Author NOTES: I must regretfully say that this history is certainly dead. Recent and not so recent happenings in the manga made me lose gradually my interest, (Sasuke megapowerup, Naruto's rectal treatment with the nerf bat…)

Also, I forced myself to write parts of it, but then, I realized it wasn't fun anymore, and it started to feel like a chore.

The last straw was the revelation of Naruto's parentage. Making my history completely AU. And to be truthful, I wasn't really happy with the whole clichéd concept of having the fourth sealed inside too, and I realized that I had written myself into a corner with recent revelations.

Therefore, I finally decided to release all that I had written of the last chapter and declare the history dead.

Not that I've completely abandoned Naruto Fandom. I have a couple of ideas that deserve to be put on virtual paper.

Heh, who knows, Maybe I'll write the dbz fic I had planned for years.

So here you go, all that I have written of the last chapter. Not proofread, and definitely an unfinished chapter.

FROG MASK

CHAPTER XIV:

By Blackmamuth

"Kyuubi speaking"

"A Hokage is a title you receive when you understand the principles of morality, knowledge, loyalty, getting along with family, and more importantly; the individual must known and be able to use more than 1000 techniques..." –Ebisu

"There is no shortcut to become hokage." –Uzumaki Naruto

A shinobi group was leaving the tower where the chuunin preliminaries took place, most of them glancing subtly at their future rival. The procession was silent and was advancing through the forest at a reduced pace by shinobi standards. ANBU were unnaturally noticeable in flanking the group, and the chuunin hopefuls were walking in the middle, after the sandaime Hokage, who was chattering with some of the chuunin proctors of the exam. The genin were mostly traveling with their team-mates, and leaving a respectable distance to the next group. (Or at least, with the team-mates that were able to walk after the preliminaries. A good portion of the participants were evacuated by another route by medical nin to receive urgent medical care.)

Naruto hands were inside his pockets, fingering absently a rusty shuriken, playing absently with the hole in the center. In front of Naruto was the rest of team 7, Or to be more exact Sakura. Kakashi left a while ago to the hospital to check over Sasuke. That left Sakura as the only member of his team present. However, it was like she wasn't there, because she was walking like a zombie, not even acknowledged Naruto.

Even when he had assured her the "bastard" would be alright. Her answer was only a grunt in acknowledgement, and then silence. She was walking mechanically, while staring ahead without seeing anything. Even Naruto's obliviousness was unable to overlook her worried estate and Zombie-like behaviour. (Obviously, she was looking ahead to visit Sasuke. That was a given).

Sakura's mood, however unusual; was not the reason for Naruto's contemplative mood. In fact; Naruto, after seeing the preliminaries was very aware of his chances of beating most of the participants: Nearly none. Indeed, that revelation did not go very well with the blond who was planning to be the best Hokage ever. He would not lose the Chuunin exams; Period.

But even Naruto's delusions and grand objectives, weren't enough to blind him from the truth. With his current abilities; he would be very lucky to even reach the final. Therefore; Naruto needed intensive training badly, at the very least to overcome his biggest handicap; at least in Naruto opinion. Naruto had no long range offensive capabilities.

Namely, Naruto could only do real damage in close quarters; his only method of dealing long range damage resided in his meagre weapon skills; skills that were nothing spectacular even for an academy student. (And downright depressing compared to what his future opponent team-mate demonstrated in her fight).

Naruto briefly toyed with asking the girl for a few pointers, but hastily dismissed the idea. She was walking a few meters ahead of him; walking near the Pale-Eyed bastard, broadcasting her bad mood to everyone who had even the tiniest perception ability, most likely for her loss with the sand Kuonichi.

Naruto doubted she would help him, even if she wasn't influenced by his bad reputation. Getting her help was unlikely seeing that his future rival was her team-mate. Even he wouldn't help someone against his team-mates, although Sasuke-bastard had it coming.

Who should he ask for help then?

-XXX-

Naruto was not happy.Kakashi had just stated that he had more important things to do;namely training Sasuke-bastard instead of him!!! "I WANT YOU KAKASHI SENSEI!!!!!!" Naruto screamed out of frustation to the masked jounin when he presented Ebisu "the closet pervert" as his teacher; claiming that Ebisu was even better teacher than him. Why was he teaching Konohamaru then, instead of taking a Genin team?

"Why the hell does my training teacher have to be him!!!?" Naruto asked, his volume reaching levels absolutely unheard before in the hospital; not a nice thing to do, but Naruto, in his aggravation didn't even care.

Closet pervert being better trainer than Kakashi? Hah! He beat even before his first Ranked D mission, in his trial of the harem jutsu! And Konohamaru wasn't that impressive, right? Therefore Naruto didn't need the help of a perverted self-important babysitter around; Naruto did need a real teacher.

Naruto changed tactics, he needed someone to learn from; it wasn't like he could sneak and steal some scrolls from the Hokage again!! (And now he was a full fledged Shinobi of the leaf, such an act would be treason. And it would be slightly more difficult to become the next hokage as a traitor.)

Naruto tried to reason with Kakashi. Maybe this way he could train him, or at least take him along with Sasuke.

"Kakashi Sensei; this guy is weaker tan me in the first place!!! I mean I used my harem no jutsu …MPHHHphh…" Naruto couldn't finish his rant; because his prospective teacher gagged him preventing the exposure of his perverted side.

"I treat you to ramen if you keep quiet about that" Ebisu whispered to Naruto, Who reluctantly nodded.

"I really don't like this, Kakashi-Sensei." Naruto pouted, reluctantly resigning to his fate. The free ramen offer also helped. Maybe the closet pervert wasn't THAT bad of a teacher.

Ebisu looked back at him, smug attitude Naruto hated. "Same goes here, if it weren't for kakashi request, nobody who'd want to train the likes of you?"

Those words touched on a sore point for Naruto, having endured negative upon negative, dismissals upon dismissals, and now, there was the issue of the training. Ghost dad said that before asking him, he should ask Kakashi first, because he was his sensei, Kakashi made a point of telling he wasn't to train him, and now, Mr. Replacement teacher nº 3 didn't want to teach him, only agreed to do a favour to Kakashi!; If he didn't need training that badly, he would tell them to screw it, and go train by himself.

Meanwhile Kakashi managed to calm the situation, only to reignite it again suggesting Naruto to ask Ebisu to relearn the basics. Since he was team seven dead last in those departments. That felt to Naruto like a slap. Naruto could agree on some degree about that statement about his basics. But… to add insult to injury, he said he was the worst in team seven?!? Where was Sasuke now? In a hospital bed being coddled like the endangered species he was!! And Sakura didn't even pass to the finals!!! It was insulting!!! It was degrading! It wasn't TRUE!!! ""COMPARED TO SASUKE AND SAKURA…WHERE ON EARTH DO I COME UP SHORT?!?! Naruto's outburst even surpassed his earlier one, making several nurses nearby deaf for a few seconds.

Wasn't he in the finals? Didn't he pass two thirds of the whole freaking CHUUNIN exam? How the hell could be his basics THAT bad? And why the hell he needed to work in the basics right now?!? There were the exam finals in a month time!! How was the basic going to help him in the combat finals?

Naruto just invented and unsuccessfully tested a new jutsu; "glare of death" his intended targets the two perverted jounins in front of him.

Ebisu ranted about his lack of skill in chakra control. While he wasn't happy about the message; Naruto reluctantly agreed that sucked in that area and working on chakra control was a good idea, that way, his endurance and chakra output would go up considerably.

But in Naruto's opinion chakra control although important it wasn't priority nº1; He had limited training time; shitloads of chakra already. And therefore improving his control wasn't THAT critical. Naruto had to spend his available time efficiently.

Right now the immediate objective was passing the rank exams. Therefore being able to last for more hours, have his techniques consume less chakra in a fight and if he was lucky improve his physical skills was important but those improvements would do no good to him if he was out of it in 5 minutes because he had no counter to the Gentle fist of the Hyuuga.

Naruto wanted to improve his firepower instead.

-XXX-

If you asked someone who knew well Naruto what was his favourite treat; they would tell you "Ramen". It was less known that if Naruto someday got tired of being a ninja (As if!) could live very well as a ramen chef. Naruto knew everything that one needed to know about Ramen, and a little bit more.

And when speaking of Ramen, Only one word: Ichiraku. Years of experience with Naruto, and his sounds of delight honed the old man skills to near perfection when speaking of noodles. It was such a shame that most customers avoided the stand because of his ever-present customer. Therefore it was highly unusual when Naruto (Or anyone else) didn't enjoy Ichiraku Ramen, the best ramen in Konoha; and all that for a few ryou(1).

And why was Naruto not enjoying his Ramen? It was because he was contemplating how to learn more about his possible rival; In theory, a rather easy task to accomplish; since the Hyuuga was the most well known clan in Konoha unlike some other possible rivals. Information about Hyuuga HAD to be out there to be gathered. But the problem was WHERE.

Naruto had found a few problems in his attempts while gathering info. Ghost dad refused to answer, saying information gathering was an important skill to learn (Naruto would remember that one). Closet pervert just ranted about listening to his methods of training, that way he wouldn't have to bother with the rivals. Hinata was still at the hospital (When he was searching for Kakashi sensei, he took a few minutes to ask a nurse (Who scowled at him when he approached and told him in bland and dry tones that Kiba, Hinata and Lee were "alright" And Sasuke-bastard information was classified).

Naruto didn't really trust the information, especially since his unusual fox-enhanced-hearing allowed him to hear the nurse mumbling "No way would I let the abomination close to patients"

That encounter made Naruto realized the true difficulty of learning more ab1out the Hyuuga. It would be rather hard to gather information when most habitants of Konoha would refuse to even acknowledge his presence as the reaction of the nurse showed him. The likelihood of acquiring false information would be high in most cases.

Therefore Naruto had devised a plan. Nothing really fancy, He created a twenty-four Kage bunshins, and divided between them his entire scroll supply. Naruto didn't really care about those half blank scrolls, and he still had the ones from the chuunin exam. He had to use real scrolls; since he wanted to retain the information his kage bunshin's gathered after they ran out time and disappeared. Naruto grouped the bunshins in groups of three. So if for some reason one of them was dispelled; the rest could still deliver the information to his apartment.

The plan was to have his Kage bunshins teams cover the entirety of Konoha gathering information about the pale eyed bastards. Three of them would be sent to the academy, to ask Iruka sensei about Neji, and after that maybe they could try to enter the hall of records in the academy. Not that entering in there would help him THAT much. Since Naruto doubted sensitive records would be kept in the academy. But maybe it would give him an idea of what to expect.

The second group had a different objective. Spy on the bastard training, and learn anything possible; write it, and relay it back to him. Those would probably be the ones that would give him first hand information; So Naruto gave them two scrolls.

Third group had a slightly harder task. They would try to enter the Hyuuga district, and spy on the rest of the Hyuuga family. Sneaking into places wasn't Naruto's strong point, but one didn't lose anything for trying.

Fourth group would go ask freaky-eyebrows and mini-eyebrows. Mini eyebrows seemed nice enough when he jumped with him in the arena when that Tenten girl got beaten by the sand kuonichi. Perhaps he would help.

Fifth group would ask Kiba and Hinata's sensei. Naruto hoped they weren't angry about his victory over mutt-butt.

Sixth group would go around the village asking random villagers, who knew, maybe they would be lucky.

Seven group was going to met the Hokage, and ask (meaning grovel) a few pointers and maybe a few jutsus out of him. Who knew, Even if the old geezer didn't tell his clones anything about his next rival, maybe the old man would give his clones a jutsu scroll instead. The old man had a lot of them, he was Hokage, and so he knew more than 1000 jutsu, right?

(1) Naruto world Currency; at least in Fire country.

-XXX-

Ebisu had five reasons to hate Kyuubi. Those reasons were in the memorial stone written one under the other.

But before all Ebisu was a professional. Ebisu breathed discipline, followed rules and regulations to the letter. He was a closet pervert too, but that was of no importance to the current situation.

Ebisu also had pride in his skills as a shinobi and took his duties seriously. If the village gave him a mission, he would do everything in his power to fulfil it as perfectly as possible. No matter his personal feelings.

Not that he had to like it. The day the third Hokage asked him to be the sensei/babysitter of his gradson…

Ebisu had a debt of gratitude to Uzumaki for that one. Konohamaru attitude changed for the better after his little escapade with Uzumaki, and the consequences in the youngest of the Sarutobi skills, made Ebisu contemplate his own actions.

He was shocked to the core. Ebisu knew he was prideful, but he never really believed his feelings of superiority interfered with his job as a jounin sensei.

He really didn't teach that much to Konohamaru, apart from book learning and theory, deeming the boy to small and his chakra system too underdeveloped to tackle any chakra manipulation. He had not bothered to check. He couldn't be more wrong; a little afternoon Konohamaru spent with Uzumaki the third grandson learned henge no jutsu!!. The brat knew one of the three basic ninja techniques even before entering the academy. And his new attitude in his studies…

Ebisu really owed one to Naruto.

Before Ebisu arrived to the tower, Kakashi was already there Hokage tower trying to post a C rank mission request for a Jounin to teach Naruto and inform of the massacre of an ANBU team that protected the Uchiha. Let's say the chuunin administrators weren't much happy about the news and one of them even sympathized about the Cyclops not wanting to teach the loudmouth.

It was mere luck that Ebisu picked that moment to enter the tower. He was waiting for the Hokage to return so he could report the most recent happenings with Konohamaru training.

The Cyclops recognized him instantly, and requested his help with the blond boy. There was no way he would refuse, since he owed his life to the chronically late jounin.

They had a considerable discussion when Ebisu asked the masked man about Naruto's current talent and skills. And the Cyclops dismissed his concerns saying Naruto current skill set was so much below the Hyuuga and therefore the month would be better spent relearning the basics. Also claiming he had no time for a thorough debriefing since the Uchiha wasn't currently guarded. Kakashi asked him to come to the hospital, with him, where he expected to find his student waiting.

Ebisu didn't doubt Naruto needed remedial classes in the basics, but he was rather annoyed at the aloof dismissal of the genin skills. Especially since said genin managed to knock him out in one occasion.

That irked him.

Ebisu questioned why the Hatake wasn't the one to train the boy, and Kakashi's reasoning was that only one person (Namely Kakashi himself) was capable of training Sasuke in the use of his bloodline. And the desperate need of training was because the Uchiha opponent was a demon host.

Ebisu raised an eyebrow at that. It was an exam and even if the opponent was Uchiha Itachi himself SHUDDER the shinobi were allowed to resign. (There was no shame in doing so.)But no self respecting sensei would pawn his student to another teacher and instruct him to work in the basics, because the exam was a lost cause. Especially since he was planning an emergency full time training schedule for his prized pupil; whose match was also a lost cause? The jounin SHOULD divide his time between his students, not train one, and pawn the other two to other jounins.

The teacher in him got really offended.

Well, the actual meeting with the brat hadn't gotten really well, especially because Naruto nearly told the entire hospital about his isolated and completely understandable incident with Harem no Jutsu.

Quick thinking allowed preventing the revelation of his habits to the entire hospital.

-XXX-

Ebisu treated Naruto to Ramen, but the boy was surprisingly silent, playing with his ramen without eating it. Ebisu thought the boy was still dwelling in the negative of his sensei in teaching him, but the real reason surprised him.

The boy had just asked him about the Hyuuga, and his weaknesses. Ebisu had never faced in battle a Hyuuga, and his knowledge of their abilities came only from his time spent in missions with members of the prestigious family.

Therefore Ebisu had never dwelled in possible flaws in the Hyuuga's gentle fist and never bothered to research its workings. Not that if he did he would tell Naruto, Hyuuga were allies, and it was an exam open to the public after all. He was loyal enough to Konoha to not broadcast exploitable quirks of "the most powerful clan of the leaf" where everyone could see.

That and also he wanted the brat to think in a grander scale. Because if everything worked as he planned, Naruto would beat Hyuuga Neji, Kakashi would have to eat his words back, acknowledge him as a great teacher; And Naruto would then have to face Gaara of the sand.

If Kakashi reaction was accurate, the "genius" Uchiha had a snowball chance in

Hell of beating the suna shinobi.

Ebisu merely raised an eyebrow and refused to comment when Naruto made an impressive amount of Kage bunshins and instructed them to get information. A good strategy but Ebisu would rather be caught dead than admit it to the blond genin.

Ebisu liked challenges. Ebisu didn't particularly show his enjoyment he took in teaching (Girls didn't like teachers; Girls liked cool looking mysterious ninja!!!). Ebisu was an elite tutor. Not something girls liked very much…

'Wait, wait… Wrong train of thought… first business, pleasure later…' In a supreme effort, Ebisu's perverted mind left the gutter alone and instead focused in his most recent pupil.

Therefore, the first obstacle to overcome was to minimally polish his student chakra control. Perhaps show a promise of a jutsu, to have him work on the exercise with enthusiasm, and after he mastered it, Ebisu would test the boy for his elemental affinity, and if he was lucky, he had the perfect technique to teach him.

-XXX-