The first thing Naruto noticed was how tired and worried Itachi looked. Many people liked to believe that Itachi was a master at hiding his emotions, but he was barely a teenager, and his minuscule facial expressions were enough for Naruto to understand his emotions.

Itachi blinked a few times to wake himself up. "Naruto-kun. You are finally awake. How do you feel?" Itachi said as he pressed the nurse button and grabbed Naruto a glass of water.

He gently helped Naruto sit up, mindful of his injuries. He helped Naruto drink slowly as the nurse came in. Naruto was able to answer some questions, but he was too tired to stay awake.

After some instructions, the nurse left the room, and Itachi ordered Naruto to rest. It wasn't that hard since as soon as Naruto closed his eyes, he fell into a dreamless sleep.


Naruto woke up to the sound of chatter around him. A skill he learned during the war was pretending to be asleep. It was handy to bring unsuspecting enemies close enough to kill with one strike.

Naruto kept his breathing and heartbeat slow and chakra stable. It was Itachi and Shisui who were having a hushed conversation. "I'm telling you, Itachi. There is something more to it. His unhealthy weight can be explained by his eating habits. We both know how he only plays with his food around the plate and hardly eats a few bites."

"For a person who cooks so many dishes, you think he would eat more. Thankfully, the doctors said his growth is normal, but he needs dietary changes. Do you remember the scars?" Shisui asked.

"You mean the time we convinced him to come to the onsen. I noticed it too. His body is covered in scars. No matter the training, it is not acceptable." Itachi said.

"Definitely. He might be a jinchuriki, but is it really necessary to train him to this extent? He is only seven, but he is Jonin level already, if only with some physical limitations. What is Sandaime-sama thinking." Shisui said, irritation obvious in his voice.

"We can't question the Hokage Shisui. You know that." Itachi said with a sad voice.

"I just wish he could rely on us more, you know. He has done so much for us. I want to help him." Shisui said.

Naruto didn't know what to do. He fully trusted his friends, but he couldn't put them in danger. He would always protect them. He knew that soon enough, he would have to put those bonds to the test, but now was not the time.


A few days later, Naruto was finally discharged. He had the order to meet Danzo at night, but he got to spend the afternoon with Itachi and Shisui. Shisui was more clingy than usual, and even Itachi wouldn't let Naruto do anything by himself.

Naruto tried beating it into both boys that he was fine, but it was no use. Naruto was supposed to take a week of light activity before returning to training, so he decided to make the most of his time.

They went to their usual dango shop and spent the afternoon with idle talk. Soon enough, it was time for Naruto to go back. He was reluctant. Danzo wouldn't be pleased that he got hurt.


Naruto was standing in Danzo's office. Thankfully Danzo was merciful enough not to physically punish him yet. His body was fragile from the poison, and it would take a while for him to safely use his Bijuu chakra to heal his wounds.

It would be useless to Danzo to put Naruto back in bed as soon as he was released from the hospital, so instead, he was getting a lecture now. Thankfully the rest of the mission went well.

After Fuu and Torune planted some evidence, they had a whole setup. The story was that the family of the girls Machi took formed a rebel group and attacked the mansion when Machi was out with his bodyguards to set the girls free. Naruto was sent by those rebels to free the girls from the inside.

Fuu was also the brother of one of the girls who Machi sold and was there to take revenge and was the person that killed Machi and his two bodyguards. Unfortunately, he died in a fire, so people didn't get to thank him.

The group of rebels that attacked the mansion were some of the villagers. Fuu planted false memories in their head to convince them of the attack. Torune was also among them to make sure everything went as planned.

Since the mansion burnt down, most of Machi's documents were also destroyed, but there was a vault in the office where Naruto planted most of the evidence needed. Machi had a lot of documents regarding officials and people higher up in the country. Collecting dirt on them.

Machi wanted to use those documents as blackmail to get a title from their daimyo. The man he was meeting that day was one of the daimyo's advisors. After the death of Machi, the advisor searched the remains and found the documents.

Machi was immediately branded as a traitor. Since there was an empty space of power, some of the ROOT spies infiltrated the city to ensure everything would be fine for the land of fire this time around.

Overall the fire daimyo was very satisfied with their work. Since the story of Machi got out, it was bad publicity for their country, and in order not to lose business, they were trying to give better deals to hidden villages to keep them satisfied and quiet about the ordeal.

It was also a bad look that these activities were unnoticed by Iwa, so as a punishment, their daimyo was trying to give more missions to other hidden villages, at least for the time being. Of course, Konoha kindly refused to take those missions to avoid damaging their fragile relationship with Iwa, but other villagers weren't so kind.

In the end, it was a satisfactory result. The daimyo sent a letter to Danzo to give his approval of the ROOT, and that was why Danzo was in a good mood right now. He gave Naruto a long lecture and then told him that he would take his training to the next level as soon as he was healed.

He was also mad about Naruto's general health, and he was put on a meal plan and ordered to check with ROOT doctors weekly. He was finally let go and told to meet the Hokage the next day.


Naruto was on his way to the academy. In the morning, he had a meeting with the Hokage. He was told that many students showed enthusiasm about the new program. Tsunade-sama had sent a letter announcing that she would return to the village within the week.

As for the sealing program, since he was the one who suggested the changes, the sealing division chose him as the first lecturer, and it is happening today. Naruto had already outlined the courses they would teach to the students and the whole curriculum.

The sealing lessons had two parts calligraphy and hands-on teaching. Of course, they wouldn't let academy kids make any working seals. They would only make seals on paper as outlines to become familiar with seals and be able to detect them efficiently.

If the students showed promise and were interested, they could go for more training and become seal masters. But for the academy-level course detecting seals and their workings were enough.

Of course, for the fun of the course, they would have guest lectures and supervised seal makings where the seal master would check students' work and allow them to make harmless working seals.

Now Naruto is heading to the academy to be the first guest lecturer after the calligraphy lessons and interest students in the world of fuinjutsu. It was a big responsibility since it was their first expression of sealing, but Naruto had an idea or two in mind.

He walked to the headmaster's office to ask him for directions to the class. The headmaster was already informed, so he walked him to the classroom and called out to the teacher.

It was Iruka-sensei. Naruto was so happy to get to meet the man officially. Although they were both chunin, Naruto tended to hang out with the jonin, so they never had a chance to meet.

"Iruka-san, this is Uzumaki Naruto. The sealing division sent him as the lecturer for today's class. Uzumaki-san this is Umino Iruka. He is the teacher of this classroom." The headmaster said.

"It is nice to meet you, Umino-san," Naruto said with a polite bow.

"You too, Uzmaki-san. Excuse me for asking, but aren't you a little too young to teach sealing?" Iruka said. The headmaster was about to retort, but Naruto answered before he could say anything.

"It is quite alright, Umino-san. You don't have to worry about my qualifications. I am a chunin, and it's been a while since I achieved the title of seal master. Both Jiraiya-sama and the head of the sealing division could testify to that." Naruto said.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. It's just that you look so young." Iruka said with a slight flush on his cheeks.

"It's ok, Umino-san. I'm not offended. It's not the first time I'm asked about it." Naruto said.

"Well, I think it is time for me to go now." The headmaster bid them goodbye.

"Alright, should are you ready to go to the class?" Iruka asked as he reached for the door handle.

Naruto gave a nod and followed after him. There was the usual sound of chatter and mayhem in the classroom. Naruto stood before the class blackboard as Iruka tried to make the class quiet down.

It took a healthy dose of yelling on his part, but finally, there was silence. "Class, today we have a special guest. As you all know, today's lecture is about Fuinjutsu, and the sealing division Had sent a seal master for the introductory course." Iruka said.

Naruto could see the clan heirs in the classroom. They all gave him their forms of acknowledgment. Some gave him a slight nod or wave while Shikamaru stopped napping.

"It is very nice to meet you all. My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I am a chunin and a seal master. Does anyone want to explain what they know about sealing?" Naruto asked.

There were quite a few hands raised. Naruto saw Sakura among them and pointed to her to speak. "Sealing is the art of making ink and shapes to perform certain actions?" she said hesitantly.

"Yes and no. While the ink is often used for sealing, it is not necessary. Once you have a grasp of it, you can make seals out of anything. Ink, blood, chakra, or anything on hand like this chalk." Naruto grabbed a chalk and drew a simple seal on the board.

He could feel all eyes on him. Feeling bored or curious. But it was the beginning, and he was ready to impress. With speed worthy of a seal master, the seal was done. Naruto turned towards the class and, with his free hand, touched the center of the seal with a minuscule amount of chakra. The seal activated, and for a moment, nothing happened.

Then all the chalk from previous writings on the board moved towards the seal, and in a matter of seconds, there was a circle of chalk around the seal, and the seal was deactivated.

"Wow, how did you do that?" one of the children asked.

"It is quite simple. This seal has a few parts. Do you see this central part with the kanji for chalk?" Naruto pointed to the center. After confirmation from the class, he continued.

"All the seal does is that it takes some chakra depending on how wide of an area you want to affect. Then it collects what is written in the middle and brings it toward the seal. Can anyone think of a use for this kind of seal?" Naruto asked.

A few hands were raised. Naruto pointed to one child. "Can they be used to draw enemies towards the seal?" the student asked hesitantly.

"That can be done, but it will take a lot of chakra to bring something that heavy towards the seal with a good range. A simpler way is for traps. I can put the seal in an area or even on the enemy, and once activated, small weapons like kunai or shuriken or, ideally, kunais will be brought towards the enemy." Naruto said.

"But if you put the seal on an enemy or the ground, wouldn't they just rip the seal off or leave the area?" Ino asked.

"That is a good question. There are quite a few ways to get around that. I can modify the seal so that it would also stick to the enemy, or I can modify its speed. With fuinjutsu, you have no limits."

"it is true that some solutions can cost more chakra or be less efficient, but the thing is, there is more than one way to achieve the desired results. It's the same in normal life. If I ask you guys to perform the same task, not all of you do the task in the same manner, but you can all reach the same result."

"Another creative use for this seal is for injured comrades. If there are people who are not in the condition to fight, you can put the seal a little distance from them. This way, if the enemy tries to throw weapons toward them, they would be diverted toward the seal. However, I don't recommend it since there are barrier seals that do this task more efficiently." Naruto said. There were a lot of thoughtful looks around the class.

Naruto gave a little smile and said." Well, now, shall we try another seal." There was a chorus of yes, and Naruto took another paper and quickly drew the seal. As soon as he finished the last stroke of the seal, he moved his hand away.

"This seal is quite special when it's put on something as soon as someone touches it." Naruto touched the seal with one finger, and with a poof, there were two identical seals. "It will double the object with an exact clone."

"These are not normal clones as they are not a genjutsu, and you can touch them. And whether you touch a clone or original, it will double." Naruto said as he touched both pairs. Now there were 4.

"Then how does it stop?" Kiba asked.

"Well, it all depends on how much chakra you put in the seal. For this case, I put enough to make around 100. And these are quite adaptable as I can make them in a way to copy the object but not the details. If it is put on a scroll, I can adapt it to duplicate the scroll but not the content. So all the duplicates would be empty scrolls. Now since I gave you a situation where you can use the seal, does anyone else want to give examples." Naruto said.

There was a lot of chatter, and quite a few hands raised. Naruto saw Sasuke among them and decided to give him a chance.