ShadowStalker3424: Yup, thanks for pointing out that mistake. I'll have it fixed by the time this chapter is uploaded. Hmmm, maybe both eyes will be special, or maybe not. stick around to find out!

panjabgya: Yes it's a teaser. Yup, an OC villian that I had planned out for a while, but didn't know how to implement her till now. And hmmm a new doujutusu? Maybe or maybe not!

footbal78: I explained Hiruzen's logic in this chapter, but I don't think I did it well. Apologies in advance.

Kaisha: Yup, and a lot less op too imo, and thanks!

setokayba2n: I hopefully explained it well in the chapter, and nope!

person: Thanks!

firetemplar415: Thanks and I'll try to work on it as much as I can.

StressedByAMountainofBooks: This story is far from done! It's just beginning!

Onto the new chapter...

Chapter 19: ROOT Work And New Beginnings

"Ughn!"

Kyua was slammed to the floor and was currently being pinned down by the Tsuchikage's personal anbu. Once she had made it back into the village, she immediately went to get a spare change of clothes and then requested an attendance with the Tsuchikage. After getting permission, she told her leader about Faito's first assault on a Konoha squad, and managed to get to the part where the rest of the jonin team went out to finish killing them before she got cut off.

"How dare you?! Just when things were beginning to calm down between the stone and leaf, you go and pull something so stupid! And you even fail at that!" A short man shouted out in absolute fury. "Four of my jonin are dead and all because of that idiot Faito!" He rubbed his eyebrows from frustration. "Your actions could cause a war between our villages. And right when Konoha was recovered enough to declare war, although I doubt the old monkey will do that." He glared at the female jonin. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you and send your body over to that tree hugging kage as an apology for my idiot jonin attacking his shinobi."

Kyua sneered and glared at her kage. "They killed my father and brother! They deserve to die!"

"They killed my wife and second son!" Onoki shouted back with barely restrained anger. "It was war. Every single shinobi I sent out during the war, I sent knowing how little their chance of returning alive was. I sent out my own damn wife and son to their deaths."

"And it was Konoha's fault for taking them from us!"

"I said it was during war, dammit! Did you expect them to roll over and allow us to kill them all? Would you want us to do the same?!"

"Of course not! We'd fight to the death!

"And so would they!" The Tsuchikage shook his head in rage. 'With idiots like these as my jonin, I'll never be able to retire.' He mentally whined. He looked at Kyua in a more calmed composure. "What exactly made you join Faito in this stupid plan of his?"

After a few seconds of useless thrashing around, Kyua looked her leader in the eye. "He saw the son of the Yellow Flash, Minato Namikaze."

This made Onoki lean forward from his chair in interest. "And you're absolutely certain it was his son?"

"Yes, I'm certain. The brat even managed to learn one of the Fourth's jutsu, the rasengan, and he turned it into a projectile laser. Only his brat would be ingenious enough to accomplish something like that."

Onoki sat in silence as he contemplated. "Tell me everything." After hearing her detailed retale of the fight, and everything she knew of the blonde boy. He now sat, staring at the desk as he contemplated everything he heard. A moment of silence later, Onoki looked at Kyua once again and signaled his guards to let her go. After she was on her two feet, Onoki told her what he planned.

"Kyua. You will take over as Team Faito's jonin sensei, the team of course being renamed to Team Kyua."

"Wha-?!"

"You will be responsible for training Niton, Anaru, and another genin that will be pulled from our reserve. Train them as best as you can for the upcoming chunin exams that are coming soon to the Leaf Village."

"We're going to the leaf village?!" She shouted out in protest.

"Yes, and you will behave. Am I clear?"

Even though she wanted to fiercely disagree with her kage, she reluctantly nodded her head in affirmation. "Yes sir… but why do I have to take on Faito's team?"

"You can either take the genin team, or you can be demoted to chunin."

"... Alright, fine."

"Good. Now, be on your way. I'll have someone contact you when you have to meet your new charges." After Kyua grumbled a few curses, she made her way out of the Tsuchikage's office. Now left alone, besides his anbu always stationed to guard him, Onoki pulled out a sheet of paper and started to write an apology letter for his jonin, deciding to attack his shinobi against his orders. At the end, he requested permission for a genin team to join the chunin exams that Konoha was hosting this time.

After putting the document into an envelope, he strapped it to a messenger bird and sent it towards Konoha. As he watched the bird fly off, he thought to himself about his plan for the chunin exams.

'Either Kyua trains the brats good enough to kill the boy, or I'll do it myself if he seems like he'll turn into a threat.'

A couple of weeks later...

Naruto was kneeling in front of Danzo after he requested him for a mission. He had just left his team's training grounds when he suddenly had an urgent summons from his hidden leader. These past seven weeks, Naruto and his team had been training in their respective fields of choice for now.

Naruto had chosen taijutsu and sealing at first since his chakra system had barely begun healing at the time due to his chakra now able to be channeled. Thanks to his Uzumaki healing chakra as well as Kurama's chakra, his pathways and his coils were healed at a faster rate. The damage done to them had a great benefit in expanding his chakra pathways, but it would make learning genjutsu and medical ninjutsu harder to learn. Currently, his chakra pathways had been healed completely, allowing him to do extraneous training once again.

Sasuke had chosen kenjutsu, genjutsu and ninjutsu. He had first hand knowledge on what genjutsu could do to an opponent, and he wanted to become a master in the art so that he wouldn't be useless if he were to be caught in any genjutsu. For kenjutsu, he wanted to learn it so that he wouldn't have to waste chakra in close quarters. Ninjutsu was for opponents that couldn't be taken down by genjutsu or kenjutsu, so he wanted to expand his arsenal and so started working on mastering his lightning chakra nature.

Hinata had chosen medical ninjutsu, as well as kyujutsu, the art of archery. She also addressed the issues with her wanting to incorporate her chakra nature, water and lightning, into her gentle fist, but she was currently left to figure it out herself as Kakashi had no idea how she could do it. Her mastery of archery is coming along a lot faster however. She now has perfect aim up to 140 meters, anything beyond that and her aim gets a little off. Her progress in the medical arts have come along smoothly as well, she can now quickly heal cuts and scrapes as well as a little deeper wounds as easily as breathing now. However any more serious injuries are currently out of her reach.

Everyday after his team training, Danzo had Naruto send a shadow clone to him so he could tutor the blonde in the other necessities in being a shinobi of darkness. Such as infiltration tactics, bribery, interrogation/torture, and assassination skills along with a couple other things. He also taught the boy the Wind Style: Wind Blade as he might need it for a quick escape if he had no weapons as well as not to leave any evidence behind.

Back to the present, Danzo handed Naruto the mission scroll that contained the parameters of the mission. After taking a minute to read it's contents, Naruto nodded and gave the scroll back to his leader, who burned it once he had it in his grasp.

"As you've read, your mission is to assassinate the lightning Daimyo's son. He has been planning and pushing for Kumo to go to war with Konoha. If that were to happen, countless lives would be lost and it'll all be due to one man's greed who would not have even participated in the war." Danzo looked down to Naruto, who was still kneeling in front of him. "You must make his death appear as an accident and leave no trace that would point towards Konoha's doing. If you fail in this mission, your friends and those you consider family will be sent off to fight in a war. The blame will be all on you if you cannot succeed."

"... That's a lot of pressure… but I understand. I'll get the mission done." Naruto nodded and body flickered out of Danzo's office.

Danzo frowned and tapped his cane once in contemplation. 'I shouldn't have taught the boy that jutsu… he's got quite the knack for showing off. Must have inherited it from his father.'

Naruto was on his way towards lightning country to complete his first, technically second, assassination mission. He was nervous, he felt his entire body getting jittery and he felt his heart pounding hard in his chest. Naruto was alone now, had no one to rely on to get his back if things went south, and if it went south then his mission was already a failure. He quickly took off his headband when he recalled that nothing could be pointed back to Konoha regardless if it was a success or not.

Instead of wearing his forehead protector as usual, he instead had an eye patch covering his empty right eye socket, and was wearing a black beanie that was stuck on his head via seal. If he wanted to remove it, all he had to do was pulse his chakra twice to deactivate the seal. He was also wearing dark gray clothing as it would help blend in with the shadow's better and not stand out as much in a crowd, if he needed to be in one, as much as he would if he wore all black clothing.

The trip to the town just out of Kumo was about two days away if he ran non stop, and with his stamina, that was what Naruto did. For hours upon hours, all Naruto did was tree hop quietly and in the shadows to avoid being caught. On the second day, he made it to the outskirts of the village where his target was staying. Naruto took a deep and calming breath, trying to soothe his nerves. Once calmed down, he leapt into the village, hiding in the shadows and alleys.

He was putting all of his stealth skills to the test. One mistake and the mission and his life was over. Naruto let a small smile grace his lips. He could see himself getting addicted to this sensation. He liked the thrill this mission was giving him, and he hoped that he'd get sent on more of these missions if he succeeded in this one.

"Better not brat."

'Kurama?'

"I absolutely do not want you willingly taking on more missions that will more than likely end in your death. Because if you die, you'll take me with your sorry ass."

'Aww come on. Why can't you admit that you care for me?'

Kurama rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Just make sure you don't screw up the mission and die."

'Yeah yeah. How's mom and dad doing?' Naruto asked as he dove into an alley and then transformed into a non-whiskered, brown eyed, and non-spiky brown haired version of himself, making him look very plain.

"Your father is still comatosed, and your mother is currently watching your memories."

Naruto flinched at hearing that. 'Not the bad stuff right?'

Kurama let out an exasperated grunt. "Yes, and I don't really see how that's a bad thing. We've been needing to talk about that time, you've been needing to talk about that time. To anyone."

Naruto let out a sigh and mentally nodded. 'I guess you're right about that.' He jumped back into the shadows and silently and carefully maneuvered closer towards his target. 'I have been pushing that off I guess.'

"Yes you have. You have yet to tell those close to you, like your teammates for example."

Naruto frowned as he silently jumped onto a shadowed wall and stuck to it by channeling chakra into the soles of his feet. 'Well, I don't really know why I should tell them.'

Kurama shook his head in frustration. "Because, idiot, if something manages to make you freeze up due to your past, your teammates would be unaware of what's wrong with you. Which could lead to yours and their deaths if it happened on a mission."

Naruto knew that Kurama had a point and that he was right. However all he truthfully wanted was to ignore that part of his past and to act like it never truly happened. He didn't respond to his bijuu companion, and instead opted to put all of his concentration on the mission. Naruto heard Kurama grunt in annoyance once again but he didn't say anything. He took a deep breath and stopped the chakra flow from his feet. Once he landed, he silently sped towards his target's location.

'Danzo said that the target liked to be here during this time of day.' Naruto looked at the sign of the building, and read 'Stallion Pen'. Naruto slumped his shoulders as he looked down, face burning from embarrassment. 'Sometimes I wish that my parents weren't in my mindscape at times like these.' Knowing full well he'll get scolded or teased for this later on.

He steeled himself and transformed into an older man, roughly looking between forty and fifty. He grabbed a rock and transformed that into a valid I.D, just in case the bouncers asked for one. He took a deep breath and walked towards the club.

"Evening sir." One of the guards spoke. "New around here?"

Naruto quickly calmed his high heart rate and kept his voice steady. "Hmm, yes. I'd like to feel young once again for today." He chuckled out in an older and tired voice.

"Ah, I feel that. You're good to enter sir, have a nice time but no touching."

"Yes yes, I'm aware of the rules youngins."

When Naruto entered, he scanned the area for his target and spotted him getting a lap dance from one of the men working there. He mentally cried at having to see something he shouldn't have, nor wanted to see. 'I changed my mind. I don't want more missions like these.'

Naruto had now finished his assignment and was on his way back. He felt dirty after making the kill because he had invited the man to his place, that didn't even exist, and then took the man on top of a building where he had pushed him down. The kill didn't make him feel dirty, instead it was when the man had groped him that made him feel uneasy and dirty. Naruto cleared his head and locked that memory deep within his mind, where it would hopefully be forgotten. He was hopping through the forest when he suddenly heard sounds of a fight. Curiosity getting the better of him, Naruto decided to make a detour to go see what was wrong.

'Hopefully this will take my mind off of it.'

When he came close to the clearing where the fight was taking place, Naruto hid in the tree and kept himself low to avoid being spotted. The people fighting were a boy around his age but appeared a year or two older, and a man wielding a sword who was chuckling and stalking towards the boy. He sheathed his sword and started to slowly go through hand signs. In Naruto's opinion, it appeared as if the man was uncertain what the correct hand signs were. When he made the final sign, he called out the jutsu's name.

"Lightning Style: Lightning Bolt Technique!"

Naruto was about to jump in and save the boy, but he saw the boy reflexively stick out his arms in a vain attempt to protect himself, when suddenly the lightning bolt started to be sucked into the boy's palm. Naruto was left flabbergasted and then noticed a mark of two diamonds overlapping each other on his palm.

'Is that the key to his absorbing technique?'

Naruto was once again shocked when he saw the boy eye the shinobi before he stuck out his palm again and shouted release. The previously absorbed lightning bolt was shot out towards the perpetrator, striking him in the chest and killing him. Naruto idly noticed that the technique the man had used wasn't enough to kill the kid, but only make him suffer minor electric shocks. But whatever the kid had done, amplified the jutsus strength enough to kill the man.

He quickly dropped his transformation as the brown-haired kid, then quietly and carefully dropped down on the ground and loudly walked towards the boy, purposefully letting the boy know he was there. The boy whipped around to face and held his hands out, preparing to absorb and release any ninjutsu thrown at him. Naruto raised his hands in the air, signaling he wasn't a threat to him.

"Woah man, that was some trick you got there."

"You- you saw that?"

"Yeah. I was about to step in, but then I saw you absorb his jutsu through your hand. Mind telling me what exactly that was?" Naruto saw that the boy was hesitant to answer, so he walked close to the boy and sat down. "Oh my bad, where's my manners right? Hi, I'm Naruto Uzumaki. What's your name?" Naruto stuck his hand out, offering to shake the boy's hand.

The boy shakily grabbed his hand and shook it, and Naruto noticed that the overlapping diamond marks had disappeared. "I'm Daisuke."

Naruto tilted his head to the left in confusion. "No last name?"

Daisuke shook his head in the negative. "I was an orphan that was taken in by the village's leader." He teared up and turned around to look at the man that had taken him in and raised him, that was now dead on the ground. "He always said I was like the son he never had." He let out a pained laugh. "He always said that he'd make me the next leader of the village when he was unable to lead it anymore."

"So, are you planning on taking over when you get back?"

Daisuke flinched and looked down. "How could I lead and protect them when I couldn't even protect my adoptive father, the village's leader?"

"Hmmm." Naruto thought about the predicament he was in. He wanted to study Daisuke's kekkei genkai to see if he can get a fuinjutsu project to do the same, but he also didn't want to forcefully keep him from protecting his village. "How about you come home to my village and I'll train you so you'll be better able to protect your village."

Daisuke's face filled with amazement and excitement at the prospect of being able to better protect his village. But soon the happiness in his eyes faded, his demeanor had changed into a solemn and quiet one. "I appreciate the offer, however I have to get back to my village as soon as possible. I have to protect and lead the village my father always led. Whether I'm ready or not."

Naruto nodded with a smile, but internally he disagreed with him. Figuring out how Daisuke's ability worked could've let him protect his team and village against enemies better, absorbing and returning any jutsus thrown at him. He quickly wracked his mind for any answer that would make Daisuke change his mind and come back with him to the leaf village. After a few seconds of silence, Naruto found one.

"Well alright. It's a shame I won't get a chance to find out how your kekkei genkai works, it'd give me a way better chance at protecting my village and my friends." He stood up and turned his back on Daisuke. "You'll be able to make it back safely, right?"

"What- wait! Can you not take me back?!"

Naruto shook his head and turned to face Daisuke again. "Sorry, but I have to get back to my village. I'm out here on a mission that someone gave me, and I'm on a time limit to get back. I can send some shadow clones with you if you want, but they'll dispel after one hit to them. I've been working on trying to increase their durability, but I haven't made any headway yet."

"Then… then what would I do if I run into more shinobi on the way?! What if all your clones dispelled?! What would I do then?!"

Naruto let out a heavy sigh and gave the kid a cold look. "Look man, my offer was to take you to my village to train you so you'd be better able to protect your village, or to take some of my shadow clones with you to your village. It's not even certain that there will be bandits waiting to kill you on your way back. So you can either take my offer on training, or my shadow clones as protection. Either way I'm heading home."

He turned his back on him again and started to walk away. As he was about to jump into the trees to begin his trek home, Naruto heard Daisuke yell out for him to stop. Naruto briefly let a small smirk pass on his lips before he hid the relief he felt when he heard the boy.

"I'll go with you, if you promise to train me."

"Well I already said I would. Come on, I want to be back by tomorrow night."

Daisuke let a small smile grace his lips as he nodded. "Right! Let's go!"

"Shhh! Quiet down! Oh yeah, we're heading to a secret base of mine in the making, so I'm gonna have to knock you out."

"Wha-?"

Naruto was kneeling in front of Danzo, having just finished reporting his mission to the old man. The man had congratulated Naruto on his successfully completing his first assassination mission.

"Naruto Uzumaki, well done on your mission. I wasn't sure if you'd be ready and willing to take on an assassination mission for me so soon, however I'm glad I was proven wrong."

"Uhh, thanks sir."

"I would like to introduce you to my most recent subordinate before you, his name is Sai. Come in Sai." The door opened and a boy walked in. Sai had short, straight black hair, and dark eyes which contrast with his translucent-looking pale skin. He was carrying a small backpack which Naruto assumed was where he kept his ninja tools. He was wearing a black shirt and black pants that had a kunai pouch strapped to it, which confused the blonde. "Sai, this is Naruto Uzumaki. You two will take on missions together when needed. Sai, Naruto isn't supposed to know about me or root, so do not speak to him about our organization outside of here unless I say otherwise."

"Wait. I'm going to be seeing him in Konoha?"

"Yes. I'd like for you to show Sai how to better act among his peers. I want him to see that there is more than root." He saw the two boys give him shocked faces which irked the man.

"Uh, right. Anyways, I don't mind hanging out with him in public. How about you, uhh, Sai?"

The pale boy plastered a smile that appeared to be fake and nodded his head. "I would like that… dickless."

"…Ahem" Danzo cleared his throat to try and get their attention and to dispel the tension between the boys, but was surprised to see Naruto start to laugh.

"Hahah! Oh man!" Naruto ran over to Sai and slung his arm around the pale boy's shoulders. "You've at least got some humor left in ya! I think we'll become great friends Sai."

The pale boy gave an actual soft smile and once again nodded his head. "Thank you dickless, I'd like that."

Naruto chuckled and had to close his eyes a second later, receiving memories from his shadow clone that dispelled to let him know that he was needed in his base. Naruto let out a yawn, not having to fake it due to not getting any sleep for the last five days due to the mission, and tried to excuse himself.

"Sai we'll meet up tomorrow, I need some sleep. Can I be excused Danzo-sama?"

Danzo nodded his head and dismissed the boy, he then turned to face the pale boy and gave him his new orders. "Sai, I'd like for you to watch after him as well. I have a feeling that Naruto Uzumaki will be important to the future of Konoha, but he will have many obstacles in his way… if any of our gathered intel is to be believed."

"Yes Danzo-sama."

Danzo dismissed Sai to go back towards his living quarters as he got up and slowly walked out of the room. His cane tapping against the floor was the only thing that could be heard throughout the halls of his base until he reached his destination. He looked up at the giant tree roots that went across the ceiling of the hidden base as he recalled his argument with Hiruzen.

Danzo barged into the Hokage's office with a furious look on his face.

"Hiruzen!" The old kage looked up to see his old friend's furious face, which made him furrow his eyebrows in confusion. "Why have you sent Naruto Uzumaki to fight off against Iwa shinobi? Why didn't you send out another team to assist Asuma's team? A more experienced team would have been better than sending another genin team to fight against Iwa shinobi."

Hiruzen frowned at Danzo. "It was finally time for the world to know who Naruto Uzumaki was. Naruto grew into a fine boy and he'll only get stronger-"

"Which is why I'm having trouble understanding your logic in sending Naruto against Iwa shinobi Hiruzen! Wouldn't it have been wiser to let the boy grow stronger before proclaiming to our enemies that the boy is a threat to them and others?"

"...yes. I would have preferred that option."

"Then-?"

"However. This interaction posed a great opportunity for both teams to improve. Whether they win without difficulty or if they manage to win with a great deal of difficulty, the genin and even jonin will learn many things and they will grow from this experience." Hiruzen said with absolute certainty.

Danzo stared at his Hokage in complete bafflement. "Have you finally lost your mind Hiruzen? What if they didn't win, and instead had been killed?! If both teams were killed, the loss to Konoha would be tragic! We would lose the last Uchiha, Kakashi of the Sharingan, the Nine tails jinchuriki who also is our last Uzumaki, and not to mention the Hyuga, Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi clan heirs!"

The Hokage scowled and glared at Danzo, however the man had heard enough of his Kage's absurd thinking. He turned around and left before Hiruzen could let out another word. As he was walking out of the Hokage's tower, he turned and walked down a dark alleyway and then motioned for one of his root to come out.

"Matsu, your mission is to go and protect teams 7 and 10. However your top priority is to protect Naruto Uzumaki. If you can, tell him that I wish to meet him personally. Now go, time is of the essence."

"Yes Danzo-sama."

After a full day and a half of running at full speed, the root member had barely made it to the border after the fighting had already begun. He scanned around the area and saw that out of all the genin, Naruto was in the most dangerous situation as he had already lost an eye and was struggling to even stay awake. He quickly made his way over and barely managed to jump in front of the kunai before it pierced the blonde boy. Thinking about his orders from before, he told the boy Danzo's message.

Naruto stumbled through his apartment door and went directly towards his bedroom. When he entered, he closed the door behind him and locked it. He then pulsed chakra from his feet and into the floor, unlocking a hidden trap door he had installed himself with the help of fuinjutsu. He walked over and jumped down the hole, landing on a bean bag he had made himself specifically for safe landing.

He looked up the hole and sighed, remembering how hard it had initially been to discreetly tunnel straight down from the top of the apartment building to fifty feet underground to began caving out his secret underground base. At first he wanted to do it without anyone's knowledge, but after a lot of close calls later, he threw in the towel and annoyed his neighbors until they vacated the complex. He then made a tunnel going straight down by having a shadow clone use his rasen-blast; the projectile attack that he had used against Faito; however, the name was still a work in progress; that had partially destroyed parts of the other apartment rooms. He had asked Kakashi repeatedly to teach him several earth jutsus for defense after his chakra pathways recovered, claiming that he needed defensive and earth style jutsus in his arsenal, but was actually going to use it to fix up the apartment rooms to hide his tunnel. After two days, the man had caved in and taught Naruto the Mud Wall, and the Headhunter jutsu. He had messed around a lot with the mud wall jutsu until he had made several large pillars made of mud for his hidden base.

'Now all that's left is to tidy it up and make it look nicer.' Naruto thought to himself. He then turned to see what his clone wanted him to come down here for. He saw another one of his shadow clones talking to Daisuke, who was sitting down on a chair, while holding a clipboard. He guessed that the clone was trying to find out if his kekkei genkai had any unwanted side effects that would be detrimental to them both.

"How's it going?"

The clone turned to face him with a surprised face, most likely too focused on his task to notice his footsteps. "It's going alright." The clone mumbled as he looked back down to his notes that he gathered. "So far from Daisuke's knowledge, the kekkei genkai doesn't cause any harm towards his coils or to his body. My guess is that the tattoo we saw works as a seal with its own pocket dimension, and can release or just absorb the chakra from the jutsu if he willed it."

The original nodded his head as he put a hand to his chin. "If we can manage to correctly create our own pocket dimension that can put the absorbed jutsus in stasis, then we can possibly mimic his kekkei genkai."

"What about my absorbing technique?" Daisuke asked.

Naruto looked up and gave the boy a grin. "I already know how to do that. I learned it in the advanced fuinjutsu study books." Naruto's grin grew as he saw the boy slightly deflate. 'Thank god for my chakra pool and shadow clones. Thanks to them, I breezed through the books.' Naruto shook his head and placed a hand on Daisuke. "Alright, I'm going to create a shadow clone to teach you the basic shinobi skills for today. We'll go into the harder lessons tomorrow or the day after."

Daisuke shot up with a determined look on his face. "Yes sir!"

Naruto chuckled at the boy's excitement as he created a shadow clone. After sending the two off to train further in the base, Naruto grunted as he created twenty more shadow clones and assigned them to brainstorm to find out a way to create their own pocket dimension. The original went back towards the tunnel and looked up. After sighing, he once again pulsed chakra through his feet, and into the floor. He was then shot upwards by a seal that contained wind chakra. After landing back in his room, he closed the trapdoor and saw it hide itself with a genjutsu that he had created with fuinjutsu. Naruto, now exhausted beyond belief, walked towards his bed and threw himself on it, falling asleep in seconds.

A couple hours later, a shadow clone of his came through the tunnel. He walked over to the original and placed a seal on his chest. He sent chakra into the seal, and took a step back to watch as the seal drained a portion of the original Naruto's chakra. After the seal finished, it glowed a bright yellow, making the shadow clone peel it off of the original and head back underground.

The clone brought it back to his earth styled desk, that the original had made a while back, and laid the seal on his stomach. He sent chakra into the seal, making the stored up chakra flood into the clone's coils. After it had finished, the tag lit itself on fire until the whole tag was ashes. The clone nodded to himself and started to draw the design all the clones had agreed upon. After the design was finished, he made another shadow clone while holding the seal. The new clone placed the cloned seal on his chest and sent chakra into it, making the seal branch out, sending kanji all the way up to the palm of his hands.

After both palms were marked with the kanji for dark, it glowed orange. The kanji that came out of the seal started to be pulled towards the palms of his hands, making a solid circle around the kanji for dark. The clone of the clone nodded and stuck his palms out, sending chakra into the seals to test the absorption. The other clone nodded and sent a fireball towards the other, smiling in satisfaction at seeing the fireball being sucked in just like the original had seen Daisuke do. After a couple seconds of waiting to see if the seal would explode, the clone released the jutsu back towards the other, but when the fireball was half way of being released, it exploded.

The original clone had been safe of the blast radius, and frowned at seeing the project fail. 'Hmm, it appears that the storing part is just fine, but the releasing part is what went wrong.' The clone looked up and saw that the base was fine. 'It's a good thing we placed silencing seals all around this place, otherwise that would've made everyone antsy.' The clone nodded and went back into figuring out how to fix the release portion of the seal. 'This might take a while.'

Naruto tripped on his way towards his front door that was currently being knocked on. He grumbled about chakra exhaustion before he grabbed two chakra storage seals and quickly used one to refill his chakra pool. He felt himself wake up a bit as he reached the door. He opened it to find Kakashi on the other side, who quickly grabbed him and body flickered to his team's training grounds, where he unceremoniously dropped the blonde in front of his teammates.

"Ughhh. Dammit sensei."

"Maa Maa Chibi, calm down." Naruto lazily glared at his sensei, for interrupting his much needed sleep, and for dropping him on the ground like that. He mumbled out some curses as he stood up. "Alright my cute little genin! I have recommended you three for the chunin exams!"

"Really?" Hinata asked in disbelief.

"Hn. This'll be fun." Sasuke said with a smirk.

"Glad you think so, Sasuke. Here, sign these and give them back to me tomorrow if you plan on participating. Till then, cya." Kakashi said as he body flickered away from his team. Sasuke smirked and quickly sped home to sign it, with Hinata doing the same. The two genin were excited to test themselves to see how far they came.

Naruto was left alone in the training grounds staring at his form. 'Should I even participate if I'm working under Danzo? What if he needs me for another mission soon?' Naruto shook his head, dismissing those thoughts from his head. He would participate and make chunin with his team. He smiled as he unsealed a pen and wrote down his signature on the form. He sealed the pen and form back up into the seal on his arm and decided to take a calming walk around the village.

As he was walking, he felt the sun beaming down on him, which made Naruto think about a problem that Naruto hadn't realized was an issue.

'Ah shit. I'm gonna have a tan line that covers my right eye thanks to the headband… hell no.' Naruto lifted his headband up and felt the breeze brush against his closed eyelid, making the jinchuriki smile in satisfaction. 'Ahhh, better.'

His peaceful satisfaction with life at the moment was cut short when a little kid took a sharp turn around the corner just ahead. Naruto channeled chakra into his feet to prevent him from being knocked down, silently thanking Kakashi for teaching his team that chakra control skill the previous two weeks ago. He looked down at the boy and quickly saw that the boy was rattled.

Naruto bent down and patted the kids head softly. "Hey, what's wrong little guy?"

The kid looked up to meet Naruto in the eyes, and the blonde saw the boy calmed down a bit. Naruto now took in the boy's complete appearance, spotting a gray helmet atop of the boy's head with his brown hair sticking out from a hole in the helmet. He was wearing gray shorts and a yellow shirt with a red Konoha symbol printed on it as well as a long blue scarf wrapped around his neck.

Naruto quickly heard someone hastily approaching, and from the boy's tensing, Naruto guessed the boy did as well. He quickly hid the little kid behind him just as someone else came around the corner the little boy had. He quickly spotted the Suna forehead protector attached to the boy's cat-shaped hood, then finally noticed the face paint on the boy's face as well as his black outfit.

Naruto furrowed his eyebrows and asked the Suna shinobi a question. "Why were you chasing this kid?"

The older boy just scowled and walked up to Naruto. "Because, squirt. That brat ran into me and then insulted me, and now I gotta teach him some manners. So step aside, pipsqueak."

Naruto ignored the older kid and instead turned around and crouched down to be at level with the little kid. "Is that true little guy?" The boy nodded in a subdued manner. "What'd ya say to him?"

"I called him a girl because he wears makeup, but I already apologized to that guy!"

Naruto nodded and stood back up and turned around to face the older boy. "Well ya hear that? The kid already apologized, so why don't ya go back to where ya staying for the exams."

The Suna boy's scowl grew deeper as he reached for the thing that was strapped to his back. "Well, why don't I teach you both a lesson on why you should respect your betters."

Hinata and Sasuke were now heading towards Naruto's direction. After the two had signed the chunin exams form, they went out looking for their final teammate to discuss what'll be their plan heading in. Hinata had briefly activated her byakugan to locate the blonde and saw him talking to a little boy before she had deactivated her dojutsu.

"He's just up ahead and to the left."

Sasuke nodded and asked his female teammate a question. "I wonder what the exams will be."

Hinata took a moment to think of the possibilities on how the exams were going to be held before she responded. "I'm not sure what they'll be either. Neither my father nor anyone else from my clan had told me about their experiences in their chunin exams."

Sasuke shook his head as they turned the corner. When he looked up, Sasuke and Hinata saw a boy dressed in a black outfit with a black hood covering his face slam down something that was fully bandaged. They also caught sight of Naruto, who had just created a shadow clone without the hand sign. Sasuke was about to intervene before Naruto would do anything that he'd regret, but stopped in his tracks as Naruto spoke.

"So you register for the chunin exams and when you're in an allied village, you pick on a little kid and try to provoke a shinobi from said allied village. Are you trying to start a war?"

Naruto saw the boy flinch briefly before he schooled his features. The blonde only saw him flinch because he was staring directly at him, otherwise Naruto would've missed it. Before, Naruto would've brushed off the interaction, but after being trained from Danzo, the Uzumaki knew the flinching and quick recovery meant something. 'I have to inform Danzo of this. This might be bad.'

The Suna boy was scowling as he strapped the bandaged thing back to his back. He threw one last glare at Naruto before he walked away. The shadow clone of Naruto body flickered away, off to tell Danzo about the altercation, while the original stayed and made sure the little kid was alright.

"Hey, you alright?"

The boy was looking at Naruto in awe. He had just witnessed the boy scare off that big kid and also make a clone without hand signs. "Woah! That was awesome! What's ya name boss?"

Naruto chuckled as he ruffled the kid's hair. "Boss huh? And my name is Naruto Uzumaki. What's yours?"

"My name is Konohamaru Sarutobi!"

"Sarutobi? You're related to the Third Hokage?" Naruto asked in honest shock. The old man hadn't mentioned anything about having a grandson.

Konohamaru's mood fell quickly into a quiet and annoyed one. "Yeah. Everyone calls me 'honorable grandson' everywhere I go. I hate it."

Naruto tilted his head to the left, oblivious to his approaching teammates. "Hmm. Well Konohamaru, why does it bother you so much?"

The boy looked up at Naruto with wide eyes at being called his name for once. "Well, it's like they don't even see me for me. All they see is the Hokage's grandson, not Konohamaru."

Naruto nodded slowly, before he spoke once again. "Who cares what they think about you?" Konohamaru looked at the older boy in shock. "Just don't listen to them, instead focus on yourself. That's what I do anyways."

The Sarutobi boy smiled at Naruto and nodded energetically. "Yeah! You're right boss! I'll catch you around!"

Naruto watched the boy run off as he shook his head. He stood up and turned around, intending on heading back towards his underground base, but was stopped by his teammates.

"Naruto, did you sign your chunin exam form?" Sasuke said straight out.

Naruto nodded his head as he unsealed his form. "Yeah, it's right here." He quickly sealed it back up and started to walk with his teammates. Sasuke nodded his head and eyed Naruto suspiciously, making the blonde raise an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"How and when'd you learn the body flicker jutsu."

Naruto frowned at his friend trying to grill him. Especially because he was unable to actually tell them without having Danzo silence them. "Someone taught me it, obviously."

"Who?" Sasuke demanded.

"Don't worry about it."

Sasuke scoffed in anger. "We're teammates. We have a right to know."

"He's right, Naruto-san. If it affects the team's performance, then I believe we have a right to know." Hinata chimed in, causing Naruto to frown.

"So are you two going to tell me your whole jutsu repertoire and who taught you them?" Naruto shot back.

"You already know most of mine, Naruto. And you know that the ones I haven't showed you, I learned them myself. We just want to know who taught you that jutsu, because it for sure wasn't Kakashi-sensei."

"Oh yeah? And how do you know?"

"Because Kakashi said he wasn't going to teach us any new ninjutsu until tomorrow."

Naruto scoffed and ran through hand signs before slamming his hands onto the ground, creating a wall of earth. "I bugged Kakashi-sensei about teaching me a defensive jutsu, so he taught me this."

"Okay but was he the one that taught you the body flicker?"

Naruto shrugged and grinned at Sasuke's scowl. "Who knows." The Uchiha's scowl grew deeper and the Uzumaki caught sight of Hinata frowning as well, so he decided it was time to stop teasing. "Okay okay, I'll tell you guys at a later date, just not now. I swear as soon as I can, I'll tell you two."

The two genin were staring at Naruto in disbelief before they agreed to Naruto's plea. Team 7 decided to train together in the Uchiha's training grounds against Naruto's shadow clones to improve on their teamwork in battle. At one point in the spar, one of Naruto's shadow clones smirked and transformed into a female using Naruto's sexy jutsu and then proceeded to try and seduce the Uchiha. The ravenette was highly infuriated and proceeded to scorch the clone with his Fire Streak, the new name he gave to his fire laser jutsu.

The next day, Team 7 arrived at their training ground where their sensei was waiting for them.

"So, did all of you sign the forms?" The three genin pulled out their slips of paper and handed it to Kakashi. He eye smiled and nodded. "Good. I'm glad all three of you signed it because you guys wouldn't have participated otherwise."

Naruto tilted his head as he squinted his eye. "But Kakashi-sensei, didn't you take the exams by yourself?"

Kakashi nodded and didn't elaborate further. "Alright my cute little genin, we'll only train for two days so that your bodies can rest for the remaining days till then, but these two days will be hell. Sasuke, Hinata. For the first three hours you will be using three shadow clones, make them take food pills, and then dispel them. This will build up your chakra reserves faster and from what I could tell, won't leave any long lasting repercussions. It'll just hurt like hell."

Kakashi grinned at seeing the two heirs turn pale at his words. He turned to face his favorite student and his grin grew wider, slightly scaring the blonde. 'Oh man. What the hell does Kakashi-sensei have planned for me?'

"Naruto. Seal these into your tweaked storage seals."

Naruto nodded but groaned. "Sensei, I told you I'm calling them weighted seals."

"I know." Naruto rolled his eyes and quickly sealed up the new weights, grunting as he finished his task and looked up at his sensei, nodding in confirmation. "Okay, now I want you to run around the walls of Konoha once and when you come back, we're going to spar. No holding back." Naruto felt his blood run cold at his sensei's words and the only thing he could do was nod and start running.

After the three hours were up, Hinata and Sasuke were lying on the floor clenching their stomachs as that's where they felt the pain of having their chakra pools forcefully stretched. Naruto was also laying on the floor but he was pale and was about to faint from exhaustion, his stamina now drained from fighting his sensei.

"Alright my genin! Now we move onto individual training!" Kakashi said in a chipper mood, earring groans from the Uchiha and Hinata while getting whimpers from Naruto.

The Hatake created two shadow clones and took each student far from each other. The real one went with Hinata to train on her medical ninjutsu, as well as making her clones work on her water manipulation, her archery skills, improving her speed for the gentle fist, and extending her byakugan range. With Sasuke, they worked on improving his Sharingan and body, allowing him to react better with what his sharingan can perceive, as well as his kenjutsu skills by facing off against Kakashi using different fighting styles, and his fire control by having him burn a hole through a rock until he managed to get it in under five seconds. Kakashi had Naruto improving his chakra control by having him water walk as well as having him cut a waterfall by using his wind nature chakra, after Kakashi had made one. His sensei also had him improve on his taijutsu as well as his fuinjutsu by making him read the next installment as well as writing down possible future projects.

Kakashi had them do the same thing the next day, which made Sasuke and Hinata mentally curse their sensei out while Naruto just started to cry crocodile tears dramatically.

The day of the chunin exams came and Naruto had barely managed to finish his fuinjutsu version of Daisuke's kekkei genkai the day before. After letting out all of his excitement, Naruto sneaked out of the village last night and took the boy back to his village and left some clones with some more chakra storage seals to help aid the village in the meanwhile. Naruto walked inside the designated building and spotted his teammates already waiting inside.

"About time, Naruto."

Naruto rolled his eyes at Sasuke. "Yeah, I'm here now. Come on, let's win this."

Sasuke smirked and nodded, taking the lead towards their destination. After they walked up a single flight of stairs, they came across what appeared to be room 301. 'But we only walked up a single flight of stairs…' Sasuke briefly activated his sharingan and let a smirk dawn across his face once again. 'Genjutsu huh?' The Uchiha shook his head as he walked forwards.

"Get out of our way. You're preventing us from getting to room 301." Sasuke told the duo guarding the door.

"What are you talking about? This is room 301." One of the foreign genin shot back at the Uchiha, making the boy scoff.

"And while you're at it, drop the genjutsu. It's so painfully obvious." Sasuke pushed his way through the duo guarding the way towards the actual designated door. Hinata nodded and followed her teammate with Naruto trailing behind her, lost in his own thoughts.

'I need to create a seal that will automatically dispel any genjutsus I'm caught in, since I was easily fooled by that.'

After making their way up to the actual third floor, they ran into another Konoha team.

"Neji-niisan?"

The older Hyuga boy turned and nodded towards Hinata. "Lady Hinata. I was unaware that you were taking this year's chunin exams."

"Yes, I didn't want anyone to know yet. Besides that, how's your father? I haven't seen him since he returned from the month-long mission."

Neji smiled softly as he nodded. "Yes, he's quite well. He's just been resting and recovering."

"Is he alright?"

"Yes. He just got into an altercation on his way back, leaving him exhausted and low on chakra. He's just been resting to fasten the recovery time."

"Oh, thank goodness. I'm glad."

"Hey Hinata-chan, who's this?" Naruto chimed in, curiosity getting the better of him.

"Oh, apologies. Naruto-san, Sasuke-san, this is my cousin Neji. Neji, these are my teammates Naruto-san and Sasuke-san."

Naruto tilted his head to the left. "How come you called him niisan if he's your cousin then?"

"Our fathers are twins and we had spent our childhood training together, so it was inevitable that we'd come to see each other as siblings." The boy, now named Neji, told them.

"Ahhh. Well it's nice to meet you Neji. Who are your teammates?" Naruto said as he offered a handshake towards the boy, who shook the offered hand.

"These are my teammates Tenten and Rock Lee."

"Hi! It's nice to finally meet Neji's cousin and her teammates." The twin bun haired girl responded.

"Yes! It is a pleasure to meet you! You are the students of Gai-sensei's rival, Kakashi Hatake, correct?" The bowl cut haired boy shouted.

Naruto flinched due to the volume the boy was shouting in and nodded. "Yeah, he's our sensei."

Sasuke was getting impatient and dragged his two teammates away. "Yeah, nice meeting you and all, but I want to take the exam. We can talk after it's over." Neji let a small grin cross his face as he decided to follow the Uchiha's example and led his team towards room 301.

After Team 7 had entered the designated room, they met the hard glares of the rest of the participants that were gathered there. Naruto brushed it off, as he had been exposed to worse with Danzo, and led Sasuke and Hinata towards an empty corner in the room. They saw Neji's team enter as they went off to be by themselves. They waited for another minute before Team 10 entered the room. They saw them scanning the room until making eye contact with them. Naruto saw the surprise and joy flash across their faces, only for it to be replaced by trepidation, no doubt due to him.

The blonde jinchuriki sighed as he saw Asuma's team slowly walk over to their team, where Ino started to quietly talk to Hinata and saw Shikamaru and Choji start a conversation with Sasuke. Naruto sighed as he stood up and started to walk across the room. He saw his teammates start to follow, but a shake of his head told them to stay and converse with Team 10, and they reluctantly did so.

As Naruto got halfway across the room, he felt this sudden pressure drop onto him, freezing him in place. The sudden disturbance made Kurama shoot up, preparing to send Naruto some of his chakra if the situation called for it. Naruto looked around to see who was causing what he guessed was someone's killing intent, as that was the only thing coming to his mind. He heard footsteps approaching him and he quickly turned to face the person and laid eyes on a red haired boy, no taller than him. He had bags around his eyes and had the kanji for love tattooed above his eye, and was carrying a gourd on his back.

"You… What's your name." The boy said as he had gotten close.

"Uhm, Naruto Uzumaki. What's yours?" Naruto asked, a little bit of trepidation tinging his voice.

Naruto knew the boy also heard the trepidation in his voice, as the boy smirked viciously. "My name is Gaara." The cork on the boy's gourd shot off and sand started to swirl around the two boys, the smirk turned into a maniacal grin as the sand started to close in on them.

"And I'm going to enjoy spilling your blood."

WHOOOO! FINALLY! Sorry it took me a month to upload this chapter, but it fought against me.

Anyways, I hope you're all liking the story!