Author's Notes: So I've gotten a few Reviews on that I wanted to address real quick.
1: I am a fan of the ideas of people having a Primary and Secondary Chakra Affinity. In other words 2 Chakra Natures that they exell with thus giving them more options.
2: This is an AU, and it's the 'job' of Fanfic writers to explore new possibilities. This story isn't a NaruHina however I fully intend to write a NaruHina story down the line.
3: That bit with Yugao, Shibi and Guy talking about Fugaku and the Gold Dust was partly me just venting some annoyance at the situation. I wasn't saying he should flood the market with so much gold dust it becomes worthless but it's something he could have done to help with the situation even it it's no where near enough.
Welp, That's my 2 cents. Have fun with the chapter!
Kakashi stood next to the Memorial Stone in Training Ground 7 as he thought about the last couple months. First he hadn't gotten his Sensei's son or Obito's cousin as students, second Guy hadn't challaned him once since shortly before Naruto and Sasuke became official Genin and he didn't know why. He was honestly starting to miss the constant challenges. Admittedly he'd been training a little more due to the lack of challenges, but it just didn't get the same results, so his training was slowly becoming more and more intense. Had he really let his skills drop that much? He estimated that he was a mid B-Rank now without Obito's gift… and even then he could tell his stamina with it had dropped considerably. He guessed that if he used it now, he'd be recuperating for about a week.
He once spied on an all out match between Yūgao and Guy and was shocked at the power they showed. The entire Anbu training ground was completely destroyed, with the two still going strong while looking as if they weren't in the middle of what to most would look like a battle to the death! When did Guy get this strong? When did Yūgao get this strong? Both were easily S-Rank Shinobi but Kakashi estimated that Guy was still holding back a little as he wasn't using any of the Eight Gates! Had… had Guy been holding back during each and every challenge?
It felt like his entire world view had been shaken, and he was reexamining everything. Before he had felt like mimicking Obito's constant tardiness, was honoring his best friend but… but was that really the case? On top of that ever since Minato died, Kakashi had basically stopped training all together, and spent his entire time at the Memorial Stone mentally making promise after promise not to fail Minato, Obito and Rin again… but had he? No matter how much he thought, he just couldn't get an answer. For now he'd focus on regaining if not surpassing his old level of strength. If he'd been failing his team before, then he wasn't going to do it again. That was one mental promise he was going to do his best not to break!
Sakura was sitting in Ino's home stunned. She'd just returned from her first C-Rank not even two hours ago. The C-Rank wasn't the problem, that was a routine trip to the Land of Fire's port city to retrieve a shipment for Konoha's hospitals. Right before the team was dismissed the Hokage had told her that her mother had been arrested for treason, and Sakura would be told more when more information was available. Ino had offered Sakura a room since while the two had argued for most if not all of their time at the academy, they were still friends. What had her mother done to get arrested? Did… did it have something with what she said right before Sakura went on the C-Rank? That despite being a Shinobi, Sakura's mother had more control and could order Sakura to do whatever the woman wanted whenever she wanted.
Sakura shook her head. For now she'd try not to focus on it. In her research she'd come across the term 'jinchūriki' and came to realize the reason everyone hated Naruto, and after a little more research found that one of the best counters to the Biju was the First's Wood Release. Sakura had the same Chakra Natures the First had so… was it possible she could use the Wood Release as well despite not being related to him? She knew it was a Bloodline limit but… the First was the only one to ever have the ability. Sakura shook her head again, it didn't matter if it was seemingly impossible! If somehow Naruto went berserk under the Kyubi's power than someone would need to be able to stop him without killing him. He may be annoying, an idiot and loud but he was still a fellow Shinobi of Konoha, and the Heir of Konoha's sister village's to boot!
The pink haired Kunoichi stood up and was just about to head to one of the Yamanak's training ground when she saw Ino leaning against the door, her sheathed rapier on her hip, "Bout time you quit moping Forehead. If it went any longer I was going to dump a cup of ice water on you! Perhaps then your hair would grow to cover all that empty space!"
Sakura scoffed, "Just ice water? You'd be lazy if you settled for that Ino-Pig!" The two glared at each other for a moment or two before their faces then softened.
"Honestly I'm surprised you've already bounced back. I have no idea what I'd do if the situation was reversed," Ino said, "You alright?"
"Honestly… no," Sakura sighed as she closed her eyes, "I have no idea what mom did to get arrested but until the Hokage tells me what I'm allowed to know I've got to try to put it out of my mind, for my own sanity if nothing else. For now I've got something I want to try to work towards."
"What's that?" Ino's dad Inoichi said from behind ino making the two girls jump.
"I… want to see if I can learn to use Wood Release," Sakura said, making the two Yamakana's eyes widen, "I've got the correct Elements, and… I honestly don't think it's impossible that only the First could use it. The odds of just one person awakening this bloodline and it never being seen again is astronomically low. If nothing else it'll help take my mind off what happened for a while."
Inoichi nodded, "Understandable, though you are wrong on one thing. The First isn't the only one with Wood Release, one of Konoha's Anbu is able to use it too," Sakura's and Ino's eyes went wide. Why the hell was Inoichi telling them about the skills an Anbu had? Wasn't that confidential? "I'll speak with the Hokage about getting a meeting set up. You might be able to do it, you might not. If nothing else they can help you learn more about your elements though I doubt they'll show you what they look like under the mask," Sakura nodded. She at least had a goal and something that could distract her. For now… that was enough.
With a yell Choji threw his kanabo at his father, who batted it to the side after expanding his arm, though Choza grimaced as he did so as the weapon's spikes dug into his skin. Focusing hard Choji then tried pulling the metal bat back with a Chakra String. Using ropes or chains could also work but that would not only reduce the range he could throw the weapon but they could also be cut resulting in the possibility of the weapon being lost or used against him.
With a grunt Choji pulled his hand back, a thin thread of pure Chakra the palm of his hand to the metal bat. The string flickered for a moment as if about to fade but held strong and began to retract resulting in the bat flying back into his hand, "It's getting easier… but it's still nowhere near fast enough is it?"
Choza nodded, "You're getting there. You're able to pull it back six times out of ten down now. If Konoha had any puppeteers like Suna does, it would be easier. Unfortunately as far as I know Suna is the only village in the world to use puppetry in combat. Kind of an odd choice if you ask me since they need Chakra Wood to make their puppets and wood is very expensive in a desert."
Choji snorted in amusement, "Hey if it works it works. I mean Konoha has a Clan that's weaponised their own shadows, while our family weaponize calories so who are we to judge?"
Choza let out a bark of laughter, "True enough! Now you're almost to the point in controlling your Fire Chakra where you should be able to handle a Chakra Metal kanabo and gauntlets without risk of turning the compound into a bonfire!"
Choji rolled his eyes, "I set one bush on fire when training and you won't let me forget it will you?" Choza just kept laughing, making Choji shake his head, "What about my Earth Nature? How's that coming?"
Calming down Choza gave his son a proud smile, "Very well. Not only have you learned how to channel Search Chakra through your muscles increasing their strength and durability, you've also learned the Rock Wall, Rock Fist, and Earth Bullet Jutsu, while for fire you've learned the Fire Ball, Fire Bullet and in my opinion underused, Spark Serpent Jutsu. It's weak compared to every other fire Jutsu but with even a single campfire you can make up to six fire serpents, and have them distract your enemies, or if you have enough Chakra put out a house… or brush fire," Choza said before bursting out in more raucous laughter.
Choji grinned and reached for a scroll in his pocket, to unseal something that Naruto had used many times. A humble water balloon! And while his father was distracted threw it right at the large red haired man nailing him right in the face, making Choza splutter in shock. Choji smirked, "DId you really think I'd practice something as dangerous as Fire Nature Chakra without carrying any water on me? The balloon might not do much to a flaming bush but it's more for smaller things. I've got a full barrel sealed here."
"Well at least you're taking the dangers of an uncontrolled fire seriously," Choza said with a smile, "Now let's get back to training. If you can get the Chakra String to work eight times out of ten three times in a row, we'll work on getting your Chakra Metal equipment."
Tenten wiped the sweat from her brow. Working with her father at the forge was hard work but always satisfying. Currently they are making a new batch of basic weaponry for the store. They'd already made two dozen of the basic star shuriken and a dozen kunai but those were the easiest to make. Pulling the red hot metal from the forge with a pair of tongs she brought it to the anvil and carefully channeled her Wind Chakra at the blade to keep its temperature up. They'd already had to reheat it a couple times, and if they reheated it too many times the metal would have to be scrapped, "This would be so much easier if we used Chakra Metal," Tenten muttered.
"It would also be easier if you had Fire Nature instead of Wind and Lighting," Tenchi replied, his eyes focused on the blade as he brought the hammer down in quick precise strikes as the two worked on turning the raw metal into a new katana, "But we don't so we'll work with what we've got. Plus this will give you a far better control over your Wind Chakra than if we used Chakra Metal. You're basically skipping a basic version of this training and going right to the advanced version."
Tenten gave her dad a small nod though she never lost her focus. After an hour Tenshi quenced the blade and set it to the side, "Very good! Now let's take a break. You've used up a lot of Chakra during the past couple hours."
"Finally!" Tenten groaned as she slumped in a chair by the wall and greedily gulped down the glass of water she was given, "Between Guy-Sensei's more intense training and this, we better be nominated for the Chunin exams!"
Tenshi chuckled, "I thought the same thing before my first go at the Chunin Exams!"
"How'd it go?" Tenten asked, "I don't mean the different stages. I'm just asking how it went overall."
Tenshi shook his head, "We didn't make it past the first stage. The test was done in… Taki if I recall correctly. The first stage was making our way to the top of the tree before diving off into the lake surrounding the town. It was a basic test of courage and if we're willing to risk our lives because at that height we could have died if we made a mistake while focusing our chakra. that I'm sad Chakra to say we unanimously wimped out on but while we failed it was a major wake up call. We never had any trouble with Nuke-Nin on our mission, so we never had a real life threatening experience until that point. Once we got back to Konoha we had a long talk with our Sensei. Six months later we tried again in Kusa and I managed to pass," He smiled, "Point is the tests are no joke, which is one reason why for the past few years only Genin with at least a year's worth of experience are entered."
"But with the rate the Rookies are growing, there's a good chance they might be," Tenten stated, "Honestly I hope they do get nominated. They've been putting in a lot more work than I did in the first couple months I was a Genin."
"I could say the same thing," Tenshi chuckled, "At the risk of sounding like your Sensei, you kids have an amazing drive pushing you forward, almost as if your passion is the flames of a forge while the training is the hammer tempering and molding each of you into a masterpiece."
"You're right… you do sound like Sensei," Tenten chuckled before she got up and stretched, "Well I'm going to go work on training my Lighting Chakra a bit, then take a shower. Later dad," As Tenten left the smithy Tenshi smiled. He wasn't sure if Tenten would be promoted this time but even though he occasionally trained to keep his skills sharp, something told him that his daughter would surpass him one day. Something he was looking forward to seeing.
Shikamaru rubbed his arms as he looked at the ten arrows sticking more than halfway into his target. After Naruto came back from his second C-Rank he'd asked the blond to put some seals on his bow to up its draw strength. Something he was currently regretting as even mimicking Choji's trick of channeling Earth Chakra to his arms, the bow was still a pain to draw. Naruto had basically tripped the bow's draw strength! Despite the pain in his arms, Shika had a small smile as he channeled Fire Chakra through the sore muscles, slightly easing the tension and letting them relax. Water Chakra may be better for healing but who needed a heat pack when they could just channel Fire Chakra to the correct area?
His dad still hadn't found out what Shikamaru was working on, and Shikamaru could tell it was beginning to annoy Konoha's Jonin Commander. Something that Shikamaru's mother Yoshino found highly amusing. She hadn't seen Shikaku this annoyed since before they were married, and Inoichi had asked him a riddle that took Shikaku weeks to solve. When his arms no longer felt like they were burning from overuse, he sighed, retrieved the arrows, and sealed them and the bow away.
Recently his father had asked him a question that the old man knew would bother Shikamaru the same way not knowing what his son was training on, bothered same riddle Inoichi had asked him all those years ago. "An object that grows bigger the more is removed from it, yet the more you give, the smaller it gets. What is it?" Shikamaru had a small smirk as he'd worked out the riddle a couple days ago. Naruto's prankster nature must have rubbed off on him a little as he'd wait and let his dad think he was struggling with it. Ah well, being able to trick people was part of being a Shinobi so this was just one more form of that.
Neji's anger was slowly turning into hatred. No one in the clan was bothered by Hinata straying from tradition simply because of the threat of a Failure to not renew an alliance with a defunct clan. Who cared if the Uzumaki were the clan of Konoha's Sister Village? Fate had shown they were weak when their village was destroyed. The Hyuga did not need them, nore did they need the Aburame Clan. Even the Uchiha's had shown that they were not blessed by Fate and had fallen leaving only the Hyuga as the sole Noble Clan of Konoha. Just as it should have always been, and yet the rest of his clan was practically falling over themselves to let Hinata break tradition and disgrace the entire Clan! Was he really the only one who could hear the sweet words of Fate? The situation absolutely disgusted the young Hyuga Prodigy, yet due to Hyuga Tradition he as a lowly Branch Member was powerless to do anything to stop it. But something had to be done lest Fate gives her blessings to someone else and the Hyuga Clan becomes nothing more then the next batch of Failures.
Kiba was training with his older sister Hana, while Akamaru was training with Hana's canine partners the Haimaru Brothers, "Not bad Squirt," Hana said as she deflected a lightning powered claw from Kiba before grabbing his wrist and tossing him to the side, "But not good enough."
"No shit," Kiba growled as he flipped in mid air to land on his feet, "You're a High Chunin, I'm still a Genin."
"Yet you're catching up quickly," Hana smirked, "I never thought of channeling elemental chakra to my hands, though I think Mom's able to do the same thing. She wouldn't stop smirking when you showed it off," Handa quickly dodged another flurry of strikes from her younger brother.
The next time the two broke apart they heard their mother chuckle, "Damn right I was smirking! Do you two have any idea how many morons in the clan were saying that Kiba would never make Alpha and just stay as the Omega of the Pack? Yet the brat not only figures out that by sending chakra to his claws to improve their power, but Akamaru turns out to have the perfect Chakra Natures to fully complement his, AND is the first Canine in the Clan since Kuromaru to speak english!"
The large one eared wolf gains an identical grin, "The looks on the rest of the pack when the pup showed that off, along with coating himself in Water Chakra to lessen the damage he takes, while simultaneously channeling Wind to his claws. Looks like the Pup's already surpassed his partner."
Kiba rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah laugh it up. I'm already working on channeling both of my Natures simultaneously. Akamaru's just a prodigy in that area," Kuromaru's fang filled grin grows at the statement. At first Kiba had been depressed at how easily Akamaru was able to channel both natures but now it seemed it was just pushing him forward to catch up. That's how it was meant to be in the Inuzukas. Human and Canine working side by side and pushing each other to improve.
Glancing at his partner, Kuromaru saw a similar grin and look in Tsume's eyes. Perhaps they should instigate some clan training sessions? Why just have Kiba and Akamaru excel and show the best properties of the Pack?
Lee sat panting before a grinning Might Guy a broken set of wooden tonfa at the Jonin's feet, "Very well done Lee! Your speed, strength and tactical mind have developed faster than even I anticipated!" Guy's face then turned serious, "However you are still too reckless and stay in fights longer then you should. Remember the Goken is powerful, but you must be like lightning. Dive in when there's an opening, hit fast and hard before vanishing. Patience is the key to use the Goken to its full potential."
"Yes Sensei," Lee said as he got to his feet, before glancing down at the broken weapons.
"Fear not Lee," Guy said as he unsealed a new set of metal tonfa, "These are made of Chakra Metal and treated since the very beginning with Earth Chakra, making them far more durable!" Handing the weapons to Lee, the Genin quickly went through some basic motions to get used to the weight and balance of his new weapons, "Next we'll spar with our staff and if you prove you're ready I have a similar gift," Lee grew serious, unsealed his staff, leapt back and took the opening stance to Monkey Style. Guy chuckled, unsealed his own staff. One painted a dark green with black swirls reminiscent of a tortoise's shell. The next stage of Lee's training was about to begin and deep down Guy hoped that one day Lee would not only match his skill in Taijutsu but surpass him. Nothing would please the Jonin more.
The white haired figure of Jiraiya of the Sannin sat across from his old teammate Tsunade Senju and her apprentice Shizune. It had taken longer than the Toad Sage would have liked to track down his old friend but found her he had, "So… what do you want Jiraiya?" Tsunade asked as she crossed her arms, "If it's to bring me back then forget it. No way am I going back to that deathtrap."
Jiraiya frowned and held out a scroll, "The old man had a letter for you, and since you've been ignoring every messenger monkey this was his only option."
Tsunade raised an eyebrow as she took it. Opening the scroll she froze… im…. Impossible! "This better not be a lie Jiraiya!"
"What better not be a lie? I'm not a mind reader Princess," Jiraiya asked.
"Naruto is alive," She said plainly, making Shizune gasp, "Shortly after that day, an Anbu appeared and told me that Kushina and her child were dead! It's the only reason I didn't return then and there to take care of my Godson despite my feelings towards Konoha!"
"Oh the brats alive," Jiraiya smirked, "Being trained by Kusina's student Yūgao and apparently he's excelling in the Uzumaki's styles and Fuinjutsu. Even signed the Uzumaki's contract according to Sensei."
Tsunade tilted her head as she thought about what she'd been told as well as what was in the letter. Honestly Hiruzen was giving her no choice, with the subtle threat of labeling her a Nuke-Nin. She was regrettably not officially a retired Shinobi. Simply one in reserve. Thinking back to the snake masked Anbu… wait. Anbu didn't use demonic masks… but Root did! Tsunade's anger and chakra spiked as her Killing Intent filled the bar, making most of the patrons and even the bartender faint as the message from Hiruzen was instantly turned to cinders from her Fire Chakra, "I am going to KILL Orochimaru!"
"What did the Snake do this time?" Jiraiya asked.
"After that day, it was a snake masked Anbu who told me that Kushina and Naruto died," Tsunade explained as she got to her feet, "Let's get back to Konoha asap. If I'm going to make that bastard pay for keeping me from my only living family member who doesn't flat out despise me simply for being a Senju then I need to get back to my previous level of power if not surpass it!"
Jiraiya chuckled as he got to his feet. Tsunade's old spirit had been reignited. He just hoped Minato's and Kushina's brat was ready. The kid was about to have two of the best as teachers, and perhaps Naruto would be ready to sign the Toad Contract.
Deep within one of his hidden bases Orochimaru was in the middle of choosing who he should pick to replace Tayuya. He should have known the girl would betray him the moment he went against their deal but no matter. He'd already gotten all the data he needed on Uzumaki and as long as she had his Curse Seal it was impossible for her to fight him and if that fool Jiraiya was able to remove the Curse Seal then Anko would never have been able to keep quiet so one of his many spies in the village would have reported. A shame some of them would have been found by Tayuya giving over all the information she knew. He was annoyed at how many potential subjects for his experiments had been lost by Tayuya's actions but he could always get more. A small frown flickered over his face for a moment. Did Tayuya know about his plans for the Chunin Exams?
The odds were low as the only one who knew of those plans at the moment was Kabuto, and out of the Sound Four only Sakon and Ukon knew about Kabuto. The Snake Sannin then scowled as due to his Sensei's recent actions, Kabuto was unable to gain any useful intel. Having to act as a true Konoha Shinobi. He could always try contacting Danzo, as the War Hawk had been willing to work with the Snake Sannin in the past but that was risky. Last time they met Orochimaru had sensed that Danzo had his own plans for Konoha. Plans that could easily put the two at odds. For now he'd find a good replacement for Tayuya while moving forward with his plans. A sadistic grin spread over the pale man's face. Konoha would burn and there was nothing anybody could do to stop it.
