[Kukui Tanku]

"You three each have things you are good at and things you are bad at." Hayate explained. "All of you have incredible offense for genin." I grinned. "But you also have things you are all terrible at. Like Defense. So today I am going to be teaching you all a jutsu to help solve that problem."

I saw Mika's face contort into a grin at that. "Really? what jutsu are you gonna teach us, Sensei?" I wondered that as well. Maybe the earth wall? It would be great for defense as it was literally a wall. Made out of earth. Not to mention it was an easy jutsu to learn I heard.

"The earth clone jutsu." Hayate created an earth clone. "Normally most other jonin would teach you the earth wall for a defense jutsu if they knew it because it is better than a clone usually. But your fighting styles all would benefit from the earth clone."

"But isn't the earth clone jutsu a utility jutsu?" Tenten asked.

Hayate nodded. "It is. But it has defensive uses. It can take attacks for you, be used as a replacement tool instead of a log, and they can be used as a distraction to help you get away in a pinch." Hayate then gestured to his clone. "Clones can also act for you if you are far away although not many people know that. But most clones will go down after a single attack." Hayate punched a hole through his clone's chest. "And earth clones aren't exactly the most durable when it comes to Taijutsu attacks."

'They sound really useful. Even with the weaknesses...' I could have like dozens of clones sealed away in a scroll. 'The potential...' The experiments I could run! "I already have a few ideas on how to use them..." My grin stretched. "These clones sound a lot more useful than the earth wall." I could set up so many traps... Prepare elemental seals to give to them. I could have entire fleets of fire using clones given enough time.

"Kukui stop thinking about how to torture your enemies with jutsu again." Hayate dragged a hand across his face... I only thought about torture once when I was idly thinking about Obito. "I understand it might be fun to think of new inventive ways to use new jutsu or fuinjutsu but now is not the time." Jerk. He didn't know of the potential future that was roughly... four years away at this point.

"Fine." I groaned. "But I'm going to be doing a lot of experimentation with the jutsu as soon as you teach us the damn thing." If I had enough prep time I could do anything. I could potentially create something on the scale of Konan's six hundred billion paper bombs. "Imagine hundreds of thousands of clones. All of them with the ability to use sealless fire jutsu." I might even be able to take down Obito that way. "I'm gonna need to make a lot of sealing scrolls."

"That sounds impossible." Tenten sighed. "But something close to that would be cool. You could be a one man army theoretically if you were given enough prep time." It would depend on the chakra cost of each clone probably. If they took lets say... 20 chakra points I with my... 480 chakra points could make 24 clones at once and seal them before recovering. That wasn't accounting for when the skill leveled up either.

[Name: Kukui Tanku

Title: Aspiring Prodigy

Chakra: 480/480

Energy points: 480/480

Dexterity: 25

Strength: 23

Constitution: 24

Chakra: 24

Chakra control C]

"I'll do it somehow." I then looked back to Hayate." Now could you please teach us the Jutsu, Sensei?" I had an army to create. One that would be my ace in the hole against people like Orochimaru. 'Actually it would be a wonderful idea to prepare for him.' I would need to stick close to Team Seven when the man came to attack them in the Chuunin exams. 'I might not win but I sure as hell can give time for the Anbu to show up.'

Hayate nodded and grinned. "Here are the hand seals." He slowly began going through the hand seals. Ram, Monkey, Horse, Ram. I paid attention to how Hayate's chakra moved. From the ground an earth clone of Hayate slowly emerged. "Ram, Monkey, Horse, and Ram. Those are the exact seals you need. It might not come to you initially since you all don't have an earth affinity but you all should get it down after a few tries. Now try it for yourself."

Me, Mika, and Tenten nodded and began going through the hand seals. 'Ram, Monkey, Horse, Ram...' I moved my chakra how Hayate moved his. "Earth clone jutsu." From the ground a perfect earth clone of me popped up. "I did it..." I chuckled. "I did it!" I wonder if the clone had access to the system. Probably not. But still. This was huge! "Feeling alright pal?" I got out a sealing scroll.

The clone looked around. "I feel alright. I feel like how we normally do... Don't see anything odd. Don't feel funny either." That probably meant it didn't have access to the system. That wasn't ideal but still. "I think I'll rest." I then sealed it away.

I then looked at the screen that popped up a few seconds ago.

[New skill unlocked: Earth Clone Jutsu]

[Earth Clone Jutsu lvl 1:

Allows user to create corporeal clones of themselves out of the earth that are a tenth as strong as themselves

Hand Signs: 4

Chakra cost: 48 chakra points per clone]

'I suppose that makes sense... I can only make ten clones at a time if we're not counting me needing to only make nine to not die of chakra exhaustion.' Well I could still work with this. Besides. I could still level up the jutsu and make it cost less.

"Huh you did it first try. Good job, Kukui." Hayate said. We then looked at Mika and Tenten who appeared to be on their second try. "Now we wait for them." I grinned.

This would be fun.

'I hate everything about this.' I hung from a tree. Like Spider-Man. Except I wasn't waiting for a criminal. I was waiting for a monster. I remembered the bandages on my face. 'I swear I'm going to break that monsters legs.' We were on a mission that should be reclassified as an A-rank. But it was a D-rank. The worst one of them all. Fanfic really didn't exaggerate when it said that this mission was bad.

"Pryo, do you have eyes on the target?" I heard Sickly ask through the earpiece I had on. I didn't see or sense anything. The damn monster had to be able to conceal its chakra. There was no way in hell this thing couldn't do it. It was just too good at hiding. The last time we caught it it mauled me and ran away again.

"No," I replied through my mic. We had been searching for thirty eight minutes so far. This was our first rodeo with this hellspawn. Hayate was real keen on not letting us do it without supervision like with every other D-rank. I understood why. We would just kill this demon instead of completing the mission. I would happily and gladly do it too. "How about Reaper and Kaze?" They hopefully had better luck than me.

"I haven't found the Target yet. The Target seems to have stealth training... I wonder if it can use chakra." Kaze replied. I would rather just kill myself and go back to the void than deal with a chakra using hellspawn. Even Naruto was never this bad. I hoped Reaper was having better luck than me and Kaze. I wanted my revenge. Getting mauled by a cat was something that I never wanted to experience again.

"I've got eyes on the target." Reapers beautiful voice said. It was almost like an angels at the moment. "Its currently sleeping on a rock close by. I'm going to try and capture it." God bless Reaper's soul. Her attempt would probably be unsuccessful but if it was then I would be eternally grateful. "Wish me luck my comrades."

"Good luck Reaper, I'm going to try and come to your location now be careful." I began quietly moving. Any movement of any kind could make the hellspawn wake up if I wasn't careful. Its hearing was incredible. "Kaze, try to come to Reaper as well." Sickly wouldn't do shit due to us saddling him with the name Sickly. Serves the jerk right though for giving us this mission. We'd even clean the Inuzuka kennels again instead of this and he damn well knew that.

"Alright. I'm heading there now." Kaze switched off her coms and presumably began heading to Reaper's location.

I continued to jump through trees and swing through branches quietly until I sensed Reaper's chakra.

The sight that greeted me was a hellspawn being held by the tail and tied up. Good. Reaper looked like shit with cuts all over her arms and face. "I caught the little bastard!" She seemed so happy too. Good for her. "Now." She dropped the cat from a reasonable distance. Said cat looked resigned. I would feel bad for it if it weren't such a prick. "Can you held bandage me up, Pyro?" I nodded and walked over to Reaper.

I took out a medkit and some of the items in it. "I'll contact Sickly and inform him you caught the little hellspawn." I switched on my mic, "Sickly, Reaper caught the little hell spawn. Can you come to our location?" I put a few bandaids on Reaper's face and arms. She would hopefully heal quickly. Hopefully I would too.

"Alright." The sickly man coughed. "I'll be there soon. Tell Reaper I said good job." Sickly then switched off his mic. He should be here within three minutes. Good. And Kaze would be here within one hopefully.

"He said good job." I then looked to the Hellspawn who was trying to crawl away and picked it up. Not by the tail like Reaper did. "You know if you weren't such a jerk some of us genin would probably find a way to help you." I looked the evil cat dead in the eyes. "Yet instead you run and maul us. This is karma. Next time don't be a jerk and maybe we can teach you ways to escape easier."

Reaper chuckled. "It probably can't understand you but give it hell!" Reaper then stood up. "I never want to do this mission again. I'd much rather clean up that garbage lake then capture this hellspawn again." Same.

I nodded and made sure the cat's bindings were secure. I then unsealed an earth clone to carry it. "Don't let it go." The clone nodded and took it from me. I loved earth clones. I learned a lot about them over the last day or so. Mainly they didn't have the system. Also in the sealing scroll they didn't see anything. Time passed by extremely quickly there too it seemed. Good to know.

I then sensed Kaze and Sickly.

[Hiruzen Sarutobi]

So far it had been a week since the last batch of academy graduates. All had been going well so far. Everyone had met Tora at least once. The shortest time he had seen the cat be caught was 42 minutes. That counted time to get to his office of course. The longest time was three hours.

Team Seven held that record.

Nobody had died, nobody was in the hospital for long, and the jonin were doing their jobs and being good Sensei's. Even Kakashi. He was teaching his team how to work together. In time the team would work well together and be taught more things a Shinobi should learn. Meanwhile other teams were already good at working together or were progressing fast enough to where they were being taught other things.

Whilst that was going on though, he had to deal with the missions themself. Soon enough he'd have to give out C-ranks. Hiruzen wanted there to be a prime selection of C-rank missions that the genin could choose. All of them hopefully easy enough. Of course Hiruzen knew that anything could go wrong. The life of a shinobi was one that was filled with uncertainty. Anything could happen in even a D-rank mission.

So far Hiruzen had four missions he was preparing for the Genin. Each one covered a type of mission that they could take later on. A diplomatic mission to Takigakure to negotiate a trade deal. It wasn't something the genin themselves would do but they would watch and hopefully offer useful input. A mission to Gaurd a businessman in Kusagakure. The genin would play a more important role here but there shouldn't be anyone to tough that they need to deal with.

Next would be the mission to find a missing kid near the land of rice. The kid was presumably taken by some bandit and it would be the job of the team to find said bandits and retrieve the child. And last is an assassination mission of a low profile fraudster who was screwing over some small businesses outside of Konoha. The stealth mission. Also, the one to introduce genin to killing should they not take a basic bandit extermination mission beforehand.

Hiruzen was also considering an extra large bandit extermination mission, a mission to the land of snow, and a mission to the land of Iron to give to the genin. But he still had to go over them. He was sure at least the mission to the land of iron would be accepted. The land of Iron was neutral and didnt really cause conflict with the five great nations. Or anyone doing a mission that led them there. Hiruzen was sure that nothing could go wrong on that mission.

Once he was done organizing and setting up missions, Hiruzen would visit Shisui. The man had a new game to play with him and Hiruzen was excited to see what it was. He heard it was a game that Kukui had made up. Kukui had made up several actually and they were all fun. Apparently the one that was going to be played tonight was named Monopoly. Hiruzen could take a guess at what it was but he wasn't sure. There was also Uno. He had no idea what that was.

But for now he still had to deal with the mess of paperwork that was unfortunately not burning from his gaze. "One day I will beat you, my accursed rival." Hiruzen was the professor, the god of shinobi, and the Hokage. Yet he always fought a losing battle against paperwork.

Maybe he should get some unfortunate Chuunin to help him again. Iruka was off for a few weeks and he wasn't taking any missions at the moment. Hiruzen is sure the man would absolutely love to help.

Well until he sees the three foot tall mountain of paperwork.

Hiruzen nearly summoned the death god just to take care of it. But instead he simply cried whilst cursing out Minato and Tobirama-sensei for leaving him this mess. "One day I'll know your secrets... Minato." Whenever he was visiting Minato he always had a clear desk. No paperwork at all. It was almost like magic.

Magic that Hiruzen wished he could learn. 'It had to have been a jutsu...' Minato must have found a jutsu Tobirama-sensei made to help him. Looking at the smug expressions on objects of his hate definitely helped cement that belief.

They knew that they left him with this hell. With no way to stop it from taking over his office either. One day he would see them again. That day he would find a way to get his revenge. It would be cold, swift, and painful hopefully.

This paperwork was no joke.

At least some of it was about entertaining topics... Like team three capturing Tora again. They just beat their record too! They did it in five minutes this time... Why did Hiruzen have a feeling this time it wouldn't end well for anyone else?

Oh well.

Now though he might as well take a break from this paperwork. He could just have Iruka help him with it. He really wanted to finish looking over the C-rank missions. the Takigakure one was the safest looking so far so it'd probably be gone within the month.

He just wondered who would take it.

[Kukui Tanku]

I looked at the defeated Hanabi with a smile. "You did good." We just sparred I won. Obviously. Hanabi was incredible though. She had almost gotten me a few times. Granted, I was holding back but still. Hanabi was pretty much a prodigy. I was convinced of it. Also, it helped that I taught her how to copy jutsu with her Byakugan.

"Thank you Sensei," Hanabi said whilst collapsing on the ground. She had given it her all to try and win. She used every trick in the book to try and win. Including some Ninja wire tricks. I was really shocked by that one. "What will we be doing next?"

Now that was a great question. 'I could teach her another jutsu.'

I only had two other jutsu to teach her at this point that weren't used by my flame seal. The Phoenix Flower Jutsu and the Earth Clone Jutsu. I was honestly tempted to teach her the Phoenix Flower.

But that was a bad idea.

Not because she would likely be irresponsible with it. No I think she would be masterful at its use. But because Hiashi wouldn't like me teaching his daughter how to set things on fire. So it was the Earth Clone Jutsu it is.

I'd probably get yelled at if he ever found out about it. Hyuuga were really anal about not using other techniques. Or learning them. But still clones were useful. Multiple gentle fist users, misdirection, and replacement, along with defense should Hanabi never learn the Rotation.

'I'll teach her it.' I grinned and unsealed a clone from a scroll. I had taken to making them at night and sealing them away. I gave one to every one of my friends and I planned on giving one to Hanabi eventually. "I'll teach you how to make these." I saw the tiredness train from Hanabi's eyes and be replaced with excitement.

"A corporeal clone?" Hanabi activated her Byakugan. "An earth clone?" I nodded. The Gentle fist was based off of using the rigidity of earth. So Hanabi should adjust to this fairly quickly.

"Indeed." I tapped the clone who grinned. "It takes a tenth of your chakra to use and it has a tenth of your power." I punched the clone and it crumpled to earth. "They may be weak but do not let that distract you from their usefulness. They can be used for defense, offense, taking attacks for you, and they can even be used as a tool to replace yourself with." I unsealed and other clone and slapped a connector seal on it. It began running away and I replaced myself with it.

"They sound useful... even if weak..." Hanabi stood up. "I could use them all with the Gentle Fist and beat anyone in a taijutsu fight..." Hanabi grinned. "Teach me!"

I chuckled. "Okay. Watch closely." Hanabi's Byakugan was still activated. I slowly went through the hand seals for the Earth clone jutsu whilst molding my chakra slowly. "Ram, Monkey, Horse, Ram. Earth Clone Jutsu!" From the ground an earth clone of me popped up. I sealed both of my clones. 'Still draining.' The Earth clone jutsu hadn't leveled up once yet.

Hanabi deactivated her Byakugan. She slowly began going through the handseals for the Earth Clone Jutsu. "Ram, Monkey, Horse, Ram. Earth Clone Jutsu!" From the ground a clone of Hanabi rose. She looked at it and reactivated her Byakugan. "Wow..."

Now I wondered if the clone could activate its Byakugan. "Those clones are better than the regular clones that you'd learn at the Academy if I didn't teach you them already. Now I wonder. Can your clone activate its Byakugan?"

The clone shrugged and put its hands in the Ram Seal. "Byakugan." The characteristic veins of the Byakugan appeared. "Yep. I can activate the Byakugan sensei."

I grinned. "Well this just opens up a whole lot of other things, Hanabi. You can now use clones for Recon." I needed to find more shit to teach Hanabi soon. I was really enjoying teaching her. I was going to make her the most overpowered genin possible if I could.

"Now lets see what else you can do." I grabbed my wooden sword once more. " I want to fight you and your clone. Sword or no sword. I do not care." I'd put in a bit more effort than usual today.

Hanabi gulped.

[? ? ?]

A figure sighed as he looked down. The job he was getting today had to be huge. Kakuzu had asked him to meet him personally today.

That usually meant one of two things. he was either getting a pay cut or a huge job. He hadn't gotten a pay cut in years so he assumed that it'd be a big job. The message seemed tp be particularly urgent too.

So he needed to haul his ass over to the land of fire quickly to meet the man. Luckily he happened to be in the land of rice when Kakuzu's message arrived. The figure knew he didn't have much time. But he didn't need much time. Kakuzu said he'd be in the usual land of fire meeting spot. It was close to the border of the land of fire.

The figure hummed as he crossed the border to the land of fire. He honestly couldn't wait to see how much he'd make this time. Kakuzu was basically his boss. Sure the figure had other contacts, but Kakuzu paid the best and he always gave the best jobs.

Like that one job back in Kumogakure. Man dealing with those pricks again sucked but killing them was wonderful.

'Almost there.' The building was in sight. It was a basic house. One of the places Kakuzu used to rest eery few months in his travels. It wasn't nice by any means but it wasn't a shitty shack either. Kakuzu was a cheap bastard on a good day but he liked splurging on certain things.

Immortals gotta have some nice things after all.

"Your early Ryuji. Good." The familiar figure of Kakuzu had said as he reached the safe house. He was wearing the usual black cloak with red clouds. It was something that had only been a thing for a few years but the figure knew that it was apparently worth Kakuzu's time. "Normally I don't like paying this big of money for a job but this is important."

There were three huge bags of money on the table between them.

"Wow." Ryuji whistled. "Want me to kill a small countries leader again?" The leader of the hidden star village was laughably easy to kill. But he had done something that cost Kakuzu a lot of money so Kakuzu wanted him dead. But he didn't have the time to kill him so it led to the figure getting a years pay.

Kakuzu shook his head. "No. None are worth killing at the moment. But this matter involves one of the smaller nations. Specifically my former village." There was quite a bit of venom in the mans voice at the end. "We need someone to test the Jinchurriki of the Seven Tails. And quite possibly go for a capture which would earn you an extra pretty penny."

Ryuji grinned. "I'm not one to question a job but why not do it yourself? You'd save a lot of money and get to say fuck you to your former home." Ryuji sympathised with Kakuzu. Much like the older man, he had been cast away by the people he thought he trusted after one failed mission.

"I would love to do this job but my leader requires my services elsewhere in the land of stone." Kakuzu seemed particularly annoyed about that part. "But he told me to get one of my contacts to test and hopefully capture the seven tails Jinchurriki instead. You are the only one of my contacts available for this job."

Ryuji nodded. "Alright then." He looked at the money again. "Tell me everything I need to know."

Didn't expect that now, didn't you? Well this pretty much confirms what this arc is about. Takigakure. I originally wanted to let the mystery hang in the air for another chapter but I needed to boost this one to 4k words so I put this in at the end. One of Kakuzu's contacts is the guy we need to worry about. I'm really excited to write his character.

Anyways as for the rest of the chapter, Kukui finally learns his favorite jutsu and gets an idea that totally won't be used later, a D-rank mission that leads into something wonderful, Hiruzen going over the missions(and potential arcs) and fighting his worst enemy, and then Kukui training Hanabi. Originally I had more team three stuff but I'll save that for the next chapter. Team three in this fic already knows each other well enough besides Hayate.

I'm honestly excited for the rest of this arc tho. The plans I have for it make me really excited to write faster.

Anyways hopefully you all enjoyed the chapter!

- Tobi