"Speaking"

'thinking'

Flashback

"Bijuu speaking"

A/N: Another once in a blue moon update from yours truly! enjoy!

Naruto was sitting in his living room, staring suspiciously at the cat that was cleaning itself on the table. It has been a week since his first meeting with the cat.

He gave it some of his leftovers when he first met it and the cat left, but the next day he saw the cat in his apartment, sitting on the table, as if waiting for his arrival. Again, he gave it food and the cat left. He didn't even know how the cat got into his apartment and frankly he couldn't care less.

The cycle continued for the whole week, the cat would approach him one way or another, he would give it food and the cat would leave. He was starting to get suspicious that the cat was actually intelligent.

The cat must've felt him staring intently because it suddenly jumped off the table and made its way to its new sleeping spot, which was the top of his television. It stared back at him for a good two seconds before falling asleep.

'Kurama, doesn't this cat act weirdly? I'm starting to think that she's actually intelligent.' Naruto thought to Kurama.

The fox didn't give him a reply and he thought that it's probably lazing around on the seal like usual so he asked again.

'kurama-' but he got cut by the fox.

""I heard you the first time. Shut up.""

Naruto sweatdropped. ' What's with the sudden mood swing? Anyways, as I was saying, don't you think this cat is weird? I mean, it's strangely intelligent for a cat and she somehow always manages to enter my apartment even though I always make sure I close the windows before I leave.'

' I wouldn't be surprised if she's actually a trained spy. The Inuzuka managed to make some of their dogs talk so it's plausible that someone else managed to figure it out.' At this point he's just rambling and speculating ridiculous ideas. The fox still didn't answer his first question, amused at the current situation.

'Do you think this is also an attack from kumogakure? They have matatabi and matatabi is a cat so maybe they asked matatabi's jinchuuriki to train a cat and sent it here to spy. Maybe - '

""Kumo didn't attack you, dumbass."" Naruto scrunched his eyebrow in confusion.

'what do you mean by that?'

*Haaah* the fox sighed, annoyed that it needed to explain. "" The Shinobi that attacked you. He wasn't from kumo.."" the fox explained.

'... Where is he from then? Come on what's with the strange suspense build up? Tell me.' he whined playfully to the fox. A smile plastered on his face.

""It's the bastard fourth hokage's student."" The fox answered. The answer caused Naruto's smile to drop a little.

Naruto stopped and stood still for a few seconds. He walked to the couch and sat down, his face gaining a thoughtful expression while his brows scrunched every few seconds.

'kakashi, huh?' Naruto Thought. He was wracking his mind for any possible reason as to why Kakashi would attack him. It's not like Kakashi has turned evil, did he?

He then asked kurama. ' did you feel any hatred or loathing from kakashi, Kurama?'

"' nothing, I only gained a brief sense of what's out there when you were giving him a beat down and were losing control but even then, the only thing I felt was a small amount of regret. Why did you think that he turned evil?"" Kurama answered and finished with a question.

Naruto sighed. ' you never know. With the changes and differences on this timeline I can never be too sure. Relying purely on Navi's memories would be detrimental if I encounter some inconsistency or difference in his timeline knowledge. I should also probably write a diary of sorts about the future knowledge that I have so I wouldn't forget about them. Using the language from Navi's home and the other two languages that he knew would be great since no one would be able to decipher a near gibberish mixed up language- ' Naruto stopped, realizing that he was rambling.

' Sorry, I got too carried away. Do you have anything else to ask?'

The fox stayed silent for a few seconds before asking another question.

"" What would you do about the one that attacked you? Would you seek revenge?""

Naruto scratched his head. 'i don't really know what I would do about kakashi, to be honest. I don't know the reasons as to why he attacked me. It could just be a test or perhaps he was even ordered by the old man, I don't really know. If he was ordered by the old man, I couldn't really hate him for it since he was only following orders. What I could do though was use it as a guilt

trip material for the old man in the future. I don't know when or how I'd use it to guilt trip him but I sure am gonna use it.

And lastly revenge? No, I don't want to seek revenge for such a small thing, that would just be petty . I was only mad because I thought I was about to get abducted and killed. Now that I know that it was him all along, I'm somewhat relieved since now I know that I wasn't in such great danger. Besides, even if I do want to get revenge on him, I doubt that there's anything that I could do. The distance between our strength is like the sun to pluto-'

"" Pluto? "" The fox interrupted.

And Naruto answered. ' oh it's like the farthest planet on their solar system in Navi's dimension. Anyways my point is, the reason was too small for me to even consider revenge and I wouldn't be able to do anything to him anyways even if I did want to.'

Naruto leaned on the couch and stared at the ceiling.

""Hmm"" the fox hummed at his answer. They both stayed in comfortable silence. Both have different thoughts running through their minds.

The silence was broken when the fox asked something to Naruto.

""You're supposed to be in the academy at this time of the day. Aren't you?""

Naruto smiled. ' I sent a clone in my stead today. There's really nothing else exciting to do at the academy and I'd rather spend my time learning seals than sit there and listen to lectures that I already know.',

"" So you don't have anything to do at the moment? ""

Naruto hummed. Recalling if he has something important planned. He came up with nothing and he gave the fox his answer. 'nothing really, why do you ask.'

""Come to the seal and continue your story. It's getting kind of boring here. Treat this as a tribute to me for not messing up with your chakra anymore.""

'oh yeah about that! I was wondering why I suddenly improved on chakra manipulation, so that's why!.

Thanks for that by the way! But I gotta ask why you decided to stop messing with it?' Naruto asked.

"" I just see no reason to do it any longer."" The fox answered simply, refusing to elaborate more.

"" Hurry up and come here before I change my mind!"" The fox urged. Causing Naruto to release chortle.

' Sure sure, I'm coming.'

-Clone-

An annoyed expression is visible on the clone that was sitting in class, beside the window. The original sent him to the academy today instead of going there himself. The reason? He said he'd rather spend his time practicing seals instead of going into the boring class, so now he has to suffer for the original's convenience.

That's not even the worst part of it!. Their homeroom teacher was sick and had to get checked up so they assigned a substitute to teach their class. The problem is, the white haired dumbass has been picking on the Naruto clone since he arrived.

Granted the first case was deserved since he arrived late, but the next ones were just purely out of spite or something! And it's not just the normal quips or jest the teachers would give the inattentive students, it was a full on attempt at humiliation. He really can't do anything about it so the clone decided to just close his mouth and be quiet.

"Tch" the clone clicked his tongue in annoyance.

That didn't go unheard by the white haired substitute teacher and he got called out for it. " Is there anything that you'd like to add, uzumaki? " The substitute teacher asked.

"Nothing sensei" the clone answered boredly.

The teacher scoffed. " I thought so. Next time if you have anything to add, come here in front and tell it to the whole class."

By this point the clone was already getting even more annoyed. Ever since he arrived here earlier in the morning the teacher has been constantly picking on him and even tried to humiliate him in front of the whole class by asking him questions that's far above what they were currently discussing.

Of course those attempts failed as the original had taken it upon himslelf to read books that were meant for 3rd to 6th year students, and answered all of the ridiculous questions flawlessly.

The teacher looked gobsmacked and decided to stop trying to humiliate him by asking questions and decided to just instead call him out for every little thing he did.

The teacher looked oddly familiar to him but he can't quite remember who he is.

His musings were stopped when a dickhead student called the white haired dumbass teacher and told him that he was just staring outside the window instead of listening. " Mizuki Sensei! Uzumaki isn't listening again, he's just staring outside."

His head snapped towards the source of the voice and inspected the guy. It was a no name civilian that was placed in the middle of the class ranking. He wasn't anything special, the other civilians were just too unmotivated so he got lucky and got placed on the middle rank.

There was a huge sinister grin on his face, he's clearly taking pleasure in Naruto's annoyance.

'oh that's mizuki, I almost forgot about him! Also I'm gonna smack this civilian guy in the face if I get matched against him. He's been trying to annoy me since last week.'

" Uzumaki, what is the element that works best with Raiton (lightning style) and what element counters it?" Mizuki asked. Clearly he didn't learn from his earlier hubris and is once again trying to humiliate him. They're not even discussing the elements for sage's sake!

"Sensei, aren't you teaching us about *henge no jutsu* earlier? Why did we jump into elemental ninjutsu? Don't you think it's quite unfair to ask a 2nd year student a 4th year question?" The clone asked, trying to be as polite as possible, but that didn't stop mizuki the dumbass from trying even more.

"Just tell me if you can't answer it. You're free to stand outside if you can't." Mizuki said angrily.

Everyone can see just how mad the teacher is at Naruto and they couldn't help but wonder why.

Sasuke who was sitting next to the Naruto clone looked at him with curiosity. What could he have done to make the teacher that much mad at him.

Naruto just sighed and answered. " Raiton ( lightning style) works well with Suiton (water style) since water conducts electricity better than most and Doton ( earth style) works against it since ground is known to insulate electricity." His answer is beyond what mizuki was asking. It's a shame that all it did though was piss the teacher off even more.

With a snarl on his face that he didn't even try hiding, Mizuki spoke once again. " You know what? since you're trying to act smart earlier by telling me what I should be asking you, you should come here and perform the *henge no jutsu* ( transformation jutsu). I'm gonna write you up if you don't comply so hurry."

"man, Are you serious right now." Naruto asked with annoyance in his voice.

Mizuki didn't answer and instead just continued to wait in front of the class for Naruto with a clearly visible snarl on his face.

"Tch" the clone clicked his tongue before standing up and slowly walked towards the front to annoy the white haired substitute even more.

He passed the confused Inuzuka who asked him. "Dude, what did you do to make that guy mad at you?"

"Nothing, as far as I remember. I think the dumbass is just stupid and is trying to humiliate a student by asking them questions and making them do things that he hasn't even taught to make himself feel better." Naruto answered, making sure it's loud enough for Mizuki to hear.

In hindsight it's a terrible move but he couldn't care less at this point. It's not like the dumbass is going to be able to do anything to him since he's just a substitute.

He arrived at the front and turned around to face the whole class.

He took a few deep breaths to concentrate but the white haired sun teacher interrupted him again for no reason.

"Are you gonna perform the jutsu or what?"

The clone's eyebrows twitched in annoyance but he just ignored the question and formed the hand Seal required for the jutsu.

The clone visualized in his mind the form that he'd take. Full black outfit and a white lipless mask with a village mark on its forehead.

He's thinking of the Shinobi that attacked him. But the kumogakure symbol on the mask's forehead was replaced by the red spiral of the uzumaki clan.

He waited for a second before." Henge no jutsu!" A plume of smoke erupted from him.

The smoke slowly cleared out, but instead of the form that he envisioned, the transformations looked far from it. It looked sickly pale and the features were distorted.

"What is this?" He asked himself in a quiet and small tone.

He's so confused. The original and his clones practiced it before the academy taught it to them and they even managed to perfect it. So how can he fail on performing the jutsu?

He tried again, And again, And again but it bore the Same result as the first attempt.

'What the hell is happening?!' the clone thought.

The voice of Mizuki interrupted him from his thoughts. " Just admit that you cannot do it and stand outside as your punishment. You're wasting other students' precious time that could be used for studying."

The clone's head snapped towards him and he saw the menacing glare that it was sporting.

' He's doing something to mess with my chakra, I know it! Is it genjutsu? But when did he put me to it?" The clone wondered.

'doesn't matter, I'll just try to dispel it. It shouldn't be that hard.'

The clone swiftly did the handseals for dispelling genjutsu and pushed an enormous amount of chakra through his body.

Multiple beads of sweat formed in the instructor's forehead as he watched what the clone did.

'How did he figure it out!' he shouted in his thoughts.

He's done it. He successfully dispelled the genjutsu.

He turned his head once again towards the white haired instructor and grinned wildly before mouthing. ' nice try '

Finally, He did the seals for the transformation and called the technique. " Henge no jutsu!"

A large plume of smoke once again erupted from the blond's clone. Its dissipating is a slow process that builds suspense to those watching it. When the smoke finally cleared, the form of Naruto in the foreign shinobi's appearance was revealed.

"Is this enough?" The clone asked in. His voice sounded exactly like the Shinobi that attacked him, which surprised the instructor.

"Because if it is then I'm going back to my seat." He undid the transformation and sighed as he walked towards his seat.

He noticed Sasuke looking at him with curiosity but he ignored her completely and just laid his head down on his desk, too fed up with the bullshit the substitute teacher keeps bringing.

It's now the last class for the day, combat practice.

The clone is seated beside his group. Watching the ongoing spars with mild interest. None of them could really bring enjoyment to him as all of them are bad at fighting but he watched nonetheless.

He was watching quietly when shikamaru brought up what happened earlier.

"By the way, Naruto. What happened to you there earlier? You failed to do the transformation so much but then succeeded suddenly, what is up with that."

Kiba then chimed in. " Yeah, I'm wondering about that too"

Choji just listened and waited for his answer while snacking on chips.

The clone sighed. " Somebody put a genjutsu on me which messed with my chakra. I figured that I was in one and dispelled it before performing my last attempt. It's really annoying."

Shikamaru nodded. " That would've been troublesome if that was me earlier."

"But shikamaru you find everything troublesome." Choji said jokingly, causing Kiba and Naruto to snicker while Shikamaru just sighed.

They stayed in silence and just quietly watched all the matches, waiting for their names to be called.

As they did, Naruto noticed a strange and unsettling grin plastered across their instructor's face. He made eye contact with mizuki which prompted the grin he had to expand before he looked down on his clip pad.

"NEXT! Uzumaki Naruto and… Uchiha Sasuke!"

The clone clicked his tongue in annoyance. Fighting Sasuke isn't really ideal if he wants to keep his cover as a clone hidden. But nonetheless, he walked towards the circle and waited for Sasuke to do the same.

He waited as Sasuke slowly walked towards the circle. Her eyes fixed on him, staring coldly and he knew the reason for it.

'she's still mad about the Sasuke-chan comment huh?' he thought with a sweatdrop.

' I'm stuck in a bad spot here. I should be able to endure a few hits before I "pop". I should keep my distance from her by sending clones to divert her attention from me and when she's lost track of me in the onslaught of clones, I should be able to just knock her off the bounds.' he quickly formulated a plan in his head. He knows that it's not a 100 percent success but it's the best he has at the moment.

'It should be easy enough'

Oh how wrong he is.

-End-

Navi: Wassup my minions! Your lord of procrastination is back! I have conquered my inner demon which represents my laziness and I am now back at writing!

Ian: shut up. You did not conquer anything. Your charger just broke and you didn't have money to replace so you weren't able to write or even use your phone for more than a few minutes before putting it down to charge.

Navi:... Just a small correction. I was not the one who broke my charger, your sister did!

Ian: still your fault, you relentlessly teased her about her crush on your friend so she snapped your wire and broke your charger brick…

Navi: … Anyways, everyone! That is the end of today's chapter!

Ian: changing the subject now… I see.

Navi: I hope you like it! Are you gonna add anything, Ian?

Ian:... Just one thing… please stop being lazy and - *Smack*

Navi: That's all my minions! Don't forget to FAVORITE AND FOLLOW so you won't miss an update!

NOT GONNA PLUG MY DISCORD THIS TIME. JUST REFER TO THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER IF YOU WANT THE LINK.