it was time for the day of fun to end. Making a shadow clone Naruto had it gently take Aurora and then take her back to the Inuzuka's.

It was at this time that Naruto's shadow clones, the ones working one fuinjutsu dispelled and left Naruto with a slight headache and the knowledge of what they had discovered that day. It wasn't much, they'd figured out the problem he had to the largest storage seal. And with a few different symbols the clones had been able to make the largest storage seals to date.

It would be able to hold quite literally, metric tons. The best thing about the scroll was that it was the size of a regular sealing scroll, only a lot more complicated and when you looked at it, the entire thing appeared to be one giant black circle. That's how tiny his clones had gotten the seals down to, they were almost small enough that Naruto couldn't even tell there were seals there.

Naruto immediately hopped off of the monument to dash home, which was still Kakashi's apartment. Kakashi would be impressed by this, he knew that Naruto was into sealing and all that but he didn't know how advanced Naruto was in the sealing arts. He knew that Naruto could draw up basic explosive seals and basic storage seals but he didn't know that over the two years Naruto had been practicing he could make flash seals, smoke bomb seals, advanced explosive shrapnel seals and his personal favorite, paint bomb seals. He could also make basic chakra nullification seals, paralysis seals, and basic memory lapse seals.

All of which were self explanatory by the names of them and Naruto kept a few of them on hand just in those small cases that there were emergencies. He'd also remembered that he hadn't been using his menu and gamer ability for a while. He would need to get back into the swing of grinding and farming monsters when he got into the Academy seeing as the level limit would be raised from 30 to either 60 or a 100. He didn't remember but it was probably a good idea to check his Exp. pool.

The menu opened in front of Naruto and he scrolled down from the main menu to check his Exp. pool.

Current Exp. Pool- 50000

Naruto did the math and compared it to the way that he noticed the amount to level up grow and found that when the level cap was raised he would grow almost 7 levels which wouldn't get him that extra token that he really wanted but it would indeed give him a lot of growth but it wouldn't get him the token that he wanted. And he couldn't seem to get any achievements that would get him an extra token either.

Closing the menu, Naruto picked up his pace a bit and quickly got back to the apartment to find Kakashi sitting on the couch, relaxing.

"Hey Naruto, so how was your day?"

"Fine thanks for asking, hey stay right there I have something to show you!"

Kakashi raised his one visible eye, as Naruto ran into his bedroom and retrieved a scroll. When Naruto got back to the small living room, he opened the scroll and showed Kakashi the advanced sealing scroll. Kakashi's eyes widened, and for the few times in his life that he wasn't in battle the scarecrow lifted up his forehead protector and let the implanted sharingan shine forward.

"My god Naruto. Have you told the Hokage yet?"

"Nope."

"Then let's go."

Annnnnnnd cut. So how did you all like it? Again I apologize for the misplaced chapter and I apologize that this chapter didn't have much action in it either but it is showing you how some of the characters are doing a year before Naruto gets into the Academy. Up coming next chapter, The Uchiha Massacre. I will be skipping quite a few years and there is going to be a lot of information next chapter, but also a bit of action.

And I also apologize that this chapter is a bit late, holidays and family time will take away your time like that. Anyways I hoped you enjoyed the chapter and have a good day/night where ever you might be.