'So, Anko wants to see what I'm capable of, huh? Hmmm, that's tricky. Given her reaction, I say there might be a fair chance Kakashi did put her up to this. But why would he do that and not come and watch the show? After all, as far as I can see he's still on that mountain. ... Unless he's using a clone himself? Then again ... I heard ANBU recruits their members out of any rank. I doubt she's here for that though. Should be, but that's their loss. No, this has got to be much simpler. If Kakashi's somehow involved in this ... it's because .. he asked her to be my instructor for the coming month! That's gotta be it, right ?'

The blond pondered on these insights whilst making his way throughout the village. The streets were crowded as always, but on the inner city ninja highway, or the rooftops as some might call it, it was smooth going.

'... Shit!' He landed clean on a chimney and slammed his palm against his forehead protector. 'Fool! You basically told her you were doing speed training when you thanked her for that review. Great going there genius. Okay, okay, no problem. I'm sure we can fix this. I never said how far I was in the training. Calm, relax. Now, let's jot this down.
She's a jounin, so I'm probably not supposed to win this fight.
She called us prey. So, she's hunting us. ... Shit!'

Immediately Naruto got down from the rooftops, turned a corner, changed into a local villager and split in 5. It suddenly occurred to him that a hunter who knows his particular habits would be looking for the original, and he certainly looked original right now. So just to try out that theory he sent one clone off in his current outfit, in the direction where the action was playing right now.
He himself had to go check out something at home.

***

As she looked down, she witnessed a piece of log wrapped up with a multitude of sizzling sealing tags. 'Fuck.'
She pushed off of the branch and got away just in time for the flames not to consume her, the shock wave however threw her through the foliage in a wild, uncontrolled manner. Managing to grab a branch with her right hand, she made a wide acrobatic swing before crashing to the forest floor. Still woozy from the blast, she didn't see the first kunai coming at her from a very high arc, she only got away because of the second that was coming at her directly from the front. Following that ones path with her eyes, she noticed too late that the one she was dodging was thrown to hit the sealing tag attached to the slower, higher one. When she figured that out the jounin first wanted to dismiss that as a threat since she was already out of the likely range of the explosion that would follow.

When the seal detonated that thought came back and slapped her in the face. It seemed the kid wasn't limited to explosions. Flash bangs required quite some tactical thinking, but if used successfully were just as devastating.
She silently cursed. She did it again when she heard the kid ask if something like this would be sufficient to run off would be predators. Anko responded by throwing a shuriken at the source of the noise, she grinned when she heard the slightly satisfying sound of metal clashing on metal, signifying she hadn't been of mark, but also that her attack had been blocked.
That's when she felt the kunai at her back.

"Suppose I do let you 'see' what I'm capable of. What would that gain me?"
'Damn, kid is smart. He knows he's loud, so he used the sound of his voice to drown out the lack of his stealth. I gotta stop taking these clones for granted. They're all at least genin level, and there's lots of them. '
"Well, first of all, I am an chuunin examiner, so despite whatever you might think, I do still have some say in the matter of any promotion you might make."
"Well, that's not a bad reason, but there's no reason for you to see everything at this point already, is there?"
"Only if I was a betting woman, which I just so happen to be. Though I was going to keep that as my third argument," She smiled to herself, hoping to pique his interest. For a fraction of a second she felt the blade at her back losing pressure.
"Hah, interesting. What would the second one have been?"

As his question ended, so did his view of her. 'Shit, Kawarimi.'
"I forgot." They heard as twin columns of snakes descended down upon them. "But the last one was that I like to see people struggle against the inevitable."
A psychotic smile crept up her thin lips as she ran her tongue over them. With a satisfying"poof" she disposed of the last two.
Then she turned around, snakes retreating in her sleeves and said "What kept you guys?" as she faced the five dozen orange figures that now descended on her position.

***scene break, Naruto's apartment***

Softly his sandals made contact with the wooden flooring of his home. Closing the door behind him, he walked in a relaxed pace to the kitchen table. There he produced the scroll he had just obtained from the village leader. A feeling of pride and appreciation welled up in him. The Hokage himself had taken the effort to write it in front of him. Frankly he still had no idea what the heck it may contain, so he was quite anxious to find out what the old man had granted him.

Hurriedly he undid it of it's sealing and pulled it open in one swift motion. And then he was gone.

**several minutes later**

Once again the door creaked open, the noise was followed by the exact same pattern of footsteps, produced by nearly the same figure. However, instead of just orange, this one was dressed in black pants and a white t-shirt. The only trace left of the distinguishing colour being the thin dual lines running down the legs.
This Naruto followed the previous one to the same destination, where the scroll still laid upon the well worn surface of the wooden table, sat upon the same chair, in the exact same pose and went to pick the same scroll up.

This was where the similarities stopped however. Instead of placing his left thumb in the middle of the bottom of the paper, where he now noticed a small seal, he drifted a bit further to the left.
Then he carefully unrolled the paper. Near the top of the page, on the back of the scroll, he found a similar seal.

"Hehe, funny, old man." He muttered to himself, now finally going over the content of the paper.

"Naruto,

there's little that I can say about the specifics of Lightning jutsus without knowing the specifics of the technique you're aiming for.
I can tell you the basics, though you normally should already know.

Lightning, just like water, flows from one place to the other, following the path of least resistance. Unlike water though, for lightning resistance isn't determined by gravity, but rather by the atomic structure of the material it's passing through.
For example, your body is a better conductor for electricity then air or paper. That's why the Lightning jutsu on this scroll will only fire off when someone puts his fingers on it, and why it won't destroy the paper.

One more thing Naruto,
next time you drop by my office, please have the courtesy to do so yourself.

Sarutobi"

"Hmmm, okay, that's good to know but it doesn't really help me with the Chidori. The electricity of it doesn't seem to go anywhere. It's more like a coating or a blend. ... Damn, I should've asked him for some of those chakra nature type papers, or whatever they're called. Anyway, those seals don't look too hard. I can probably copy thi- Aauw!"

He brought his head down to his hands in pain. Damn, Anko was working through his clones in a fast pace now. Still, this felt better then if he had let the copies work through the entire day. The blond reached down his pack for the bottle of aspirin Hinata had given him and crunched down on one.

Anko was starting to look annoyed he noted. In a normal fight he considered that a good sign, in a "friendly spar" with a jounin he wasn't sure the same rule applied. On the bright side, he had make her break a sweat, so he now knew he could hold off a jounin for at least a few minutes. She was probably still holding back, but so were his clones, so that was alright.
Pondering upon that, he tried making a few copies of the two lightning seals over an apple. By the time he finished the fruit he had gotten the hang of it's workings. It was fairly simple really, but he had never worked with linked seals in that way, nor with Lightning. The shared detonator was something inspiring though, no doubt he'd try and mess with that later.

Going out and locking the door , having his back exposed, he suddenly felt something. A flash of killer intent and then a sudden harm coming his way, fast. The blond dodged left, narrowly avoiding the hail of shuriken. His door wasn't so lucky though. When he turned his head to look at his attacker he saw her standing on his neighbor's rooftop, grinning triumphant.
"See I knew you could move faster then you were showing."
"Great." he mumbled as he dusted himelf off.
"Ooooh, is the little genin mad I found out about his 'secret training'?" she responded, sarcasm dripping of every word.
"What do you want Anko? Like you saw, I'm kinda busy."
'I'm surprised he's still keeping my clone busy. I expected it to dismiss itself 10 minutes ago.' the outcast Anbu thought to herself with slight frustration.
"Oh? Now can't a girl just check up on her favorite guinea pig? She licked her lips in a sensual way with eyes that seemed to scream for either blood or some other bodily fluid.

The young man gulped audibly, but refocused. "Héh. I just thought Hatake put you up to this, since he seems to be too lazy to train me himself; I figured he might think you owe me or something."
"Hey! I don't owe you jack shit, kid! I-"
"Hey, hey, hey. I said 'he might think'. But... You know, five minutes ago I would have agreed with you. Then someone came along and got the bright idea to start killing off all my clones. Do you have any idea how much training your little playtime cost me?"
"What? You've got to be fucking kidding me? If you'd let your clones fight like anything but little girls, you would have made that up by gaining some combat experience."

The blond seemed to consider this for a moment, basically that was what he was already doing, so he had no real counter to the argument. He was getting a load of combat experience as they were speaking. Unlike most of his opponents, Anko wasn't keen on using wide area jutsus. She seemed to really like getting close and personal. A habit his clones had determined to exploit to the fullest.
Ever since the supposedly real Anko had shown herself to the real him, he had given his copies the permission to use deadly force.
In other words: the next time explosive tags would be used, they would be set to detonate at point blank.

Despite everything, the clone fight didn't seem near to coming to an end. Determined to get the most experience out of this as possible, the imitations of Naruto for once didn't all rush their opponent. Often their would be one, two or three at most engaged in a melee with the older looking copy, while the rest of the numerous pack kept their distance.

"So ... how did you find out I'm the real one?"
"Besides the new look? I saw you eating that apple. I figured a guy who makes as many clones as you would have taught them not to eat anything by now."
"Hehe, you've been there too, huh?"

For a moment there was an uncomfortable silence among the two.
"So ... what happens now?" the blond asked on a more serious note.
Anko on her part was already regretting her decision to take the kid on. So far he ad been showing himself a whole lot less fun then she'd somehow imagined. Interesting, but not fun.
She sighed. "First of all, I'm just gonna say to you what I told your sensei. I'm not going to train you for the chuunin exam."
"You're not?" Naruto suddenly asked somewhat confused.
"I'm not."
"Then what are you doing here?"
"If I'm going to be training you for a month, it's not going to be for some stupid little test that'll only take a day of your life. It'd be for all those other days when your life might actually be at stake."

***Scene Break***

And so it was that our hero descended further into the depths of the mountain. For a while he had thought his source in town to have been pulling his leg, as the cavern had seemed no more then a lair of one of the bears or other large predators in the area. If the leftover carcasses hadn't been an indication, the pile of feces in the corner surely seemed to be.

Yet the dashing youngster felt in his bones something was off. The scantly clad woman in the village had been right about everything so far. Deciding to trust his source he inspected the cavern further.
And indeed, some 20 feet straight up a passageway was hidden from view. He had swiftly made his way up, only to find himself in one of the most trap filled hallways he had ever encountered.

Many as they had been though, they had been no match for the skills of the youth who now made, what he was sure to be, his final steps to the bandits headquarters.
The voices were getting louder, as was the splashing of water and the clinging of coins.
Silently he prepared himself for a slugfest with the roving scoundrels, but when he looked around the corner he was stunned by a vision few mortal man would have been able to withstand.

Out of the blue-gray stone of the mountain a bath had been carved, no not carved, but the exact word to describe such craftsmanship escaped him when the first piece of milky white skin sprung into view.

The piece, belonging to a shoulder spread out, flowing into a back over which her long blond, wet hair laid draped, and ended in a heavenly shaped buttocks. Her arm moved elegantly over the water, her hand scooping up bits of the clear liquid and threw them at her six companions with a scream of delight.

Droplets splattered over the tanned skin and slowly flowed down the godly curved body of the one called Tsuki. She must have been from the south-western lands beyond the sea, for her color was much darker then the sun would have ever painted her. Her breasts bounced slowly with every step she took and her nippl-
"Hey old man, what do you think you're doing!"

Said old man didn't even avert his eyes from the source of his inspiration. He had heard that line so many times before. He would deal with the loudmouth swiftly in the usual way. Still, signs that the damage was already done were spreading in the group of bathing women on the other side of the wooden boards.

He continued watching them however, it was a relatively unknown, yet universally common technique amongst women. One that had yet to make it in his books. The current scene now seemed to be begging to contain it. Diverting his attention for a split second he noticed the oncoming footsteps.

"Hey! I sai-"
In the two seconds the other male used to try and communicate his opinion, Jiraiya had dropped his script and pencil, executed five seals and slammed his left hand on the ground.
"Quiet him down, will you, Gama?" the older man requested to the toad who was now coming into view.
"Sure thing Jiraiya." the giant horned toad responded when the smoke was cleared.
"... Oh ... shit."

It was all the clone could utter before the giant tongue raced its way towards him.
Quickly it wrapped around his form and then proceeded to lift him off the ground and promptly slam him back down on it, only to reveal he had already performed a replacement-technique.
The toad's eyes darted left to right and when they found their designated opponent, saw he was holding his hands up in a sign of surrender.

"Ha! Giving up already?"
"I have no reason to fight you. But now I'm curious, I mean, you're a real talking toad! How does that work?"

'This kid ... He looks so much like ... No. No, that couldn't be.'

"What? .. Erhm, well .. I had real good education from master Gamakyouyu."
"Wow, so you ... you lead an actual life!"
"Yeah, whenever Jiraiya here doesn't call me away from it that is" the amphibian seemed to joke.
"So ... this guy can just call you whenever he feels like it?" he pointed at the pervert who was choosing to ignore the two.
"Hey, I can leave whenever I feel like it too." the horse sized creature seemed offended.
"Yeah, but what do you get out of it?"
"I'm still trying to figure that one out myself. Granddad said something along the lines of 'influence in transdimensional affairs', still beats me what he means exactly though."
"Erhm, ok. That's ... cool, I guess. Say, how do you get along with turtles?"
"Meh. They're alright, I guess. Too ethical for my part, but it let's you know you can count on them."
"That's a very important quality indeed. So .. could you teach me how to call on you?"
"Ain't up to me kid, but if you want I'll see if I can put up a good word for ya. What's your name?"
"Uzumaki Naruto!"
'It is him! I have to inform dad immediately.'
"Alright kid, I'll see what I can do. Catch ya later."
With that the toad vanished in the ever typical white smoke.
The clone was left staring at the spot where the large amphibian had recently stood to ponder over the small conversation they had had.

When the living technique finished processing the information he noticed the old white haired man was still writing and giggling whilst looking through the peephole.
"Hey, old pervert. Didn't I ask you to stop that?"
"Hmmm, you still here?" said old man asked non-chalantly. 'So much for some inspirati- It's him!'
The hermit, who was only now paying actual attention to the complaining party quickly mastered his face before any sign of surprise appeared on it.
He had been purposely postponing this meeting, hoping to get to see some more of the kid's personality. He just couldn't help doing some extra information gathering on the side. Now he was forced into a direct confrontation.

"For your information, I was gathering vital data for my book."
"What? You're writing some dirty- Hey that's that smut Hatake is always reading!"
"Smut? The Make Out Paradise series won me 3 literature awards, is sold in all of the 5 great nations and beyond and has an enormous fanbase. They are all one by one masterpieces, and this one will be the greatest yet!" he flashed his manuscript.
"Yeah right. ... Wait a second..." the clone suddenly noted the name of the author on the booklet he held to his face. "Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari ... toads ... You're the legendary Jiraiya?"
"Ha! So you know of the white haired toad summoner, the holy hermit from the mount Myouboku."
"But ... you're a pervert." the clone pouted.
"Me? A pervert? Heavens no. I am ... a super pervert!" he exclaimed.
"You're not supposed to be proud of that, you know."
"Hahaha! Tell me that again after your balls drop kid." the old man laughed.
The clone made a brief face of disgust before answering that old men definitely shouldn't talk about dropping balls. Especially not those whose balls are dangling somewhere at knee level.
This made the long haired man laugh and slap him on the back, sending him to the ground and nearly dispelling the living jutsu.

"You crack me up kid, so tell me, what's your name?"
"Naruto Uzumaki .. clone number 3." the kid answered after some consideration.
"You're a shadow clone?"
"Sure am. Hey, that reminds me. That technique you did with that toad. How does that work?"
"You mean summoning? Relatively simple, really. It's like a teleportation jutsu, but instead of just bending space you also reach across dimensions and apply it to someone else."
The clone's right eye brow had lifted itself up somewhat and his jaw had started hanging a bit slack as he processed the information.
"Hmmm, any tips on where I could get some info on that first subject?"

***scene break***

As Naruto was having his casual conversations with his elders, his clones were rounding things up with Anko's double. Though in this case the term "making their last stand" was probably more applicable. There were about four of them left and it looked like Anko was losing her patience. Although the clones had by now picked up quite a bit of her style, that had only helped them for about two minutes until she shifted gears and started kiling them faster then they could possibly follow.
She was paying a price for it though, as she struck down the second-to-last bunshin she was panting hard. Looking around to confirm there really was only one left she grinned in satisfaction. Until he slowly got up from his perch and gave her a slow applause.

"What's that for?" she asked with a raised eyebrow, but an unimpressed face.
"For sticking to it until the very end. I could see you were frustrated and wanted to quickly finish it a good 30 of us ago."
"What can I say? No matter how much fun it is to kill genins,the same one over and over again gets boring after a while."
"Sorry to hear that. We'll try our best to keep you better entertained in the future. Anyway, I just wanted to wish you better luck next time."
"What?"
"Goodbye Anko" the clone smiled as he held his hands in a tiger-seal.

A moment later the real Mitarashi Anko suddenly remembered how she died in a sea of fire. The sounds of the explosion took about 3 seconds later to arrive.

"Did you just blew up 5 acres of forest, just to get rid of my clone?"
"Ah, so it worked. I wasn't sure if it would be enough" the genin smiled.
I was at that moment the jounin realized why no one had let her play with explosive notes until she turned sixteen and even then it was only when they were in enemy territory.

"So," he asked, ready to return to Gai, "are we done here?"
The woman said nothing in return but just tossed him an angry look. A few seconds later however she sighed and said "sure".
As the blonde grinned and turned however he heard she added "Not!" to it, right before the grabbed him by the neck and electrocuted him.

Jirayia was in the midst of negotiating with a shadow clone untill the latter suddenly fell to his knees while clutching his head.
"Wohoo, you okay there little buddy?" the old man knelt down beside him.
"Fine" the clone muttered as he got up again. "Just a ... connection problem."
The sage decided not to question him further but the clone did suddenly seemed a lot more ... interesting then before. He seemed a bit disoriented and nervous even.
"Look, old man, it's been a pleasure, but I really gotta go" he said as he started running to the other side of the garden. "But if you could stay here for like 10 minutes, I'm sure one of us will be back to continue our chat."

Jiraya waited until the clone was out of sight, took out his telescope and weighed his options for a minute. In the end he sighed, tucked the apparatus back in his vest and went after the aspiring chuunin candidate's clone.

Meanwhile Anko was moving fast over the city rooftops, her prey slung over her shoulder. It would be quite a while before he regained consciousness, but she wanted to reach her destination without having to answer the question why she was carrying around a knocked out genin. So far it had been smooth sailing, except perhaps for that cat. When she rounded that corner above the tailor she suddenly got a face full of stray feline. The animal must have been as surprised and angry as she was. She shrugged, discarded the memory and continued her run to her hideout, the cat however had found it's quarry and was playing with the seemingly lifeless body. Gettinng frustrated of the lack of reaction it decided to bite it's nose.

"Aaaauw! That hurt damnit!" Naruto yelled, more out of surprise then pain.
Meanwhile the toadsage who had been following from a distance had puzzled the pieces together. The kid's mastery of clones was impressive. Not only did they stay around when he lost conciousness, but they seemed to know exactly where their creator was located. Either that, or there was some other trick going on that escaped the old hermit for the moment.

As the grey haired legend looked down upon the blond rookie from dark corner of Konoha's rooftops, a dark haired woman made her escape with another blond body under her arms.
After a few minutes she seemed to have reached her destination: an old neglected cabin in the forest surrounding the giant walls of Hidden Leaf village.
Wasting no time she softly kicked open the door, entered and closed it again before throwing her prey in an old wooden chair and securing him tight.

The captured clone tried listening as good as he could to what was happening in these new surroundings. He could make out the clinging and clanging of metal on metal, the abrupt ending of each pinging sound indicated it was either attached to a piece of wood, or wrapped in a cloth or other damping material. The hardest part so far was not making any frowning faces when trying to figure out what was going on around him. Some more footsteps and the swishing of liquid in a container, the pop of a cork, the smell of sake and a satisfying "Aahh"-sound.
Then he braced himself as he felt more then heard the air moving around him right before he got "awoken" by a sharp slap on his face.

"Wakey, wakey hamster boy!"
"Ugh, " he said as he finally opened his eyes, "did I pass out watching women's aerobics excercises again?"
This earned him a backhand from the special Jounin.
"Hmm, that could be either a yes or a no." he casually said as he spat some blood mixed spit on the floorboards.
A fullforce punch to the jaw was coming on now. He turned his face with the blow as fast as he could to minimize the impact and was pleased to learn he was still sitting in the chair instead of being trapped back again in the brain of his master.
"Finished now?" the dark haired captain asked with a smirk of satisfaction.
The blond was about to open his mouth, but suddenly thought the better of it.
"Good, then let's get down to business." she stated as she sat herself in the chair across from him and took another gulp of sake.

"As you figured out, your sensei asked me to take care of your training this month. What he failed to menion was the extend of your abilities. Now, like I stated before, if I'm training you, it won't be for some stupid little tournament. Unlike some unnamed, perverted grey haired cyclops, I don't like wasting my time. So ... if you have any other hidden talents, now would be the time to mention those."
She looked at him expectantly. He pouted his lips and rolled his eyes back and to the left, pondering a second before answerring: "I learned to cook a mean marinated chicken last week and know Ichiraku's prices by heart."
"Good, but everyone knew that last part already" she said unimpressed. "I was talking more among the lines of this:" she said as the pulled a scroll out from under her jacket. "Naruto shows signs of greatly accelerated healing, blablabla great learning drive, blablabla, is at risk of identifying too much with his opponents."
"See, now that's great stuff right there. Shows you are a great big softy with a talent that's just perfect for the little game we're playing right now."
"And what game is that?" he could help but asking.
"Interrogation." she grinned then in one swift movement took her sake cup, smashed it on the table and sliced his left hand open with the broken bottom of the ceramic container.
The captured genin grinded his teeth, trying to deny her the satisfaction of a scream.
"Now, let's try this again. What would you say is your best area of expertise?"

'Fuuuck. Damn that hurt. Least of my worries though. Surprised I'm still around really. The wound must be only superficial, still should have returned me if you ask me. Whatever, let's see how long we can keep it up. She's gonna be pissed when she finds out what I am.'

"Auw! That hurt you crazy bitch! What the fuck's th-" the clone suddenly held his tongue when he saw the woman absentmindedly pick up another shard of the broken cup.
"You were saying?" she said uncaringly and licked a remaining drop of sake from the piece.
"Area of expertise eh? That's easy I'm renowned throughout the village for my good fashion sense. I can't believe you didn't notic-Auw!" he cried out once more as the small shard she had been holding was suddenly lodged in his neck.
"So you think you're being funny eh? We'll see who'll be laughing by the end of the evening. Now, how long have you been trainning with Gai's little book?"
"You mean 'Superspeed training for real men'? It's my bible, I've been living and breathing that book since I could read." He braced himself, but the sudden shock of pain never came.
"Couldn't have been that long then" she just mocked him this time. "
"Still longer ago then when you learned to dress" he shot right back at her.
That's when she broke his finger.

***scene break***

It hadn't taken long for him to gain somewhat of a reputation in the village hidden in the leafs. If it hadn't been for that barely controlled deadstare he used when visiting the local shops, it would have been his crazy mutterings to his 'mother'. Whatever the case, the Sand trio had found themselves in front of more closed shops then they had imagined Konoha even had.

/ I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE I'M GOING WITH HERE /

***scene break ****

It hadn't taken Naruto long to form up a plan for his new situation. His "Anko-clone" no doubt needed backup. Three clones were already heading to her position. Meanwhile he couldn't ignore the living legend that was residing at the bath house. He thought the last clone had left a good impression on the man, plus that 'summoning technique' or whatever it was sounded awesome. He couldn't ignore the possibility to learn ... well, anything from that man. At the same time, he couldn't just ignore Maito Gai. The man had shown himself willing to share this time with him, just on the priniple that his prize student had unwillingly altered the trainning tactics of his own rival. Not to forget that he was teaching him Tai Jutsu, the one thing where he would best be present for himself.

So it was decided, Anko would be getting her just desserts from his clones, while another avatar of his went back to the bathhouse and Naruto himself would rejoin the Green Beasts of Konoha himself.
Upon his return to the dojo, he wasn't surprised not to see multitudes of himself practicing kata's, but a small group of academy students instead. Lee and Gai were walking through the dojo correcting the students ' stances and giving them pointers. When he saw Gai noticing him, he immediately presented himself before the man and apologised profusely for his unothodox absence.

"Ha, that's quite alright Naruto-kun. This actually reminds me of my sunday classes, only that the students all show more promise and discipline. Perhaps even a bit too much, if you want this henge to be be credible."
"Hai, I will try to encorporate more realism in the future Gai-sensei." he bowed.
Just as he was turning around to join the class, Gai had to ask him:
"Incidentally Naruto, who was it that 'so desperately sought your attention'?"
"Oh that. No one special, just Anko needing some attention." the genin discarded.
"Anko ... You don't mean Mitarashi Anko?" the special jounin asked, suddenly becoming slightly paler.
"Oh you know her. Well, I mean, of course you do. You're both jounin. And she reviewed your book. So, yeah, her."
"Did she tell you what she wanted?"
"Oh yeah, nothing special you know. Thank me for what I did in the Forest of Death, see what I'm capable of, grab a dango. That sort of things."
"Are you sure we're talking about the same Anko?" the greenclad jounin asked with a slight frown. The blond assured him he was in a way that showed he'd rather not spend anymore words on the subject. Gai didn't show it, but he really didn't care much for his casual attitude. He cracked a smile, thinking of the dangers Naruto was putting himself into by discarding the ... "very-special-jounin" so easily. He kept his musings to himself however and continued his instructions.

Clone number four cursed his luck. Upon returning to the bath house he found no trace of the newly acquanted sanin. Even the peepinghole the old man had been using was missing in the wooden fence. He poked the place where he knew it should have been, but found nothing but solid wood. He pondered that detail for a moment, but decided that it was not worth his time. A minute or so he considered where a self proclaimed super-pervert and legendary warrior would keep himself entertained or otherwise occupied with in the village.

'Let's see ... I'm the biggest badass in town, love the ladies and the ladies love me. Nobody messes with me and I don't care what the hell you might think of me. Now shut up, pour my drink and tell me where the whores are these days.'
'... Wow, where did that come from' the clone thought to himself, but decided not to look inspiration in the mouth. The red light district wasn't too far from here, he hadn't ever really visited it, but like anyone in town, he knew where it was and what was supposed to go one there.
He could hardly go there looking like himself though. Thinking about that, he wondered if any ninja in town ever went there looking like himself. Then again, he was thinking about men who had fought in wars and had shed more blood then he cared to think of. Still, the pretense of decency was high in Konoha and the efficiency of his Sexy no jutsu was a testament to the prudishnes of the city. Thinking about it, there was only one man he could imaging showing his face in that neighbourhood. If that's what you could call it.

"Hmm, I don't know why Kakashi stated any encreased healing in your profile, you seem to be bleeding just like any other pig if you ask me. And as for that drive to learn ... unles you want to learn new ways to bleed on carpets, I'm not very impressed." a slightly dissapointed looking Anko stated to the bloody mess that was Naruto.
"Damn", the boy stated between ragged breaths, "so you found out about my deal with the cleaning company already eh?" he grinned.
"Courtesy of the piss stains on your mattress." she shot right back at him.
"Remind me to switch to the competion when this is over." he retorted without missing a beat.

Meanwhile, in the red light district of town, the figure of a grey haired jounin reading an orange book was strolling carefree through the streets. So far he had visited 3 establishments and was now slightly dissapointed that neither place's madams had seen an old grey haired lecher with a giant scroll on his back and a headband that said "Oil" on. Or that none knew his teacher by name for that matter. It would be worth gold if he were to find out like this that Kakashi frequented this neighbourhood. On the other hand, he wasn't even sure the pervert would even care if he or the rest of the village knew for that matter.
Fourth time was the charm however it seemed as he asked once more at a place called Daddy's Golden Palace of Happiness. The proprietor ofcourse knew nothing about such a man, but the gray haired clone hadn't missed the giant wooden sandals that were in the open closet by the door. Not many people still wore those, and even less of them had such giant feet. He thanked the madam for her cooperation, left and jumped to the terrace on rounding the corner.
It wasn't long before he heard the man's voice, giggling like he had done at the bathhouse. He imagined sneaking in with Sexy no Jutsu, but discarded that thought as he wasn't fond of the, no doubt hilarious, or possibly traumatic, scenarios that could lead to.
Before he could even think of a plan however something sticky shot out, grabbed him and dragged him inside through the window.
"That's a pretty good Henge you got there kid, however unless you can match your target's chakra signature, it's not gonna work on me" he heard as something long and sharp got pressed against throat.
Looking towards the sound of the voice, he found it's owner lying in the most luxurious and fluffy bed he'd ever seen, surrounding the old man were 3 scantily clad ladies, feeding him grapes, filling his wine cup and washing his feet. Meanwhile the clone himself saw he was being held in place by a long tongue belonging to a familiar looking bipedal toad. Focussing on making smalltalk was about all he could do no to be utterly disgusted.
"Though I must say," he continued between chewing, "your choice of disguise is more then fitting."
"Oh I wouldn't dream of using this on you Jiraya-sama. But I wouldn't want to damage this place's reputation by making people think they let in minors."
"Trust me kid, if people thought that, this place would only attract more costumers."
There was an uncomfortable silence as both contemplated the despicable nature of mankind.
"So what do want boy, as you can see, I'm kinda in the middle of something." the old man complained as he stole a kiss from one of the girls.
"Well, if I recall, we were kinda in the middle of something ourselves less then an hour ago, before we had to leave on an urgent search and rescue mission." the still transformed eavesdropper said in the jounin's typical apolegetic tone.
"Uzumaki?" the elder nin suddenly exclaimed after nearly choking on a grape, suddenly he looked drastically less at ease, his eyes darting across the room. "I thought Anko would have taken care of you by now." Until now he had just thought the invader of his privacy to be any run of the mill genin, it wasn't rare for the younger generation to bother him with variable requests, though most knew better then to bother him here.
"Nah, but it's nice to know you care." he said sarcastically. "Anyway," he said, getting back on track, "I believe you were just going to show us the details of a teleportation jutsu?"
"Actually, it was more like you were begging for the guidance and wisdom of one of Konoha's most succesfull and brilliant ninjas."
"Really now? It's hard to really know these things without my doppelganger dismissing himself. So, were we any convincing?"
"Hardly, but don't let that stop you from trying again." he said, sitting back, seemingly anticipating a show of the genin.
The clone however didn't seem very willing to entertain the old pervert and instead turned to the toad who by now had stopped holding him at knifepoint. "So Gama, how's my application to become a summoner going?"
"It's being processed." the amphibean told him, apparently less then pleased that he was expected to speak while restraining someone with his tongue.
"Hmmm if the administration you guys have is any like ours here, I'll probably be looking like him before it gets rejected for not having enough stamps on the form."
"It amuses me how you humans interact", the toad answerred, releasing his grip on the boy, "I thought you were supposed to kiss his ass now, not insult it."
"Maybe, but that would leave little to do for his current company, don't you think?" he smiled and winked at the ladies in question, hoping to convey the message that no ill will was intended with that comment. Surprisingly two of them covered their mouths and giggled at him.
"Anyway, it is hard to suck up to a man who I hardly know anything about, save some third hand stories and the fact that I know he writes porn, first met him in a bathhouse while he was spying on the women and now found him in a house of questionable services." the grey haired shadow of the genin stated while trying to fidget with the giant toad's odd looking knife.
"So there must some other way we can come to an agreement? How about a trade?"
"I'm a sanin kid, you honestly think I'd be interested in any of those four academy jutsu's you have to offer?"
"Oh ye of little faith..." the clone sighted. "How about this then: I'm sure you paid a pretty penny to have these beautifull ladies and this luxurious room all to yourself. It would be a shame if something would prevend you from enjoying it, no?"

This prospect seemed to suddenly make the gray legend less sure of his superior position.
For a second he frowned at the kid then said "Tomorow, 3 o'clock, behind the place we first met. Now get out of here kid."
The clone smiled in victory. "I knew you'd see things my way eventually Jiraya-sama." He bowed and made to leave, but had already ceased to be before he had reached the window.
"Cocky little basterd" the older man mumbled quietly to himself before eagerly throwing himself on the ladies with and enthousiastic "Now where were we?"

"Now tell me again why your tai jutsu is still so bad after training with both a Hyuuga and an Uchiha for so long." she said after putting down the salt shaker.
"I told you" he winced, talking between his grinding his teeth, "the Uchiha throws me around like a ragdoll, I black out before I get the chance to learn anything."
"Hence your private training with the Hyuuga" she half asked half stated, fully rolling her eyes. It was only the 6th time they went over this.
"Yes!" he screamed, hoping the psychotic woman would finally get it and stop her madness. "But she doesn't take me seriously. She just blocks and dodges, even refusing to take advantage of any real or fake openings and just knocks me out when she's had enough."
"Don't lie to me Naruto," she said in her most sencere sounding voice, "I've seen the video of your fight with Kiba and his pet. In the end you somehow took both out in seconds. That must have taken some skill?" she now politely seemed to ask.
"No really, he was about to finish me off with some special move until it backfired on him. Honestly, it was an accident."
At this moment a vein seemed to nearly pop on Anko's forehead. She reached for his shirt and pulled him close so his neck was resting on a kunai that had come out of nowhere.
"Listen kid, you're going to tell me exactly how you beat that Inuzuka brat," he voice suddenly switched to a happy go lucky sarcasm "or I'm gonna make sure you won't be able to train this month at all." She pushed him backwards and circled around him, keeping the sharp piece of metal near his neck as she turned, then lowering it to his left arm.
"See all I have to do is, slip just a bit at the right place and accidently cut right through your muscle. You'll be lucky if you'll be able to use your arm at all before the exam."
Breathing heavy for a few moments, the clone sighed in defeat. "That's okay Anko. I'm just about at my limit anyway." This made the jounin raise a brow in surprise. "It was ... well, not really fun, but something alright. Same time at my place tomorrow?"
"You're a cl-"
"One more thing: you owe me a new door." *poof*
"Goddamnit! GODDAMNIT! UZUMAKIIIII!"

At Gai's dojo the real Naruto suddenly broke his stance and fell to his knees, clutching his head in pain as the rest of his clones nearly did the same, but vanished in smoke before gravity could pull them down completely.
"Naruto-kun, what's wrong?" a concerned Gai asked as he kneeled down to the boy.
"Anko..." the boy uttered, gasping.
"What?" the man asked with a look of confusion.
"She, she ... she's," he muttered more to himself then anyone else,"she's insane!"
"Ah, yes," the man answered, getting up and dusting his hands, "that she is." A tiny smile formed on his face.
"Take the rest of the day off to process that."
"H-hai" he hesitantly nodded, while checking his hands for blood. She had really done a number on that clone and apparently the clone had done the same to him by refusing to disappear for so long. He'd had a general idea of what was going before, but nothing like the intense memory he had to live through when a clone expired.

Naruto had a hard time processing on how he should feel about the whole Anko experience. On one hand he clearly won since he managed to evade the jounin the entire day, on the other hand she did make him live through the entire experience. Maybe more important though, how did the clone live through the torture that was inflicted upon him? Multiple possibilities crossed his mind. His personal amount of chakra and his control had grown sufficiently to make multiple clones that could last the entire day, so it could just be the amount of chakra put into the technique itself that had made him more resilient.
Then again, he had also been reading up on anatomy. First he only did it to perfect his bird-clones, then his clones had just kept on reading on the subject, both the fight with Zabuza and his training with Hinata had opened his eyes on the importance of his knowledge of the human body. Perhaps knowing what went on underneath the skin made his clones more functional. Then there was the possibility that he had just minimized the damage from the punches he got and that all her cuts had been superficial. At this point, it was impossible to be sure, time would tell what was the case no doubt.

Time, now that was a more important concern. How on earth was he going to manage to learn from 3 teachers at once. Training his body would have to be done by himself, learning jutsu's from Jiraiya could probably be done by a clone. Then there was Anko ...
Deciding what to do with her would be so much easier if he had any idea what the devilish woman was planing.
'Let's see, what do I know about her so far? She has a fairly unique tai jutsu style and the few ninjutsu techniques I've seen her perform so far were all based on snakes ... I've only seen one other person use snakes in combat, but I can hardly imagine her teaching me to stretch my neck 20 feet long. I wonder what the story between those two is anyway, she seems to really hate that guy.' He let his mind wonder on that for a moment as he made his way to Ichiraku's.

"Aah, Naruto! How're the preparations going?" the old man asked with a welcoming voice.
"Some are fairing better then others" he mumbled absent mindedly as his eyes flashed over the menu.
"Oh, that doesn't sound good." The concern in the man's voice was obvious. A frown was forming on his face when he saw the kid read the menu. Naruto knew every dish on there by heart, something had to really be wrong. "Perhaps I should take my sponsorship to another finalist ey? I hear that Hyuuga girl is pretty good."
"Yeah, she's okay, but no- Hey!" he suddenly slammed the menu on the bar as he realized what he was saying. "You are the devil himself, you know that Ichira. Taking advantage of a confused young customer."
"Ofcourse I know that ya brat. Now, how about a nice steaming bowl of beef ramen? Only 1 half of your soul today." He waved a bowl that was ready to go under the blond's nose and offered him the most devilish smile.
"Erhm ... I think I'll stick to the shrimp today." the young genin gulped.
"Suit yourself" the old man shrugged as he slid the bowl over the counter to the man who originally ordered it. "So tell me kid, what's bothering you?"
"Besides the countless existantial questions that float around my head courtesy of my clones, not to mention the mental effects of physical trauma? Tell me what you know about Mitarashi Anko."

There wasn't much his old friend could tell about the psychotic woman. Besides the fact that she was considered violently insane by the few chuunin clients who had mentioned her name during lunchbreaks. Apparently Ichira initialy hadn't the faintest clue that the scantly clad, round breasted and foul mouthed woman Naruto had sent to his stall was the same jounin that was the cause of numerous people's nightmares. To him she seemed no more excentric then most jounin around the village. Besides that, the only somewhat useful information he had gotten from the man was the fact that she liked dango. He wasn't sure how this would help him, but he'd take any info he could get.

Somehow he'd get his revenge on the woman, special-jounin who scares the pants of other jounin or not, she'd get what's coming to her sooner or later. But now wasn't the time to think of vengeance. He still had an A-level assassination technique to master in less then a month, not to mention find a way to fight a long-range wind user and look good while doing it.

Lightning so far had been a whole deal harder to master then the fire techniques he'd been playing with so far. First of all since there was no handy book that could help him get through the basics. The only source of information on any sort of electric techniques he had found so far seemed to be a book on electrical engineering he'd found in the civilian section. At least it had stopped him from trying to create sparks between his fingers. The 40.000 Volts that would require per inch seemed a bit much to begin with. So he had added something different to his training. The small lightbulb from his fridge would do the trick for now.
He just hoped he was right about this theory, since he found himself looking pretty stupid as he looked around the room at his ten other bodies that seemed to be grunting and shouting in frustration at the little glass and metal object in their hands.

Morning once again came hours too soon for the blond, but at least this time he didn't start talking complete nonsense as the dynamic teacher-student duo knocked on his door. Another activated seal on his weighset and another extra lap around the village prevented him from seeing much progress concerning his speed, but Gai assured him that he was right on shedule and that he should have no problem convincing the judges of his burning desire to join the chuunin ranks. Until noon the Mighty Green Beast had him drilling against the wooden man, at noon however he once again left the two to their own fate, except for a small group of clones that were disguised as academy students and a variety of civilians.
Just in time for some minor preparations before he had to meet up with the crazy psycho snake woman.

"Uzumaki." she greeted him in a manner that made it clear she wasn't too happy to see him.
"Mitarashi." It was obvious he shared the feeling.
"Is it really you this time?"
"Last time you saw the real me, or thought so anyway, you knocked me out, tied me up and tortured me for hours on end. So what do you think?"
She made and embarrased smile and scratched the back of her head. "Yeah, maybe I went a little overboard for a first training session. Sorry about that."
"You have no idea how sorry you really are. But don't worry, you will. Soon."
"Oh, is that a promise?" she seemed to perk up in a much too happy manner.
"Believe it. Now let's quit the small talk and tell me what you want to do today."
"First you tell me how you made your clone that resilient to damage."
"I thought you were supposed to be the teacher here" the kid grinned.
The female assassin didn't even dignify his remark with an answer. Instead she chose to slide aside her jacket, revealing her kunai holster, leaving her right hand hovering right above the small collection of weapons. Naruto didn't bat an eye and continued eyeing her with his arms crossed.
Anko had a considering look, but then let out a dissapointed sigh "Aah, this is no fun, clones just don't make any of those satisfying sounds when you hit them."
"Focus Anko, you're supposed to be one of Leaf's finest ninjas. I'm not gonna have you waste this training oppurtunity just because you happen to be insane."
"What?" the anbu woman cried out, sounding offended and surprised as if no one ever called her that before.
"You heard me." the Naruto in front of her said without getting the frown from his face.

Then suddenly Anko was right in front of him, lifting him up by his collar. "You think that just because you got scratched a bit, spit at and insulted for a few hours on end that I'M the insane one? You have no idea of the shit I went through when I was your age. There was no such thing as a chuunin examination, no one month prep time, no referees that stepped in if you were about to get your ass killed. You either made it through the day alive or burried, if there was even anything left of you to put in the ground. You think there's even a single jounin worth his salt in the Leaf that hasn't gotten scarred mentally of physically? Your own sensei purposely hasn't gotten laid since the end of the war. Maito Gai has gone over the edge so far he's now in some parralel universe. You honestly think that's tobacco in Asuma's smokes? Yet I'm the crazy one? I'm the only one who still remembers what it means to be a ninja." she screamed at him with all the frustration that was pent up in her then tossed him to the ground.
Naruto's eyes had gone wide at this outburst of unveilings. He truly felt for this woman. "Anko. I-"
"Say you feel sorry for me and I'll cut your fucking balls off and crush them underfoot."
"Okay then, but that still doesn't change the fact that you're dead."
"What!" her eyes went wide and she threw open her jacket. Two sealing tags were sticking to the inside and suddenly started fizzing. Without a moment's hesitation she threw off her trenchcoat and jumped off the third story balcony. Upon landing her eyes immediately went upward expecting to see the fireworks, instead however she was greeted with a cloud of towering smoke that was violently bursting from the little appartment complex.

"That little b-"
"You didn't really expect me to blow up my own appartment just to end up getting you out of that trenchcoat, did you?" a blond figure leaning against a nearby wall said as he tossed her back her jacket.
"There are people who'd go to more trouble then that just to get a look at these puppies." she grinned and jiggled her barely covered breasts a few times.
"Don't remind me. I've got a meeting with one of them later." a sweatdropping Naruto who painstakingly tried to avert his gaze mumbled.
"Don't you know it's rude not to stare at a girl that you just helped undress?"
"Wha-Oouw!" he was rewarded by the blunt ring of a kunai violently hitting his headband, knocking him over.
"Hmmm, so I guess you are the real one." she muttered as she crossed the distance between them and stood over him, once again wearing her coat. "Though with you, maybe I should better make sure", she said as she ran her tongue over a freshly produced blade.

"So what was the meaning of getting me out of my coat?" she asked as the two of them finally entered a training ground bordering on area 44.
"I wanted to see if you were going to slip out of your skin."
"Is that supposed to be a snake joke?" she asked with eyes that dared him to say yes.
"No joke, just trying to figure something out." the blonde said, ignoring her expression.
"Like what?" she now asked, the look on her face not improving.
"The reason why a seasoned veteran would rather destroy any potential allies than utilize them to take out a highly dangerous threat. Why you have such a similar fighting style and how far it goes. But mostly what could be used without a summoning contract."
"Ooooh, poor little Naruto-kuns. So many question and you want to figure them all out with just two smoke seal tags." she mocked him and rubbed her knuckles on his head.
"And then you just took of your coat instead..." he seemed to mope grudgingly.
"No plan survives first contact with the enemy kid. You'd best remember that."
"Then how do you form strategies and use them to assure victory."
"By being good enough to survive first contact."

Naruto decided not to question the woman for a while. So far, his initial thoughts about Anko still seemed to be right on the money: a reckless, ruthless force of nature and a looney one at that. He decided to change the subject.
"So, what's the plan for today teach?"
"Easy really, getting rid of the ones that weren't good enough to do so" she merrily stated as started walking in the direction of the fenced off forest, twirling a key around her fingers.
"You ... want me to ..." the young man swallowed hard at the thought.
"Help dispose of the corpses that are still rotting somewhere in the forest, yes. Is that a problem?"
For a moment Naruto was back on that cursed bridge in Wave. A lot of that mission had turned into a blur not soon after, but now he was once again carrying the body of a young figure with a gaping hole in it's chest. He wanted to put Haku's remains gently down the freshly dug grave but ended up unceremoniously dropping it in the earth.
"No. No, I can do it."

Anko saw the sudden determination on his face and raised an eyebrow.
"Funny, I didn't think you'd popped your berry already."
"My what?"
"Your berry. You know, your Body-Cherry."
"Uh? ... Oh! No, I ... I just ... How did you put it again ... Identified too much with an opponent." he answerred with remorse clearly ringing in his voice. It was as if he was dishonouring the memory of Haku by speaking so lightly of his death.
"You remembered. Good. Cause that's what today's lesson is all about. Now come along."

It wasn't long before the two of them were standing a few feet away from the corpses of 2 young boys from Lightning Village laying in a small trench. One was lying face down in the mud, kunai still firmly clutched in his hand, the cause of death not immediately visible. The other had his throat slid, his hands caked with his own dried up sight of it all was making Naruto damn near lose his lunch, not to mention the unbearable stench that was eminating from the bodies.

"Try breathing through your mouth" Anko, who had noticed his unease, said.
"So, what now?" the genin asked, trying hard not to add to the stench.
"Normally we'd just bag 'em and tag'em. This is just a formality to send the bodies back to their village, but not before our own specialists have a look at them. Officially the bodies are just sent to the corroner to be cleaned before we send them back, but the truth is we check for any possible body modifications, seals, all that stuff."
"'Normally' ?" the blond couldn't help but notice how she started that sentence.
"You didn't think we were here just to clean up the mess you genins made, right?"
Naruto was about to run his mouth on his lack of responsibility for this mess, but then remembered they weren't talking about some toys littering the bedroom.
"What can you tell me about what happened here?"
"Erhm ... some other team killed them?"

This was met with a slap to the back of his head.
"What team, dumbass? What nation? Causes of death. Why are there only two of them? What attack pattern did they use? Who started the fight?"
"I don't know. I was at lots of places when it happened, but not here."
Anko pinched the bridge of her nose in despair. "I'd like to think so, that would have ruined this entire excercise. Now what can you deduct from the stuff that's laying around?"
"Oh" the kid said with a sliver of renewed hope in his voice, only to get bummed out again half a minute later when he came to the conclusion that he still had no idea what he was doing.

"For god's sake, didn't Kakashi teach you anything?" Anko sighed as she sat herself on a small boulder.
"No, no he hasn't. That's what I've been saying to everyone for months now! Jezus."
"What?" Anko once again took out the file she had on Naruto and desperately started looking through it. "Then how did you even survive that A-rank mission?"
"Oh, that's right, sorry, he did teach us one thing. Here, I'll show you" with that he jumped against a nearby tree and and stuck against it's stem with chakra. "And this concludes all of my lessons from the great copy-ninja Kakashi."
Anko looked at the frowning young man that was standing on the tree a few foot away from her, excused herself and calmly walked behind a thicker forest-giant before violently slamming her head against it several times while simultaneously cursing the gray haired cyclops.

"Okay, sorry for that. All better now" she returned with the most innocent and happy looking face she could muster. "So, all this time you've been winging it with basic academy skills eh?"
"Pretty much." the blond answered flatly.
"That's ... good. Impressive even." she said with her eyes still closed and the most fake smile plastered all over her face.
"Impressive that I'm still alive and in one piece you mean?"
"What else could it mean kid?" her mask of blissful innocence rapidly cracking.
"An impressive display of laziness on my instructor's part?"
"Or lack of initiative on yours."
"Whatever. So, what's the difference if you're looking at a blank slate here or not anyway?"
"Blank slates are easy, but boring, reworking a painted canvas however means you get to sprinkle around a healthy dose of turpentine and redo all the work, without all the beginner's errors."
"Perfection through destruction eh? Guess I should have expected that from you."
"Better then the destruction because of imperfection. So whadaya say kid? Ready to lay your cards on the table?"

For a second both blabbermouths just stared at eachother in silence. One looking expectantly, the other weighing the trustworthiness of the other. Until finally the blond spoke: "Nah."
Anko couldn't say she hadn't been expecting exactly that answer. She would have said the exact same thing, but would have probably added some extra insults. She really started to dislike Kakashi for this favor.
"Whatever, your loss kid. Now I just have to teach you as if you were some brat fresh out of the academy."
"Yeah yeah, now tell me how these guys kicked it and who'dunnit." the blond said non-chalantly while picking his nose.
"Oh no, I still have to hear what your pea-brain came up with."
"I dunno, attacked from behind by some girl and took a kunai to the throat?"
"What makes you think it was a girl?"
"Well, judging by the footprints, either is was a girl, or a guy with really small feet."
"Yatta! You get one gold star!" she exclaimed as she pulled one from her vest and stuck it to his forehead.
Naruto was dumbstruck by the childish gesture and after peeling the sticker of his head simply finally muttered "I hope this is not gonna become a habit..."

"Now, what village where the victors from?"
"Well, it couldn't have been sound, that bitch only carried those senbons. Grass never even made it to the gates or had no women on their squad, same as Mist, and Sand ... from what I heard they wouldn't have left much to clean up behind. Stone didn't send any teams that I know of so ... it was one of ours ?"
"I'm gonna run out of stars soon at this rate" she said after slapping another one on his headband.
"I already can't wait for that to happen" the blond grumbled as he scratched it off.
"Now, can you tell me what team it was?"
"Well, I only know the rest of the rookies, plus Gai's team, so if I had to guess it would be Asuma's. Tenten is obviously a long range type and Hinata generally doesn't use kunai."
'Not to mention I can't imagine her actually killing someone, certainly not like this.'

"Hey, quit your daydreaming hamster-boy! You're not done yet" the Anbu captain yelled at him. "Now tell me how all this shit went down, not to mention where number three of these bastards is."
"I don't fucking know. Shikamaru probably caught them in his Kagemane and Shouji rolled over them or something."
" 'Or something' won't do on your intel report. Assumptions only serve to get people killed."
"Hey throw me a bone or something will you. I'm not even sure their other member was still alive when they got here."
The words had barely even left his mouth before he got hit in the face with a scroll. At the first moment, right before it smacked him in the mouth that was, he thought the womand had actually thrown a real human bone at him. So for a second he felt really icky and disgusted.

"Get yer act together brat. I thought you asked me for a hint."
Opening the scroll he saw it was the composition of the, now dead, Lighting team laying before him.
"Their last teammate was a girl?"
"Surprised?"
"I guess I should have seen it coming" he said as he suddenly started walking towards the second victim. Suddenly the cause of death seemed more clear. Massive blunt trauma over the entire body. Definately a trademark of people unlucky enough to get on the bad side of an Akamishi. "They were cutting it real close" he seemed to mumble more then anything.
"Found something?" Anko asked in a tone that indicated she already knew the answer.
"Some new respect for Ino and Choji... and the missing teammate" the blonde answerred as he moved aside one lightning-nin and revealed the body of another one hiding underneath.
"Good, now tell me what you think happened."

"Are you sure" Shikamaru signaled to Ino as they waited for Choji to settle into position.
"Shut up and just watch my back coward"she signed back with a face that wouldn't be argued with. Seconds later she unleashed her jutsu on the nin watching the enemy team's back. In a heartbeat's time she gained control over her body and closed the distance with the one they knew was carrying the scroll they needed. Her kunai quickly found his throat while her free hand grabbed and tossed their target behind she could make another move though number three had one hand on her neck and another around his own weapon. Before he could strike though he found his body would no longer move. The last thing he saw was his teammate's body going limp while still in his hand, while the sound of something heavy was quickly closing in behind him.

"Yup, that's pretty much it. Basic Ino-Shika-Cho combo really, nothing too hard to figure out."
"Then why set me up on the wrong track?"
"I didn't. You drew the right conclusions, you just got there wrong."
This gave the blonde some pause before answerring "Don't you start with that "Underneath the underneath"-crap too."
"Hey it's not my fault you're too dull to even scratch the surface" she shrugged.
"I only had problems concentrating because you were bouncing around your tits again" he shot back nonchalantly, figuring she was trying to provoke him. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction and neither would he give her the chance to retaliate as he immediately asked her what was next when she opened her mouth.

"Come one, it's ten past three already. What's keeping that pervert?" our favorite genin grumbled as he waited behind Law's Hot Water Spring Palace.
As if on cue he heard some childish giggling from above him. Looking up the nearby tree he rolled his eyes as he recognized the man's trademark wooden sandals and humongous bunch of gray hair.
Naruto wasted no time or energy calling for the man this time, instead he brought together his hands in his favorite seals and watched the show as suddenly an old crone appeared behind the senin, just outside of striking distance. A detail he might have neglected apparently as the hermit didn't even seem to acknowledge her until she yelled "Pervert!" and tried striking him with a frying pan. For a second it seemed like the clone would actually hit him, but at the last few centimeters the old hermit finally noticed her. Just for a moment the clone thought it saw a look of surprise on his face, but before it could be sure it was already dispelled by a sandal to the groin.

"You know it's one thing to spy on women, but I never expected you to hit them" the young man said from the ground.
"Like I said before kid", he said as he jumped down to his level, "unles you can fake a decent chakra signature, that trick won't work on me."
"You can tell male from female chakra?" the boy asked in surprise.
"I can tell yours from an old crone's." he answerred before muttering that his tits weren't saggy enough. Naruto pretended not to have heard that last bit.
"So, how does it work?"
"Well over time the skin's elasticity becomes worn down by gravity. This is also due to the process of cell reproduction being not entirely perfect. The body just can't continue to suppo-"
"Not that you dirty old man! The teleportation jutsu!"
"Oh. Well that does make sense. I was wondering why you wanted to know about saggy ti-"
"Enough with the saggy tits already!"
"Quite right, I think I spotted a lovely perky pair just a moment ago" the old pervert said as he straightened himself, trying to get a look over the wooden barrier that seperated them from Konoha's finest nudes this part of town.
"Oh for the love of ... that's it. I'm moving this conversation elsewhere."
"Ha" the old lecher grinned "and how are you" his tone suddenly changed as the scenery around him did "gonna do that?" Looking around he saw they had moved about 50 yards away from the bathhouse.
"Ah, so this is the 'Advanced Kawarimi' I had heard about. Not bad kid" he smiled going over the technique in his head.
"You knew about that?" the blond half asked in surprise.
"Kid, I'm a sanin, there's not much that gets by me. Especially not in this village."
"You provoked me into using it, didn't you?"
"Hehehe, what can I say? Whenever I hear about someone putting a new spin on an old trick, I just gotta see what it is. And from what I heard, you've got a lotta spins."

Naruto could hardly believe this was happening. He got played like sucker by someone old enough to be his grandpa.
"I thought you said you weren't interested about 'those 4 academy techniques' I knew?" slight frustration apparent in his voice.
"I wasn't. You cought me in a bathhouse and a brothel, give me a break kid. I might be a legend, I'm certainly no saint."
"Fair enough, I guess" the genin grudgingly admitted, as he imagined himself being bothered while slurping down a bowl of ramen. "So we're trading now?"
"Hmmm" Jiraya put on a serious face, "I don't know. Summoning it pretty powerfull and unique. It's something I could only teach a few people. You got anything else that might be interesting to the man who has nearly seen it all?" the toad-sage continued playing him.
Naruto wasn't falling for it however. He might not have been the sharpest tool in the shed a few months ago, but he had been grinding himself a lot lately.
"Sure, plenty" he said like an overenthousiastic kid. "I'm just not sure you could actually learn any of it though" the youngster seemed to feign concern. "I seem to have a certain knack for the technique, you know? And a boatload of chakra to boot" he proclaimed while shining his fingernails.

The legendary hermit chuckled to himself. The kid was onto him and not sharing any freebies. He could let that last insult slide though. "A boatload eh? Well we'l just see about that. Why don't you try that last technique again."
Naruto raised a quizical eyebrow at that, he wasn't sure what the old man wanted to prove with that, but he was curious to find out.
"You're not going to try and dodge it, right?"
"Pfsht, what would that prove? Now just go ahead and do it, unless you're scared of a demonstration of MY chakra" Jiraya taunted.
"Like hell!" the blonde shouted as he put his hands in his favorite seal. A moment later a plume of smoke exploded next to him, but as it dissapeared the toad sage stayed standing in front of him, unflinching with a small grin on him. When the smoke was gone, two identical hermits stood opposed eachother in the clearing, one smiling, the other with a slight frown on him, trying to understand what just happened.

"I figured your technique would be based on a clone, but I had no idea your Henge would be that fast. You almost got me because of that" the pervert said as he walked around his double doing a casual inspection.
"I had no idea you could make your chakra peak that fast" the clone answerred in return.
"That's because I didn't have to gather any" the original pervert said. Seeing the incromprending frown on their faces, the sanin elaborated: "I just stopped surpressing it."
Suddenly the frowns on their faces reversed direction after realizing what this meant. For the single instant that Naruto's technique tried to affect the Jiraya, the man had suddenly radiated a huge amount of chakra. His look of amazement slowly turned into a grin as he realized what this meant.
"I think we can probably work something out."