Ink Heart

by Foy the Snooze Button

People always thought that to be strong a person had to have bulging muscles or super speed, or almighty battle field levelling jutsu; some of the more naive people taught that to be strong one had to have someone or somewhere to love, someone they had to strive to protect. But all of that changed when Naruto entered the picture. Scientist!Naruto

2. Chapter 2

Yo!

Thank you all very much for your wicked awesome reviews :D

I kinda went out of control when I was writing this story; 'Jungle' by Nasty C (I DO NOT OWN) was blasting in my ears and my hands had a mind of their own… I regret nothing XD

CHAPTER 2

A person wearing all black ninja uniform, sans the usual flak jacket, ran through Konoha's forest. This person was Naruto and he was wearing his spy uniform, even his white fox ANBU mask, the boy was running at low jounin speed past konoha's borders.

Stealing the forbidden scroll and revealing a traitor had worked positively for him; the Sandaime, even though he was still highly suspicious of Naruto, had acknowledged that he wasn't to blame for what happened, Naruto may have been classified as a genius but there was still a lot about Konoha he wasn't aware of...or so he thought. He had been paid for a full A rank mission and Naruto had asked for the money to be paid to him in cash. Then Hiruzen had in-depthly quizzed the boy on how he was able to steal an S rank scroll from the most protected building in the village, Naruto was in no mood to reveal the real way he had infiltrated the building so he created a tall tale. He said he had charged head first and by passed the relaxed ANBU before he broke into the room. This revelation forced Naruto to be re-evaluated completely on his rank, he had found out that he had formerly been placed in team eight with Hinata Hyuuga and Shino Aburame but then with his prodigious show of skills in infiltration Hiruzen insisted that he be re-evaluated. He had a formal re-evaluation scheduled in a week, almost to the corresponding the day before the new genin were getting their teams but his re-evaluation was set a day before that; he was to report to the Hokage bright and early, spend the whole day being tested in both the written and physical aspects of his knowledge. Naruto agreed to this because if he was in a higher rank he would have a little more freedom, the downside though was that he would have to report to the Sandaime if he wished to do anything outside the village.

Now though he had asked Hiruzen for a week to get ready, allowing him free reign to go outside of Konoha, he even permitted the Sandaime to administer a tracking seal on him and for an ANBU squad to be checking in on him every once in a while.

The boy's goggles shone a faint red, escaping the eye holes in his mask, and he could clearly see the small traces of nature chakra in the air, no one was around for miles, besides the small ANBU squad that had been tailing him miles back, that is but nothing he should be too worried about. Naruto's goggles were special in a unique way, disregarding the fact that he could do a number of things with it, he could also see through any genjutsu even if he didn't mentally command it to do so, the downside was that if he went under a Henge his goggles would still be in place. The goggles would only disappear if Naruto lowered the genjutsu detection guards on his goggles, allowing the goggles to slip under his own illusion, though this left him open for manipulation through a genjutsu.

The fox mask wearing boy dashed out of the tree line and burst out of the borders of Konoha, making sure to stay at the very edge of Iwagakure. His planned destination was a country situated beside Mountain country, where it was said that Uchiha Madara had destroyed as training before he fought, and lost, against the Shodaime Hokage, Senju Hashirama. The place had been a cursed wasteland ever since with the soil barely producing any grass, the trees bending scarily and being a little on the malnourished side, though they refused to die, and the broken buildings had been overrun by animals. There were reported to be caves and an intricate cave system under that country and the right climate to house his spiders. His spiders didn't necessarily need vegetation to thrive; Queen had confided in him that she loved raw meat and blood. Animals summons didn't necessarily need food to survive in their own plane but it had become an unspoken tradition that they would only eat to prove that they were still alive. Naruto had replicated human blood; he called it synthetic mammalian blood, and had been producing and packing them in a corner of his laboratory until the spider summoning realm was created. Queen Spider had said that it didn't have the same lustre as real human blood but when there was no other option it would have to do.

Mountain country was not too far from Iwagakure but just within running distance of Konoha, so as Naruto spied the first mountain range as he left Iwagakure's borders he allowed himself to stop for a break in a tree. The boy lifted his mask and allowed it to rest at the top of his head while he rubbed his face, tired from all the running. He had been running since sunrise, which was about five hours ago, and he was seriously pushing the limits to his stamina. If he was to be ambushed he would have no other option than to reverse summon the Queen spider to fight for him. He allowed himself an hour to regroup, using it to check over his animal summons creation seal while he idly chomped on an energy bar, drinking some orange juice as well. Thirty minutes, and five energy bars later, and Naruto was rocketing to the cursed country.

He kept running headlong, all the while looking far ahead with his goggles until he abruptly stopped over black soil. The place was just how imagined it; rocks jutting out of the ground, craters that partially smoked from meteors that sometimes hit there exclusively, numerous cave mouths opened around and a thin, gently flowing stream passed into a particularly large cave from the ocean, where he assumed the network of caverns and pathways were, all of this still withstanding the fact that the temperature was just right, the weather was fantastic and the sparse vegetation was good. There were dilapidated buildings all around; some fully crumbled others barely even able to stay up. Just to be sure that the place was how he heard it was he summoned dozens of shadow clones to look around while he personally set up a barrier powerful enough to cover the country, which was just small enough for him to cover. A clone popped, informing him that there were small, feral badgers and jackals' that roamed far ahead, and another informed him that some lions had claimed a small cliff as their territory. He received memories from another clone that there was a small cave that inhabited blind birds. The budding scientist cancelled his clone jutsu, wincing from the backlash of memories he received; he raised an eyebrow when he saw a small beach made out of black sand. He next summoned more clones and ordered them to round up all of the animals into a single cave, knock them out and seal them into a scroll, insects and bugs were exceptions. As his clones left, the original Naruto took his time to draw the intricate infinity seal in where he assumed was the very centre of the cursed village, then he drew ten more at the edges, just inside the barrier. The barrier was to keep out any more birds or animals from entering while at the same time keep the squad of ANBU back, blocking what he was doing from their vision.

Three hours of tiring work and a clone ran to the original, handing him a scroll and telling him that all the animals were rounded up; the reason he had rounded up the animals was so that after he had scanned the cursed village he would hand them to the spiders to do whatever they deemed fit, for the animals that had managed to escape his clones it was only a matter of time before they too would be eaten.

Naruto smiled to himself at his work and finally made camp for the night near the infinity seal in the middle of the cursed village, making sure to set traps for any animal that wanted to attack him. Tomorrow would be when he would begin 'scanning and replicating' the cursed village.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

One week later

Konohagakure no Sato

Yugao Uzuki glared lightly at Naruto to intimidate him, who was almost even taller than her at just twelve years old, and said, "Uzumaki Naruto, my name is Uzuki Yugao. Do you know why you are here?" they were in room 42 of the academy; Naruto was sitting down on a chair and desk with a pen in his hand. The boy looked like he hadn't slept in days with the dark rings under his goggle protected eyes and how his skin was now almost a pallid white, he was still wearing his stealth ninja uniform but his silver senbon launchers were placed on the desk beside him. He was reclined in a relaxed position with his feet propped up on the desk and his fingers were laced together over his chest; when he didn't answer her question fast enough, she snapped, "Naruto!"

The boy snorted like he had just woken up and he yawned a little into his hand, "I'm here to be re-evaluated because I broke into the Hokage's tower and stole the forbidden scroll without anyone noticing," she motioned for him to go on, "I might be a better 'asset' for the village if I am given a higher rank by taking higher missions and making higher risks," she smirked at him, "did I miss anything?"

"Yes, your skills so far have been a well-kept secret by yourself since…" she read from a short file about Naruto, "since you were about eight. Your academy scores are astounding, much more than any average student, we wish to know just how skilled you are,"

"Then why wasn't Uchiha Itachi or Hatake Kakashi re-evaluated when they left the academy?"

Yugao skimmed through his academy results and replied, "we have been monitoring their own development since they were born, but you have had a habit of disappearing into your seal protected apartment after the academy dismisses, frequent attempts to break the seal have failed because you apparently put the locking seal inside your apartment, rather than outside, which is ingenious if you ask me. You haven't even been seen training or leaving your house to get food, hence this whole 're-evaluation'"

"You just admitted that the Hokage and possibly every single ninja in this village has been stalking me since I was I was eight," Naruto pointed out, a time he had already managed to gamble up enough money to hire a passable seal master to seal his house off, and learn how to make his own seal.

Yugao shrugged, "as you may know your status as jinchuriki makes you very important, and quite frankly your seclusion makes you a flight risk,"

"Your honesty is well appreciated," Naruto drawled, "now about this test…"

The ANBU captain nodded idly and flipped through Naruto's file and turned around to the teacher's desk, picked up a very thick spiral binder book, dropped it on Naruto's desk with a smirk on her face, "there are a hundred multiple choice questions, and ten theoretical questions; a hundred and ten in total that vary in complexity, length and difficulty…you are to answer all. Multiple choice questions are to be answered with a 2B pencil, the theory part is with a pen. You have four hours to do this, take your time, good luck and your time starts now," she whipped out a stop watch and clicked the top, just as four ANBU guards flipped into the class through the window and stationed themselves at the very corners of the class, "oh, and no cheating, there are eyes everywhere, not just mine,"

Naruto sighed mournfully and dropped his pen, shook both of his hands to get them ready before he opened the first page and pursed his lips. All of the questions were incredibly technical, so technical that he had to actually read through it, once, before he answered them. Naruto wouldn't brag that he knew everything you had to know about being a ninja but he would admit that with the years of observations Ashitori had recorded, personal observations he had made of ninja and the psychological experiments he had conducted on some civilian children and adults, most of this before he had learnt the shadow clone techniques at six, he was fairly sure that he knew more than most jounin. The boy coughed into his fist quietly and licked his lips, he had answered ten questions already, all ten were 'simple' calculations he could make without a calculator so he didn't call for one. He sniffed and rubbed his nose, then his eyes before he answered the fiftieth question, something about the right dose of poison to give a 200 pound lion from mountain country to effectively sedate it for three hours. He rolled his neck and then rolled his right wrist to get feeling back there after he finished the eightieth question, a supposed genin level question about Madara Uchiha's brother. As he finished the multiple question section with a sigh of relief he vaguely noticed that two hours had already been elapsed. He looked up at his supervisor, who was staring at him with her head propped up in her hands, and spared her a quick smile just as he dug into the theoretical section.

Naruto wanted to laugh out loud but he restrained it to a tight deep breathe; five of the questions had to do with animals and a little bit of fuinjutsu, barely even scraping level three of mastery, while four were on general history, going a little bit deeper than what was taught in the academy. Naruto had no intention of holding back any of his knowledge but he also didn't supply any more than necessary, 'no use in show boating,' he thought to himself. He surmised that the written test was created just for him to give them an all-round knowledge of what he had acquired in seven years, with or without his shadow clones. Naruto wasn't selfish with what he knew, quite the opposite actually, it was just that he was overly cautious with whom he shared it with, and the entire Konoha shinobi force as well as the civilian populace were in his list of those to never trust. He paused a little on the last question, it was fairly easy to answer and it was written in short, easy to understand words but he hesitated before he finally answered the question.

'Who do you think your parents are?'

This little question had him stuck, not because he didn't know his parents, he did, but he was debating on the effects of revealing it in the long run; Iwagakure was still baying for Namikaze blood and Kumogakure was still baying for Uzumaki sperm, it was inevitable that his status would reach their ears if a spy got his hand his answer sheets. To answer the tenth question he put a code within a riddle; the general run down was: who lead in a flash and who soaks red with demons blood? It wasn't his best riddle but it was what his tired brain could come up with without revealing everything. He dropped his pen and rubbed his eyes, "I'm done,"

The ANBU captain smirked and checked her stop watch, "three hours, ten minutes and six seconds. I'm impressed," Naruto shrugged and stifled a small yawn, "you will be given a thirty minute bathroom break and after that you will go to training ground three for your physical evaluation by another instructor. Again, I wish you good luck,"

"Thank you, Uzuki-san,"

"Please…call me Yugao,"

Naruto sent a thumb up and yawned again, this time a little louder and slinked out of the classroom straight to the bathroom to relieve himself. He splashed some water on his face and perched his goggles on his forehead, revealing his red fox-like eyes that blinked back at him. His pupils quivered and dilated as they struggled to adjust to the light in the well-lit bathroom, as the first signs of a migraine started he quickly place his black goggles back on his eyes and rolled his shoulders. He took his time to walk to training ground, idly drinking a fruit juice from a can (pineapple and orange juice), something he kept in large stashes in storage seals on his wrist. He crumbled the can and threw it over his shoulder. He was ten minutes early so he used the small opening for a quick nap, he flipped dexterously onto a branch and reclined, he was out faster than he thought and just as his senses blared seven minutes later he whipped an oozing poisoned senbon from out of nowhere, and held it over Hatake Kakashi's nose. The silent standoff was tense before the jounin chuckled nervously and motioned for the boy to calm down,

"I didn't mean to frighten you, Naruto," he eye smiled and fell off the tree, masterfully getting his feet under him like it was nothing and walking off to the centre of the training ground where Might Gai stood waiting for them,

"I wasn't frightened," Naruto grunted as he dropped off the branch and landed smoothly on his feet,

"Sure you weren't," Kakashi rolled his eye, "do you want to explain to him what's going to happen, Gai, or should I?" as Gai was about to open his mouth to holler out something most likely concerning 'youth' the copy ninja spoke up first, "you know what? Don't worry about it, I'll tell him," Gai laughed loudly and again was about to say something else but Kakashi jumped in just in time, "we are going to give you three tests; one on genjutsu, taijutsu and all at the same time, including ninjutsu. You ready?"

"Sure," Naruto asked as his goggles glinted red, "genjutsu don't work on me," he slapped away the masked man's hand when he went to reach for his goggles, "don't touch,"

"Naruto! You really are a youthfully youthful youth!"

"Umm…"

"Don't mind him. Now for your taijutsu test, Gai, if you don't mind,"

"This must be my cue,"

Naruto's eyes widened and he hastily used his palms to push down on Might Gai's knee when the spandex wearing man blazed to him, he grunted and ducked under a roundhouse kick, rolled back from the subsequent axe kick and had to used his silver senbon launchers to hold off a wicked kick sent to him by the green beast. He was harshly pushed back by the blow until his back almost met a tree at the very edge of the training ground; a wide, excited grin came to his lips as his wide eyes stayed on Gai.

"That was…amazing," he muttered and Kyuubi rolled his eyes, this was the Uzumaki battle lust beginning to show itself, just like with Kushina. He just hoped that Naruto didn't break both of his arms and tear the muscles in both of his calves like when Kushina's battle lust first reared out its head. The Uzumaki battle lust was a trait in all Uzumaki clan members, whether they were less than a quarter Uzumaki; it could be well controlled or even restrained but the rush gotten in a good, hard fight could not really be replaced, unless Naruto just had be a small fraction of the Uzumaki populace that were also nymphomaniacs. The great beast shook his head on this though, he knew Naruto, and he wasn't even remotely attracted to the female body, yet any way, even if he had studied the female anatomy in perfect detail.

The two jounin quirked their eyebrows at Naruto's almost even maniacal expression and so they didn't expect Naruto to crouch on the ground in a wide, tiger-like stance. He lunged forward and skittered to Gai on his feet; the Strong style user leaned away from a strike to his head and mentally nodded in respect to the perfectly hidden clawed strike to his stomach. Naruto spun on his feet and swung his leg at the taller man, Gai used his forearm to hold off the attack and went to strike, the blow connected but Naruto had already leaned back, so the blow only lightly pushed his chest. They held that position for half a second before Gai opened his palm for a palm strike, Naruto bent under the blow and threw his right fist at the mans unprotected stomach…

Silence reigned as the blow connected; Naruto didn't remain still to revel in his victory though, he was forced to dodge a knee to his chin with his palms again. He did this numerous times while at the same to time he kept on sliding back, each knee kept getting stronger until Naruto abruptly stopped and smoothly flowed around Gai. The taijutsu master expertly anticipated this and he sent a devastating donkey kick to Naruto chin. The boy grit his teeth as the blow met and his neck snapped upwards, blood sprayed from his mouth. He fell backwards like a tree and remained still,

Gai winced, "I might have overdone it, eh Kakashi," he walked forward and put his pointer and middle fingers on Naruto's neck to check for a pulse, he began to panic when he didn't find one so he put his ear over the boys mouth to see if he could feel the boy's breath, Kakashi too furrowed his eyebrows in worry and began to approach until Naruto's eyes snapped open and he wrapped his legs around Gai's neck. The big jounin reared back in shock and began to run in circles as Naruto began smashing his now chakra enhanced elbow down on the man's head. Gai ran head first into a tree but Naruto had scampered out of the way so the older man face planted into the tree. The elbows never stopped raining and blood began pouring from the man's head, his steps began to get uncertain, he swayed from one side to the other all the while Naruto relentlessly continued his assault, even adding in a few axe blows. Gai wobbled on his knees and his face turned purple when Naruto wrapped his elbow around the man's neck in a sturdy sleeper hold, his legs then summarily locked around his midsection, ever ready to unlock and move out of the way if Gai tried to slam him into a tree.

The boy knew, despite his hazy battle lust, that he couldn't dream of matching up to Gai in a straight up taijutsu fight, even if the man was going easy on him. Quite frankly it was suicidal to think that. His best bet was to play possum, adding to the effect by stopping his own heart for just a few seconds so that Gai would get even closer. He shook his arm, still around Gai's neck, and Gai responded by clawing at the boys forearms desperately, fighting for each breathe that just wasn't coming in any more. Gai instinctively knew that he wouldn't be able to open any gates for two reasons, the first was that the Hokage had specifically told him to go at high chunin strength and then even if he was to try entering the gates he wouldn't be able to; Naruto had somehow found out that if his mind was not focused on one thing he wouldn't be able to open even one gate, the strikes to his head had made him a scatter brain and the choke hold wasn't helping either.

The man drunkenly wobbled around again, he fell on a knee and Naruto violently shook his neck with his blood painted teeth grit in what could be described as ruthlessness. The shake pushed out more air out of Gai's lungs and his vision began to dim, there was a terrible burning sensation in his chest, he suddenly became incredibly thirsty and a full minute of struggling for breathe he fell on his other knee, using his weak arms to prop himself up and with another constrictor like shake of his arm the man fell face first into the ground. Naruto kept the hold on for about twenty more seconds before he cautiously released his grip from the unconscious man's neck. There trail of blood leaving his mouth, probably because of the jounin strength donkey kick he had received, that blow would have done him through if he had not followed the motion and exponentially reduced the force of the blow, it was all about the right timing. Naruto panted a little as he straightened up, idly dusting his stealth ninja uniform and spitting out some blood in a random direction. His eyes trailed to a very impressed Kakashi, who had been watching the taijutsu spar with interest,

"Nice trick," the copy ninja said, "not everyone can stop their heart, get a jump on Gai and knock him out,"

Naruto shook his right elbow, the same one he wrapped around Gai's neck, and muffled a sigh of relief when blood returned to its original flow there, "it's an acquired talent,"

"So you say. I never said you couldn't use weapons or even jutsu,"

"You said the tests in an order and started with genjutsu, Gai-san was the one that came at me, a taijutsu master, instead of you, an all-round master. Hence, taijutsu test," both of them were now circling each other, gauging one another with critical eyes, Kakashi now knew that he couldn't take Naruto lightly; he really didn't want it getting out that he had succumbed to a sleeper hold, Asuma would never let him hear the end of it. Known to both shinobi there were shinobi filling up around the training ground to watch what they hoped was an old school beating, a few chunin had even pulled Gai away and were trying to revive him.

"That's very perceptive. Now's the last test, no restrictions, but don't worry kid, I'll go easy on you," he eye smiled jovially before he blurred at Naruto,

"That would be your mistake, Kakashi-san,"

Naruto rolled aside from a downward punch that almost even shattered the ground and jumped over a swing from a kunai that had slid into the copy ninja hand. The airborne boy snapped his right leg forward and Kakashi leaned away, the sandaled foot wafted in front of his face and even clipped a few silver hairs away from his forehead. The boy landed on one foot with his hands planted on the ground and flipped his body over, Kakashi crossed his arm to hold off the awkward looking stomp, throwing his arms out and pushing Naruto away. The boy flipped back to both of his feet and held up a fist full of senbon, with a sharp gesture they were thrown at his older opponent, he powered through a few hand seals, "Multiple shadow senbon technique," the jounin was forced to dive away from the barrage and run away from the dozens more that tried to pepper him with holes. He caught Naruto going through more hand seals, "Shadow senbon rain technique," he threw his hands to the sky, ten senbon flying high into the sky afterwards, Kakashi felt a foreboding feeling begin to churn in his gut and he was proven correct when a fluffy blue cloud started spitting out poison needle after poison needle.

The man yanked out two kunai and spun them in their rings to deflect each senbon expertly, he grunted in discomfort when he felt something stab clean through his side and out the other side, just before he exploded into smoke.

'Shadow clone,' Naruto thought and his senses blared madly in his mind, he cancelled his former jutsu and jumped up just in time to prevent Kakashi from grabbing his feet. The copy ninja looked on as Naruto fired a senbon out of senbon launchers, the man crumbled to clumps of earth when they met. Naruto lightly landed on his feet; Kakashi was hiding again. He carefully looked around, making sure to spread out his senses, he then lifted his right leg when a dog tried to bite into his calf, he didn't even need to look before he fired a senbon to knock out the dog. His senses were telling him that Kakashi was sitting on a tree branch and he was proven right after he threw a barrage of shuriken there. The copy ninja dropped from the tree and rolled to Naruto, his own kunai held in a reverse grip. Both of them clashed, kunai on senbon, when they met in the middle; the older, stronger man pushed Naruto back and threw his weapon at the boy, the boy deflected the knife with his long needle but grunted when a fist was planted into his chest. The blow pushed him back but the copy ninja continued his onslaught; the drilling blows got faster and faster until Naruto's back met a tree. Kakashi pulled his hand back and let a devastating punch smash into Naruto's unprotected cheek, blood exploded out of the boy's mouth and his head lolled to the side. Kakashi stepped back to admire what he had done, fully expecting Naruto to at least fall on his knees but he was sorely disappointed; the boy was swaying on his feet, his hair shadowing his face ominously and his chest heaving in deep breathes.

The audience waited with bated breathes for Naruto to pass out but the boy chuckled lowly, blood and spit leaking from the sides of his mouth, "I've felt worse…from my clones…Dog-san," he spit defiantly at Kakashi, and a well-timed snap kick met his other cheek. He exploded into chakra smoke on contact.

"He switched when I kicked him, why didn't he switch when I was punching him?" his eye looked around lazily until his pointer and middle finger snapped up and caught a blow dart just before it met his nose, "blow darts? Really?" he snorted and just then the dart exploded into purple smoke; the masked ninja inhaled everything. The effect was immediate; the man's body locked up, making him stand and fall straight like a tree, and blood exploded out of his nose, his tightly clenched teeth and his ears. Naruto limped out of the forest, supporting his right ribs and rubbing his bruised cheek. He glared at Kakashi venomously, relishing in the blood that kept spurting out of his nose,

He knelt down beside the wide eyed man and whispered, "venom gotten from a 'Devils spinster spider' is basically useless, you can use it to bath and nothing would happen to you, making most think that what is there isn't venom at all. What most don't know is that when you mix this venom with something as ordinary as water before it is ingested it would create a cascade of problems to a person or even an animal," he poked the masked man's forehead, the man winced but couldn't unclamp his teeth to get any word out, "full body paralysis, your kidneys are shutting down and your lungs are collapsing, you are feeling an intense pain in your gut and in about sixty seconds you're going to drown in your own blood," Naruto nodded solemnly, "the pain you are in now…just flicking your ear would be like…like hitting your toes with a mallet," a sly, twisted smirk spread on Naruto's face after he said this, but he shook his head at the frantic pleas Kakashi was saying through his eye, "I thought all shinobi weren't meant to fear death," though he still jammed a needle filled with blue liquid into Kakashi's chest, the antidote spread through the man's body and he sighed in relief, "I'm not sure Hokage-sama would like it if I killed one of his most prized jounin," he leaned in close and whispered even more quietly, "yet…"

Kakashi sat up and began vomiting the blood from his lungs when he finally got feeling into his arms and legs. He was gulping in air desperately. Naruto watched all of this with an amused smile on his face,

"I take it I passed this test…?"

"Kami damn it, kid," Kakashi said after he spat out some blood, "what was that all about?"

"You said I shouldn't hold back, I didn't," Naruto got up once he felt his ribs were stable enough, already making plans to fix himself up in his lab,

"Report to Hokage-sama's office at noon tomorrow for your results,"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Naruto carefully sat down in front of the village leader inside the Kage's office; he pulled down his hoodie and reclined in his chair. Under his red hoodie he was wearing his pure black stealth ninja uniform.

Hiruzen Sarutobi scowled lightly and rubbed his face with his palm, "before I tell you you're results I want to tell you the process we used to mark it, to show that we didn't change any scores or tamper with your results," the entire village may not like Konoha, Sarutobi wasn't above including himself, but the fact still remained that Naruto was treated as close to any other person in the village, jinchuriki status or not. This meant that his academy results were not changed, he wasn't chased out of the class for any outlandish reason and he was given the same treatment as any other student.

Naruto nodded and got a little more comfortable in his seat, "your test was marked by ten top grading ANBU operatives, then by Uzuki Yugao and finally by me. Your physical test was graded by Gai, Kakashi, Yugao, Shikaku Nara and also me,"

"Ok…so how did I do?" Naruto said as he again relaxed in his offered seat,

Here Sarutobi had to light a pipe and smoke it for a minute, to calm him down, he then reached to the lone file on his desk and flipped it open to the first page, "in your multiple choice questions you got ninety eight correct and that was only because you changed your mind twice,"

"Hai, ninja must always be decisive, there are no second chances in the field,"

Hiruzen nodded in agreement, "right. Your theory part was…it was simply…it was amazing. An average jounin wouldn't know who the progenitor of ninjutsu (not ninshu) is, not to talk of even explaining how the human chakra network works,"

"I read a lot of things,"

"No matter, you got top marks there too. Can you tell me just where you get your information from?"

"The library,"

"You are a ninja of Konoha-"

"-And I shouldn't withhold information from my superior in rank. I have just told you where I got the information in your test; the library," pretty much everything the test asked could be found in the library if you dug deep enough,

"Fine…your physical aspect was astounding, Naruto," Hiruzen flipped to the last page and spread a few pictures on his desk of Naruto playing dead, putting Gai into a sleeper hold, poisoning Kakashi, giving Kakashi the antidote, whispering a few things to Kakashi, among many more things that happened that day, "despite the fact that you are less experienced in taijutsu than both jounin you were able to keep a level head, plan ahead and add in a little deception. I honestly didn't know gases could enter a blow dart," Naruto didn't answer, he chose to stare outside the window at the noon sun, "four of your examiners have said that you were jounin material,"

Naruto blinked and furrowed his eyebrows, "really?"

"Yes, really. You seem surprised,"

"I am, I would have at least thought they'd recommend me to be a chunin,"

"You were able to outsmart two of my best jounin, even though they were holding a lot back and the written test you took was the standard jounin exam; we just added fifty more questions. I have also thought of awarding you jounin as well-"

"Really?" Naruto asked in bewilderment, "from genin to jounin, that's a big jump. People will start asking questions,"

"That is why I have come up with an idea. Another few tests,"

Naruto stifled a groan and closed his eyes, "more tests…"

Hiruzen glared at the boy, "allow me to finish. I personally think you're ready for the promotion but others may think otherwise, so I will give a rank I call 'trail jounin' until your next tests are completed,"

"Trail jounin?"

"Yes, a jounin but under the rank of tokubetsu jounin, but higher than chunin commander," so that meant, technically speaking, that Naruto was already a jounin, trail jounin, until he was done with the tests.

"I'm not completely sure what you're saying, I can't handle a team and leadership is a core trait in a jounin right?"

"No, it isn't. Making critical, wise decisions under pressure is a core trait in a jounin,"

"…Ok…now why am I not given tokubetsu jounin?"

"Because you are going to perform three highly ranked missions to prove your worth, if you pass those I will award you with tokubetsu jounin, after that if you impress me enough and build up your mission quota then I'll consider promoting you to full jounin. You would not believe the headache your flash promotion is giving me,"

The Hokage had the option of not promoting Naruto at all, but the fact still remained that he would unbalance any team he would be placed in. If he was still on Kureanai's team he would beat her easily because genjutsu didn't affect him with his goggles on, he had shown the ability of outsmarting Kakashi and Gai, what says he wouldn't do it again? Making him a chunin would also be problematic; every chunin was placed in a team and all had shown that they could work with each other; it could not get any more obvious that Naruto was a lone wolf when it would have to come to missions. The boy had shown maturity far higher than one his age was supposed to have, this was a good thing but a bad thing because it would make him impatient and short tempered if his team mates, genin or chunin, didn't reach his level. Add in the fact that Naruto showed virtually nothing based on his skills he couldn't have guessed on his own.

"Each mission is a solo mission," Naruto sighed in relief and rubbed under his eyes, "but since you're a trail jounin you will be supervised by a squad of my best ANBU, they will not interfere unless your life is in danger,"

"Fine by me,"

The Sandaime then pulled a drawer open and pulled out an unmarked file from inside, he slid the file on his desk to Naruto and the boy sat up, caught the file and flicked it open, "your first mission is to travel to the edge of fire country and rescue the Fire daimyos six year old daughter from her kidnappers. Yesterday a band of bandits led by a single B rank ninja ambushed the girls travelling carriage on her way to Sunagakure to visit her pen pal, the Sand daimyos six year old daughter,"

Naruto hummed in thought, "weren't there fire guardians with her?"

"No,"

"Do you know why?" Hiruzen shrugged, "this exciting mission aside…are you sure the daimyo would approve you sending a twelve year old 'trail jounin' to rescue his only child,"

"What he doesn't know won't kill him. Besides, I'm sending an ANBU squad with you as back up; we already have a contingency plan if anything goes bad,"

"Has a ransom been sent?"

"Not yet, quite frankly I'm not sure the daimyo himself knows his daughter has been kidnapped,"

Naruto masterfully pieced together what the Hokage was saying, "his daughter was under our protection when she was kidnapped," Hiruzen hesitated before he nodded, "low ranked chunin to guard the fire lords own child? That's gonna get you in some hot shit," when the Sandaime was about to retort but Naruto quickly raised his hands for the older man to calm down, "hey, hey, hey that's just my opinion, I accept this mission,"

"Good, you leave right now,"

Naruto shrugged off his hoodie and slipped it into a back pack he wore under his hoodie. As he walked out of the front door of the Kage's tower he took off to the gate.

The bandits that had kidnapped the young member of the royal family had taken residence in a run-down pillow factory at the very edge of fire country. Naruto crouched inside a thick shrub, his goggles sticking out a little from the bush. He motioned his ANBU supervisors to get down,

"Two guards on the roof holding crossbows, fifty paces forward is the building but no cover," he muttered to himself,

"Need some help kid?" a tiger mask wearing whispered,

Naruto furrowed his eyebrows as he looked around, then back to the two guards, "no, I've got an idea," Tenzo stepped back and watched as Naruto pulled out a senbon from his pocket and wrapped a one-way switch seal on it, the boy took a deep breathe and quick as a flash he threw the senbon accurately at a guard while at the same time he fired a senbon from its launcher; both needles nailed the guards on their foreheads, he crossed his forearms and muttered, "Switch," a small plume of smoke later and Naruto touched down on the roof, in his former location was the dead bandit.

"Impressive, it wasn't my idea but effective enough," Tenzo said and Cat signed for them to follow after him.

With Naruto, the boy allowed two long senbon to stick out of their launchers, reaching about six inches out of their silver launchers. He wasn't wearing his mask so he touched his goggles and it shone a faint orange, just as he dove head first into the roof door. He made sure to run at his stealth limit, high chunin; his senses as well as his eyes told him that the apparent leader was in the foreman's office while there were three guards situated in front of the door; the other bandits were guarding the back of the building in slow rotations. The thing about bandits was that they were either failed ninja or ninja wannabe civilians, they weren't this organised; the B rank ninja that led them must have been a good leader. The problem for the leader laid in the fact that he didn't have that many bandits to lead in the first place,

Naruto looked around the corner carefully and latched onto the ceiling, he quietly skittered behind the bandits and when they were about to look up he threw a kunai in a random direction. The weapon clanked on the wooden ground and the guards swarmed at it, Naruto though carefully levelled his launchers but refrained from using them; he opted to throwing three oozing needles and when they hit their necks' began to corrode. The rundown pillow factory had been abandoned about ten years ago for reasons he didn't wish to find out and it was located in a thick forest, this meant that light didn't really go in. He carefully pushed open the door to the office and skittered inside, barely even making a sound.

He spied the six year old quivering royalty staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes while the apparent leader was relieving himself in the bathroom. He slowly put his fingers on his lips, telling her to keep quiet and he sighed lightly in relief when she frantically nodded while putting her hands over her mouth. He also told her to close her eyes by putting both of his hands over eyes, a moment of indecision reached her when she remembered that her hands were over her mouth but it was solved when she strongly pursed her lips and covered her eyes with her hands. Naruto steeled his eyes and hung over the bathroom door,

Idle whistling escaped as the man left the bathroom, the man paused at the door when he saw the six year old, still shaking in fear, with her hands over her eyes and her mouth pursed tightly, "what're you doin' kid?" he said in a gruff voice but the girl frantically shook her head, "I can sense you too, whoever you are,"

"No use hiding then," Naruto dropped from the ceiling on the man but he was abruptly grabbed by his throat, on contact he burst into smoke, in his place was a single explosive seal tag that latched strongly on the man's arm. It exploded half a second later but instead of fire what came out was green, lethal smoke; the man inhaled it all. Naruto, wearing a gas mask under his goggle protected eyes, gently fixed another smaller gas mask onto the girls face. The girl was looking up at him with bright stars sparkling in her eyes, masterfully ignoring the violent hacking coughs her captor was making. Naruto beamed at her,

"Are you ok?"

The girl hesitated for a moment, "a-are you my knight in shining armour?" her voice had an adorably childish squeakiness to it,

Naruto raised an amused eyebrow, turning his head so he could watch as the B rank ninja stumbled around the office, blood spurting out of his nose, ears, mouth and eyes, "…in a way…"

"Yay!" the celebration was muffled by her gas mask; she immediately hugged Naruto's midsection; he hurriedly refrained from violently reacting to the contact, he never liked being touched without his permission…

The blonde boy patted her head, "get on my back and hold on tight," he could just feel the amusement his ANBU supervisors were looking at him with. The girl buried her head into his neck, again not looking at the bloody sight of her captor. The man he had poisoned was now slumping off a wall; his breathing was shallow and irregular. As Naruto left the room he looked back for one brief moment, his poison had worked like a charm; it was not spider poison he used rather it was a cross between herbicide and centipede poison, making the combination immediately explode into gas once combined. Naruto had sucked the gas into a storage scroll once that happened. It was similar to what he had done to Kakashi in the sense that the dart he threw had a thin wire that separated the mixtures inside until it finally burnt through when Kakashi jolted it as he caught it. Though in this case the mixtures were unsealed simultaneously in their liquid forms and due to this they combined, the larger either of the liquids were the more toxic.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Your next mission is to capture Eritajijo, a rogue Konoha ninja who had been sending information to Grass country, I don't know to who or even why,"

"How was he caught?" Naruto asked as he skimmed the file,

"We managed to decipher a coded message that was sent to him by an unknown person from Grass, we found it on his desk,"

"To clarify, he's an average chunin that used to work as your secretary,"

"Correct,"

"How long do you suspect he has been a spy?"

"Not too long, he hasn't left the village in years but the one time he left for a mission he begins acting suspiciously,"

"This was…two days ago, when I was taking my tests,"

"Yes, I don't think he has sent anything of value yet but we have to get him to confirm,"

"He should be alive, not unwounded, am I correct?"

"He should at least be able to speak coherently; I don't care if you cut his arms off, just leave his mind intact,"

Naruto snapped the file closed, "I accept,"

"Good, my trackers say he's running through the desert to Sunagakure, if you run fast enough you'll catch up,"

Eritajijo didn't seem too happy it was a twelve year old Konoha had sent to retrieve him. Naruto didn't need to be stealthy so he ran at his fastest, mid to high jounins speed, to catch up with the chunin missing ninja that had wanted to seek sanctuary in Sunagakure; that wasn't the smartest of ideas because with Suna allied to Konoha, missing ninja from either village couldn't seek sanctuary in the other and if so they were obligated to hand these nuke nin to their villages.

Naruto had a camo red scarf wrapped around his mouth and nose to prevent harsh sand from entering his lungs. Eritajijo looked incredibly tired; he was running blindly through a sand storm with the crook of his elbow covering his nose for protection. To pass by the man Naruto applied a burst of chakra to his legs; the sand storm subsided a little, allowing the chunin to open his eyes and look at Naruto. A visible twitch came to his eyebrows,

"Pardon me but this is a formality; Eritajijo, by order of the Hokage you are to return to Konoha and face punishment for your crimes. Come peacefully or I will have no option but to use force," Naruto droned like he was reading from a book,

"They sent a kid!? And it's the Kyuubi brat too!"

"Are you coming peacefully or not?" the answer was obvious but he wanted Eritajijo to say it himself,

"Hell no, I'd rather cut you up into little pieces and feed you to the desert snakes,"

Naruto hummed and secured his scarf a little tighter around his nose, two forearm long senbon slide out of his launchers and locked in place. The boy positioned one arm pointing down, the long senbon was touching the sand and the other was arched over his head like a pincer,

"At least give me a challenge," the chunin snorted as he ran at Naruto and sent over a brutal upper cut. Naruto leaned away from the blow, his legs firmly locked in place, and the long senbon that was pointing to the sand slashed upwards at the man's flak jacket protected stomach, creating a thin, bubbling path through it. The chunin missing ninja pushed away from the brutal blow but this allowed Naruto to bring down the overhead pincer on his opponent, carving a bubbling line through his chunin flak jacket diagonally, and passing through his first stomach slash. Eritajijo hissed in pain and swung his leg in a roundhouse kick but Naruto used both of his long senbon to block the blow, grabbing the offending leg and twisting it harshly. The result was the leg snapping with a spine tingling crack; he refused to let go of the leg, bringing the older man down face first into the ground and poking his long senbon into his opponent's neck. Eritajijo struggled on the ground for a minute before he abruptly fell asleep,

"That was much easier than I thought," Naruto murmured and hefted the unconscious ninja onto his shoulder, beginning his return run back to Konoha,

"He underestimated you, Naruto," Yugao said as his ANBU supervisors joined him, possibly out of nowhere,

"It was his mistake," Mantis said from Naruto's right, "its every ninjas' mistake to underestimate his opponent,"

"Hai, but you did a great job, you didn't even move your feet," Tiger said, "what did you call that style again,"

"Four legged spider style," Naruto puffed out,

"Why only four legs, spiders have eight," Yugao asked,

"It's a work in progress,"

The shadow legged spider style was an invention of Naruto he had gotten when he had observed a 'Swamp rat spider' hunt a rat he had let into his enclosure like container. His style made use of obvious attacks and defences but well hidden counter-attacks. It made primary use of extra-long senbon coming from his launchers but when he had to face off against Mizuki he used his pointer and middle finger to replace them. So far though his most powerful form was the four legged shadow spider; standing with his feet shoulder length apart and bending down at the ready, his right arm hooking over his head and pointing to his opponent like a pincer while his left pointed down to the ground, serving as his defence-counter strike arm or 'leg'. The style emphasizes staying on the ground unless it couldn't be helped and raw, deceptive power with a vast knowledge of poisons. Plans on how to manifest more 'legs' for his taijutsu style were already underway; he just needed a few more confirmation tests.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"How did I do?"

"Stellar performance, Cat reported that you didn't waste any movement or do any 'flashy' jutsu," Hiruzen admitted as he organised his desk, ready to call it a night. Naruto had made a new record for himself by completing two A rank missions in two days. The boy had stopped by his office just after he dropped Eritajijo with the T&I department,

"No jutsu was needed in the mission,"

"That fact notwithstanding you should be proud of what you have done. Your supervisors speak highly of you; Shikaku even wants you to enter the ANBU,"

Naruto shook his head, "I would prefer it if I was a regular jounin, I still have a lot to learn,"

The Hokage pursed his lips but nodded, "here is pay for both missions," he handed Naruto a sealed scroll filled with his payment, "before I forget…my advisors have seen promise in you, one of them wishes to personally train you,"

"I believe I reached where I am without much help, with all due respect I'll be fine on my own,"

"My student, Jiraiya, also wants to train you. He wants you to be his apprentice; he will give you the toad signing contract as well as teach you how to use the Kyuubi's chakra,"

"Is this the same student that writes porn and peeps on women in his free time?"

A large sweat drop formed on Hiruzen's forehead, "I see your point. So that's a no, even to the toad summoning contract," Naruto nodded, "since your declining I might as well tell you that he is your godfather,"

"So the legendary toad sage is my godfather, I have to say he's doing a horrible job at it,"

"He gave you those goggles didn't he…?"

"No, my godmother did,"

Hiruzen paled and he gaped, "Orochimara?"

"Hai, she's actually really good with seals,"

"Have you…spoken with her before?"

"No,"

"Good, you have to stay away from her; she's nothing but trouble,"

"I'm now legally an adult, Hokage-sama; with all due respect I can make my own decisions,"

The old Hokage clenched his fists on his desk and glared at the young boy, "I'm ordering you as your Hokage,"

"You're ordering me not to associate with my own godmother but you want me to associate with my godfather, whom you both trained. Can I ask why?"

"Orochimara is nothing but trouble; the heinous experiments she committed have soiled her name in this village,"

"She loved my father like her own brother,"

"Minato was a man with the largest heart in the world, he saw the good in everything and everyone, she manipulated him for most of his life but Jiriaya saved him from further manipulation,"

Naruto nodded slowly and refrained from rolling his eyes, he didn't believe one word the Sandaime was saying, "The fact remains; I'm not training under your advisor or Jiraiya. If I was still a genin I wouldn't have an option but since I'm not…"

"Fine, how are you going to train with the Kyuubi's chakra?"

"I have my ways," Naruto replied shortly, "now about my last mission…"

"Your last mission will be the one of the most importance; we have found out that there is an underground slave trade empire in fire country," he handed Naruto a slightly heavy file, stocked filled with pictures of slaves an unidentified informant had discreetly taken, Naruto read through it carefully,

"Do you know the identity of this informant?"

"Of course I do, he is a 'rouge' Inuzuka named Ringo,"

"So his status as a missing ninja is a cover to get into this empire,"

"Yes, he has reported that he is now a driver in this slave trade empire,"

"For how long…?"

"A year now, but I was only made aware of this last week. The empire has been operating in the shadows and we only found out because we found a tag the back of a girls hand; it's in your mission specs,"

Naruto looked at the tag that was apparently given to every slave in the slave ring; it was a square with a needle and a chain passing through it. Naruto suspected that a tracking seal was administered under the seal, the file he read told him that submission of the slaves was done the old fashioned way; by whipping, torturing and defiling them. It might have not been savoury for most to look at but Naruto was not considered most people. He didn't support unnecessary confrontation or violence but he did support doing things for an end, and what the salve masters were doing was mostly for profit. The file included a detailed diagram of the complex the slaves were housed as well as the underground network they were transported through, the location of every black market that bought these slaves, either their body parts or their whole bodies, with an added list of their main buyers. Two prominent names stuck out; Gato from Gato Shipping Company, the owner and controller of the elemental nation's third top transport company and number one water transport company. Naruto didn't need to be told that the short, fat man didn't only transport food and clothing from one place to another, a man of his stature must have started off with peddling drugs. Naruto was a hundred per cent sure that one of his many smuggling contacts currently outside of Konoha made use of the Gato shipping company, or any of the other shipping companies, to bring an exotic animal close to Konoha's borders, where it was picked up by a contact inside Konoha that posed as a food or even textile merchant. The animals were heavily sedated so they wouldn't move around the cart to draw ANBU attention. The merchants he used were well known and well respected members of the public; it was funny to think that even the Hokage wasn't aware of the depth corruption that was buried in Konoha.

The second name that stuck out was Kitsugami Gumo from Kitsugami Drug Company. A drug company that had only surfaced two years ago but was already paving the path towards becoming an empire. Barely anything was known about Kitsugami himself except that he always wore a wide brimmed hat and pinstriped suit. A vague picture was taken of him shaking hands with a popular crime lord named Torune Abumi. It was in a dimly lit restaurant where it was most likely passed midnight. The file said that Kitsugami surfaced the same day his business did but so far a clear picture of him was never taken and his movements were never truly confirmed. Naruto smirked to himself when he saw another picture of Kitsugami Gumo; the man was sitting in the top stands of an underground wrestling ring, whispering something into the ear of a fat man that sat beside him; the man was in the middle of laughing wholeheartedly at what Kitsugami had said. The next picture was of all the rich delegations watching the wrestling, laughing at the joke Kitsugami had said. The information on Kitsugami was so thin; they were in the dark on how rich he was, how he got his drugs, who was under his employ and so many other things. Quite frankly the fact that his name was even on the list was subject to question. The last confirmed picture was when Kitsugami was entering a butchers shop; this was the vaguest of all the pictures, seeing as it was very grainy and brown scaled. The picture had the man looking at the camera man from the corner of his eyes; his coal black pupils only glinted slightly, knowingly. Naruto would have to be sure he was more careful next time…

"So you want me to tear it down…can I ask why I'm not given a team?"

"You have admitted with your own mouth that you cannot lead, so you are going to have to make do with your clones if you want,"

"But my supervisors will still be coming with me?" Naruto said with a faint mocking undertone in his voice,

"Yes, merely to look over it all,"

"I've got a good grasp of this mission but I have to ask…what is my specific objective in this mission?"

"I want the leader of this slavery ring contained and every other underling there dead if it can't be helped. The…victims…safety should be your top priority,"

"So I somehow have to gain entrance into this place, bring it down and escape with the leader and about…" he skimmed his file with his lips pursed, "four hundred and sixty three slaves and four heavily pregnant teenagers. A structure protected by many highly ranked missing shinobi. Am I missing anything?"

"No, that's pretty much it," Sarutobi said with a sharp smirk,

"So basically you're sending me on a suicide mission," Naruto said as he leaned back in his chair with his right leg crossed on his left knee, he was still idly reading the mission folder, "without any backup and with conditions that might very well kill me under the effort,"

"Pretty much, yes. Do you accept?"

Naruto hesitated, ways he could break into the slavery ring running through his mind and those ones came easily but how to break out with all those lives he was apparently responsible for…

It wouldn't be easy, not by a long shot, but nothing ever stopped him.

Nothing.

"I accept," the boy knew what the Hokage was getting at; so far he hadn't shown all that much skill-wise, so this almost impossible mission would force more of his secrets out into the light, and when it got too much for him his supervisors would tactfully step in and take over the mission. 'You sneaky oldfart,' He matched the old Hokage's smirk with his own and stood up, "is there a time limit?"

"Oh no, take your time," Sarutobi waved, "just get the job done, lives are on the line,"

"You are gambling the lives of people…just so you can know what I know, so you can know what I can do," Naruto stated with a twisted smirk, he began walking out of the office,

"I hate secrets, especially when it comes to you, child,"

Naruto paused and said over his shoulder, "you might not like what I know, old man, and I will succeed in this mission, just wait and see," he marched out of the office,

"Oh we'll see…we'll see…" the Sandaime muttered,

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The budding child scientist sped out of the gates at high speed, his supervisors unfailingly falling behind him, now made up of three platoons' of ANBU operatives, watching his every move. Naruto looked over his shoulder and sent a two fingered salute to his superiors, he then leaped into a tree and began tree hopping to where his mission specs had said the slave ring was located.

The slave ring had taken the underground fact quite literally; there was a single opening in a mountain guarded by half a dozen burly Waterfall missing ninja, probably B rank. He covered his goggles so the guards wouldn't see them tint orange then back to black, he couldn't suppress the small glow for now. His night vision allowed him to see how the front gate was set up; it was a humbly built out of solid stone and wood, with decorative iron support pillars at sides. There were two main gates, one that allowed people in and one that allowed people, and by people he meant the slavers that carted new slaves that were fully restrained and contained in large vehicles that, after zooming in on one, were powered by a few unhealthy looking male slaves turning a pedal-like rotor so the apparent driver could give the vehicle a direction. His vision only allowed him to see different shades of green so he couldn't note the colours but what he was able to see was enough for him. Sadly though, since there was no other light on in the twin gates, all the guards were wearing night vision goggles too.

He pursed his lips tightly and counted the guards manning the two main gates; fourteen guards, seven in each and most were probably sensors, this was proved when one of the shinobi manning the 'in' gate placed his hand on a vehicle and waved for it to continue inside. It was a good thing that touch sensors or even full sensors were relatively rare in the elemental nations and that those that were patient enough to train to get this ability were even rarer. So far there were four touch sensors, three in the 'in' gate and one in the other and none of them had touched the ground; probably not for long though.

The map in his mission specs said that passed the gates was an opening in a mountain where the vehicle would travel downwards to an underground network where the slaves can be distributed to black markets, the security inside was top quality but there was no fuinjutsu he should have to worry about. As another large vehicle rumbled towards the gate he got an idea on how he would be able to get in.

"Naruto-san?" he heard a soft whisper behind him but he didn't turn to acknowledge the person, he just turned his head a little to the side and hummed,

"Yes?" his plan wasn't dependant on the time but he would rather get the mission over with; he could basically feel the pity the platoons' of ANBU had for him as they hid in the shadows, ready for any action. It was Yugao, the cat mask wearing captain that had whispered for his attention, making Naruto realize that he had been observing the gate for thirty minutes. The ANBU captain slipped to his side stealthily and looked at him through her mask coolly,

"Your mother, Kushina Uzumaki, was my sensei, my senpai and my captain,"

Naruto still hadn't turned to look at her; there was a slight downward twitch in the side of his lips, "what are you trying to tell me, Yugao-san?"

"I'm saying that I'm rooting for you,"

"Much appreciated," Naruto didn't need luck, he needed everything in his repertoire, he was merely humouring the purple haired woman,

He also didn't need the pity the ANBU were giving him, but he shrugged them off. Most expected him to create an army of clones and bum rush the base but he surprised them by creating only one. He handed the clone a thick roll of paper and said,

"You know the plan?"

"Hai, boss," the clone whispered and ran head first towards the gates.

The alarm sirens blared as the guards caught sight of the clone.

There was a major security flaw that the Konoha missing ninja had unknowingly written in the mission specs. The leader of the slave ring believed that all the security he ever needed was meant for the only gates to the base, so if there was ever to be an attempt to break in more than ninety seven per cent of the shinobi were to focus on containing the breach, leaving the leader to be guarded by his top guard, a female sixteen year old samurai simply called Aoki-chan. A bit of overkill but it was Naruto's gap, and he took this gap like a pro. The gates and the entrance to the slave ring was sealed shut with steel gates as thick as Naruto's arms.

Naruto's clone made sure to change the direction he was running at to the forest to his far right, where he guessed a waterfall was located. The shinobi and konouchi under this mysterious leader poured after him relentlessly, armed with ever possible weapon imaginable. It was like watching a man trying to outrun a tsunami, except this man was using his flexibility to dodge any attempt to grab him until he and his chasers were far into the forest. This was what happened if you leave security in the hands of a cocky, overconfident and proud civilian.

The clone quickly stopped when he reached a small cliff and jumped over the edge, the shinobi followed after him. He stopped his run to the waterfall when he saw shinobi standing there, he looked back and more shinobi behind him; the ninja began to surround him and slowly move in, the weapons at the ready to either subdue him or cut him to pieces. They readied their weapons though when the clone unsealed two small pills; one green the other one brown. He tossed both into his mouth and bit down strongly. Toxic green chakra strings exploded out of his pores and any attempt at cutting them failed since they were sticky to the touch. The strings wrapped around the ninja and drew them to the clone, who brought out the roll of paper he had initially unsealed the pills from. As the ninja were about two feet from him he channelled chakra into the roll.

A giant plume of green smoke covered all.

Visible, thick veins began etching on the now free shinobi, seeing as the clone had un-summoned itself, and white foam dribbled out of their mouth. They held their throats and hacked, then a switch went off in their heads, like an almighty switch that only kami had the authority to touch, and they snapped upright as one and blood burst from their ears and noses like geysers. They died not more than a second later. The ANBU shinobi that watched over this happening couldn't help but be a little impressed at what Naruto's clone had done without question or hesitation. The plan was to take the shinobi force in the slave ring as far away as possible from their base and kill them all at once with a poison mixture that had been locked into an explosive tag seal matrix, which was now referred to as 'explosive poison'. It didn't leave any survivors since he had used more than a dozen rolls of the explosive poison.

The original Naruto took this massive gap to blur to the gate, he wasted no time to whip out a purple liquid oozing senbon and cut it through the metal grates blocking the entrance to the slave ring; even though it required him used five senbon he succeeded in hacking through. Behind the grated metal wall was a wide tunnel where the vehicles lugged people to and from the very centre. This was the time he created dozens of clones to his side,

"Find the people and guide them here, I'll handle the leader,"

"Hai, boss!" the clones said as one, even throwing in sharp salutes before they disappeared to the central location of the slave ring.

Long senbon sharply came out of Naruto's launchers and clicked in place, the boy ran with high jounin speed through the darkness and when he sensed light he deactivated his night vision, choosing to switch to seeing chakra networks. The main slavery ring was a place where hundreds of cages were stored, filled with people that huddled together for warmth. Naruto spied his clones coaxing them out of their cages and following after a few other clones that were marching to the exit. The original Naruto ran above the cages on a thick electrical wire that supplied electricity to the leader's office, the passage way the large vehicles used to transport slaves and the gates. Naruto stopped on the floor the leaders office was. The door opened and out stepped a woman in a red and white school girl style mini-skirt that had a penguin tail that reached the back of her knees, showing off sleek legs that were tucked into white knee-high socks and equally white trainers. She also had on a white school girl's button up shirt that was tied at her mid-riff, exposing her chiselled and well-tanned abdomen. The woman had short shoulder length black hair and a lollipop in her mouth; in her right hand she held a black sheath with a peculiar looking katana inside. The handle was red and white with wind designs over it.

Aoki-chan used her free hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and eyed Naruto, her amusement was almost palpable, "you lost, little boy?" she cooed and puckered her ruby red lips which still happily sucked on her lollipop. Naruto didn't answer her; he got into his four legged spider position and lowered his centre of gravity a little, "what's wrong, cat got your tongue? Don't worry, this same reaction happens with the help,"

"This can go in either way; you allow me to get your leader and take him back to my village or I go through you and do it anyway,"

The teen gave a short laugh, "bigger men, and women, have tried, none have succeeded,"

"You haven't fought me before," Naruto replied,

"Your too cute, makes me wanna pinch your cute little cheeks," she cooed again to get a rise out of the boy but the boy merely blinked,

"Just standing here I have come up with a seven ways to defeat you,"

"I like your confidence, kid, but it won't help you," she flicked her black sheath off her sword to reveal the glinting silver blade,

"If you knew me, Aoki-san, you'd know that I don't like failing, so I don't fail,"

It was Naruto that charged first. He ran at the girl with his pincer-senbon clattering on the ground before he used his right hand to stab at her, she clanged her blade against his super long needle effortlessly and brought up her knee to jam into Naruto's stomach, the boy allowed the blow to connect and used the contact to attempt to slice her leg with his other pincer. It failed; she pulled her leg away and sent a spinning kick at the boy. Naruto raised both of his forearms to block and sent a kick of his own, though he quickly pulled his leg away and sent his other, perfectly feinted by his first leg. She raised her shin to block his leg and pushed the boy away using her katana, running back at him. The fight was filled with bright sparks, it unknowingly led them both far away from the office and off the edge; they fell onto a cage and continued their kenjutsu fight. Naruto was barely even able to defend her precise and sometimes even lax attacks, so he chose not to fight her in her comfort zone anymore; he jumped back twice on the massive cage and when he landed he flipped through a few hand seals,

"Water release: Twisted serpents," he spat out a long, deep blue column of water at the woman, the jutsu spun within itself to form multiple snakes with drill like mouths. The snakes dropped from Naruto's mouth and slithered to her, the teenage girl slashed a section off the iron cage and hurled it at Naruto, the boy shot two senbon at the large projectile and the ninja wire with spider chemical properties stuck to it solidly, the boy spun around and hurled it back at her. The woman slashed the returned iron projectile apart and leaped over the snakes, dashing to Naruto. The boy ran at her and made a crucial decision as he did so.

Aoki's katana cut clean through his stomach and exited his back, blood dribbled out of his nose slowly and he began to slowly slump against her. She ruffled his hair, still effortlessly holding him up in the air, and said, "you won't get a next time to get better, kid," the teenage girl might have been young for her age but she was already a respected samurai in her own right, this respect though was wiped off by her fellow samurai in iron country when she had gone rogue, after killing the Iron country leader's brother in a dual to the death. Naruto was high chunin at best when he used his pincers to fight.

"Don't need one," Naruto said lowly, in a hushed voice. A twisted smile slowly spread on his face, still lowered and blocked by his hair,

"What'cha say?" the sixteen year old girl said and leaned in a little,

"I said…" Naruto began, his smile now a full blown grin, there was a low rumble in his chest, "poisonous smog," his head snapped up and he breathed out a plume of smoke over her and him,

The girl pulled away abruptly, unsheathing her katana from inside Naruto, and unconsciously took in a gulp of toxic air into her system, "you little…" she began as her lungs began shutting down and her heart beat began to slow down, her katana clattered on the ground, "you…tricked…me…" the plume of gas was still shrouding them,

"I've been known to do that, yes," Naruto said as he swallowed a pill that reduced the pain her legendary sword had put him in, "and I also told you I don't fail," the teen was now trying, and failing, to muster up the energy to move forward but her whole body remained unresponsive, she then fell forward, "I specially made this poison mix when I want to take home a prisoner back home alive," she was flat on her face and fading fast until Naruto pricked her cheek with his foot, a small senbon stuck out of the toe briefly before it slid back in, "you should be happy you have gotten my interest, quite frankly no one else has done that. You will make a great bodyguard,"

"I…will…never…" she said in a weak voice, now the pain she was in was like she was being strangled, no air was getting into her lungs but air was leaving with each desperate pant,

"Your honour demands it,"

"My honour…died the day I killed…Nifune,"

"Then we can settle on you dying on the floor like a common street thug while I walk past you and capture your leader," a smaller puff of smoke within the thick plume of smoke came and another Naruto ran to the leaders office, "scratch that, my clone can retrieve him while I watch you die here like a dog,"

The thick smoke was settling and Naruto took his time to sit on the ground with his legs crossed, watching her with rapt interest, even removing a notepad from his back pack and writing down whatever he saw her trying to do. He poked her head with his pen and she stirred up a little, her eyes hooded and tired, she whined quietly and whispered, "I don't wanna die…"

"Then you agree to come and work for me?" he could sense the more inquisitive black ops members moving towards the smoke that had obscured their vision, "I'll even pay you if that's what you want, your skills with your blade are very impressive,"

"Money later…I want to live," she said breathily,

He smirked at her reply, "you have your priorities straight, good," he pricked her neck again but this time with a syringe filled with a multi-coloured liquid. She sighed in relief as her lungs allowed passage of air through but the thick smoke around them prevented her from being fully healed, or even allowing her to move her body. He sealed her and her sword into a storage seal before he unsealed a few white bones and scattered them on the ground. "Take cover!" he dropped a low powered explosive tag and leaped out of the smoke. The explosion wasn't large but it shook the foundations of the ground.

The blonde scientist didn't acknowledge the other ANBU operatives that were staring at him in shock; he merely dusted off his stealth uniform and marched off to where his clones were keeping the freed slaves contained.

His mission was complete, now he had other things to worry about.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A month later

Ubari Mioto shakily slid the keys to his door into the lock and with a sloppy turn of his wrist he unlocked the door, he shouldered it open and the first smell that hit him was the gentle aroma of freshly baked cinnamon buns. His stomach rumbled hungrily, which wasn't a surprised since he had only been drinking through the night. In his drunken daze he didn't even remember that it was unusual for a person to bake well past midnight, or that his family was not meant to be back from their holiday in Tea country.

He followed his nose and licked his lips, pushing aside the single curtain that served as the door to the dining area. The place was bathed in darkness besides the head of the table where he saw a pair of hands idly tap the table, a ruby red ring on the persons left pinkie and a sky blue ring on his right middle finger, the lamp on the dining table illuminated the persons hands, his chin, his purple pinstripe suit and showed that he had a wide brimmed black hat on his head that cast a long shadow down to his mouth. Mioto sniffed a little and squinted to get a better look at this person until the door to the kitchen was pushed open and a black haired woman entered with a pan filled with cinnamon buns in her hand. Aoki-chan was now clad in a more modest long sleeved flowing white kimono that was cut at her calves to show long red stockings, a crimson red sash around her waist and tight black shorts, her katana was leaning on the table besides the suit wearing man. The sixteen year old A rank female samurai smiled gently at the man and placed the baked rolls in front of him,

"Thank you, Aoki-chan,"

"My pleasure, Kitsugami-sama," the woman bowed and retrieved her katana, holding it in her iron grasp as she stood at attention behind the man that was apparently named Kitsugami, holding the handle of the lethally sharp blade in her right and ready to draw at a moment's notice,

Mioto swayed on his feet drunkenly and leaned on the wall, "who you?" he slurred,

The mysterious man reached forward and took a roll, making sure to deeply inhale its luscious scent before taking a small bite of it with his white serrated teeth.

"Take a seat, Mioto-san," he offered and when the man remained defiant he made a small gesture over his shoulder to Aoki-chan, the girl marched over to the man and shoved the man into a chair, "give him some of you wonderful rolls too, Aoki-chan," his voice had a deep maturity to it that was very intimidating mostly to those that weren't aware of who he was,

"Yes sir, thank you sir," the girl said bowing deeply in appreciation and rushing off to the kitchen to give the man some of her baked rolls. She gently dropped a plate in front of him,

"Your too kind, I'm starved," the man said as he basically inhaled the scorching hot rolls without even having the decency to blow on them, Aoki-chan though remained by his side with her hand gripping the handle of her katana,

Kitsugami grunted and tapped his fingers on the table to shake some sugar particles off, he had already eaten two and he was ready to begin, "do you remember who I am, Mioto-san?"

The man grumbled as he jammed a roll into his mouth, "I don't know…the mail man…?" he joked,

Kitsugami apparently didn't find the humour in what he said, "I'm the guy you owe half a million ryu to," Kitsugami said sharply as he slammed his hands on the table,

This seemed to snap the man out of his semi-drunken daze; the colour drained from his face and he attempted to leap out of his seat but Aoki-chan grabbed his shoulder with her right hand and pushed back into his seat firmly, displaying strength that clearly didn't show on her body,

"I swear, Kitsugami-sama, I'll-I'll have your money in a week-"

"That's what you told me last week, and the week before that, and the week before that…"

"I swear I can get the money this time…" the man blubbered, "I-I-I just need more time,"

"Do you think I'm a fool, Mioto-san," the man said as he bit into a cinnamon roll, he snapped his fingers and the girl rushed back into the kitchen and brought a cup of pineapple juice back with her, "thank you," he took a small sip and dropped the cup back on the table, Aoki-chan bowed again and returned to Mioto's side, "can you tell me, Mioto-san, the secret behind a successful business?" The man shook under Aoki-chan's harsh glare and shook his head, "I run a multi-million ryu drug company, inching towards being a multi-billion ryu drug empire, and I have customers all over the elemental nations, from Rock country to Frigid country, from Lightning country to Tea country. From shady dealers to legal buyers. And this was after I began wide spread supplying two years ago; do you want to know how I got so high up there so quick?" the formerly drunken man lowered his head and nodded, "my products are all top quality, I have friends and connections in konoha's criminal underworld, I give incentive to regular customers that buy from me and lastly," he brought his clenched fist down on the table again, "I always close my deals. We," he motioned to himself and at Mioto, "made a deal but you continually refuse to close it," he motioned for Aoki-chan and she stuck her katana sheath into her red sash, she then unsealed a thick book from her wrist,

"You purchased six hundred pounds of Indian hemp from boss and agreed that you would pay it all…a month ago," she said in a soft, hypnotic voice. She snapped the book closed and sealed it back into her wrist, glaring daggers at Mioto when he didn't answer, rather closing his eyes and staring at his cold cinnamon rolls,

"Well? Why haven't I gotten my money?" Kitsugami demanded, "You are the only person that owes me money this month and I hate that," here Aoki-chan bared her teeth in a feral grin, the man winced and tried to inch away from her but she shoved him back into his seat,

"I…I just ran into a rough patch recently-"

"Do you love your family, Mioto-san?" Kitsugami asked as he impatiently tapped the table,

Mioto's head snapped up and he looked horrified, "more than anything,"

"I hear Tea country's mountain lodges are good this year…" the millionaire man trailed off ominously, it was obvious this rich man knew where Mioto's family was having their vacation,

"You leave my family alone!" the man snarled and stood up abruptly but he was again shoved down by Aoki-chan, the girl snorted and shook her head,

"Are you presuming…" Kitsugami said as he stood up smoothly, walking to the man on the opposite side of the table, "you can make any demands," he put both of his hands on Mioto's shoulders, "to me,"

The man lowered his head again, "I...I'm sorry,"

"Ha, you're not sorry, not yet," he stabbed a needle into Mioto's shoulder and injected a thick, green liquid into the man's system. Kitsugami used both of his hands to clamp Mioto's mouth shut when it opened to scream in pain. There was no visible sign that he was in turmoil but inside him his organs were cooking in the heat, before it subsided two minutes after it started, "I cooked this up myself. Venom from a desert duster mixed carefully with venom from a devils spinster and left in the cool, night air for a whole night. I call it my chill pill," he chuckled at his own small joke,

Mioto was sweating buckets after the poison had briefly subsided, the needle was still jammed into his shoulder and when he attempted to take it out he was viciously slapped across the face by Aoki-chan; he whimpered and small drops of tears fell from his eyes.

"I really want to kill you, Mioto-san, but I also really want my money," he pushed a little of the venom into the man and watched in twisted satisfaction as a muffled scream blasted out of Mioto's lungs, "I need a date Mioto-san, give me a date,"

"Pl-please-"

The suit wearing man squeezed some more venom in, "that's not what I want to hear," the hair on the Mioto's head began to fall off in small clumps,

"Th-th-three days," Mioto said with a shaky, weak voice, "ple-please gimme thre-three days,"

"And if I you don't give me my money then…?"

"Kill me…but please…leave my family out of this,"

"I've got a better idea; if you fail me I'll just use your family as my new test subjects. It's a win-win for me, don't you think, Aoki-chan?"

The girl grinned and bowed her head, "Hai, Kitsugami-sama,"

"Three days," Kitsugami said with finality and left through the front door with Aoki-chan protectively flanking him from behind.

As he and his bodyguard stepped into a shadowy alleyway he took off his wide brimmed hat and ran his fingers through his blonde hair.

His Henge'd black eyes glowed at Aoki-chan, "wasn't that fun, Aoki-chan?"

The girl genuinely nodded, "Hai, it was, Naruto-sama,"

There were a lot of things that could happen in eight years if the first two years were ignored by authorities. Starting up operations that Ashitori Roshimaru had stopped was very easy, painfully easy and this time the quality of his products also increased. With the increase in customers there was an increase in contacts, and with that came an increase in profit that was fully given back to Naruto in crisp notes sealed into small squares of paper stashed into briefcases he was storing in a room in his warehouse. The boy had gone from passing samples of his products under the table to the drug lords he was gambling with to using the drug samples to gamble, then when the drug lords had gotten a taste of his illegal products there had been a massive demand for it. At that point Naruto began producing legal, hospital grade drugs for hospitals and clinics if they too demanded for it. He now had small pockets of storehouses all over Fire country, Mountain country, Tea country and Snow country that sold his products in big shipments to buyers, access to these warehouses was restricted to only those that knew the password-of-the-week. The buildings were shrouded in six B rank illusions and only permitted a person that had the password ONLY after the first try. This only limited legal buys to going through Naruto's drug lord contacts that sent underlings to buy the products and sell it to the hospitals or clinics. It was all a well-connected network based on secrecy.

He had hundreds of people that worked under him in these warehouses; these warehouses supplied his drugs to smaller pockets of customers who also sold these to even smaller pockets of people. Naruto was sure that just an hour ago he had made another thousand ryu in sales. His business was constantly expanding and evolving, always one step ahead of government officials because, quite frankly, he had loyal customers in the government of each country. His shipments always began with a dozen and a half massive storage scrolls filled to the very brim with a variety of drugs, legal and illegal, organized perfectly based on who gets what and what goes where, and that large scroll was sealed into a smaller scroll he sealed into his left palm; this was made even easier with his shadow clones keeping up production. He had a single body switch seal placed in the back of a clothes shop, Ochichi's deluxe fashion line, where he was already in his Kitsugami disguise. He would then walk to a brothel where at the very back popular people in the underworld were usually found making and breaking deals. It was a place where violence was punished by banishment and killing was punished with death. The brothel was the focal point of Konoha's criminal underworld and without this focal point great underworld dealers were like sheep away from their flock; the legal authorities would swarm on them faster than they could say 'oof'. Gaining the trust of the dealers was not a problem; Naruto always had a way with words and an even greater flair for acting.

Most weren't aware that the criminal underworld could be so methodical, organized or even professional in their dealing; Naruto had a first-hand view of just how thorough they could be when they wanted to. This was just like his picture and his real name, Uzumaki Naruto, was the main contact point for any messages that wanted to get to Kitsugami. Whether it was his money or secret messages that must reach Kitsugami; the Hokage didn't know his connection to Kitsugami but even still he would have to be even more careful. It was a reason he didn't have a bank account to store his stacks and stacks of ryu notes; he was never sure when he would be caught and would be forced to run, but he would be prepared for that day. Uzumaki Naruto, in the criminal underworld, was regarded as Kitsugami Gumo's chief advisor, head of day-to-day activities in Kitsugami Drug Company and surrogate brother to the drug magnate. Though this fact was only made aware to two people; the head matron of the brothel the meetings were held and to an employee that he gave regular supplies to so that they would be shared among his warehouses, and who he in turn collected hefty amounts of money from the warehouse branches. If either died the secret would be passed on to another trusted member of the criminal underworld.

From there his growing drug empire expanded, making the boy the richest drug producer in the entire elemental nations.

It was a shame that the slave ring he had busted a month ago was destroyed; they were good customers for his products, not the only ones but good enough. Their destruction didn't slow down his production or even delayed the salary for his loyal workers, not even in the least.

The Konoha criminal underworld was built on centuries of tradition, blood and sacrifice. Every criminal act from pickpocketing and genocide had head monitors that regulated them, so as not to bring attention to the underworld. Admission in and out this society was very easy but gaining enough trust and reliability to be given the red ring of a Konoha baron was not easy. Naruto, as Kitsugami, had to spread his weight around and show the other barons that his products were much higher than legitimate. Trust came when he had used his limited connections to bail out the crime lord from the Uchiha police detainment after he had been accused of murdering a civilian family in cold blood; the crime lord was framed. The meeting place, or headquarters, for these Konoha barons, which Naruto was a member, was in the brothel located in a seedy section of the red light district. There was no leader among the barons but everyone was equal and with the same power as the other; being a baron was the highest post given to those that the underworld could rely on without question and did things for the other barons that would get his or her name into circulation. In the brothel arguments were only verbal, if any, but the moment it became physical the person would be indefinitely suspended from the brothel, like a wolf cast from his pack. Most of the normal members of the underworld didn't know that the prostitutes that served there were also highly trained assassins that were commanded by the head matron until it was too late. Their job was to keep all the members of the organisation in check; they also acted as Hit men (or better yet Hit women) to those that requested their services.

Konoha's criminal underworld didn't have a specific location but it had been acknowledged that each section of criminal activity had a meeting place and a head of the section (head of these sections were called 'monitors'), these heads usually met up with other heads to discuss matters. Konoha's underworld was deeply rooted in the elemental nations, so much so that it was connected to every other underworld in the elemental nations; even the ones in Iwagakure and Kumogakure. Meetings with barons from these different places happened every three months, usually in an underwater cave near Waterfall village; Naruto merely sent a highly powered shadow clone to attend for him. These meetings were what helped him in setting up more shops all over and increased his clientele. For any experimental drug he received he was given free rein to test them out on test human subjects these barons produced. He was careful to not bring any human test subject to his laboratory unless it couldn't be helped. There were five barons in Konoha, eight in Iwa, three in Kumo, none since the war in Iwa and four from Suna. Twenty in total.

Naruto and his loyal bodyguard slipped into the backroom of the clothes shop and he switched first, then Aoki-chan followed after quickly. They then switched into his laboratory to begin work on a new project he was working on.

Authors note

Well there you have it.

How am I doing so far? Please review.

See you on the flip side.

Foy.