Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto.

I will be continuing with this fic, hopefully to beyond 100,000 words. Hope you enjoy!

Puppet Legend

Chapter 1 - Kimiko

"Sakura-chan, will you go out with me?"

"Naruto! Get out of my life." The pink haired girl shouted loudly. "Why don't you understand that everyone hates you, your just lowering my chances of getting a date with Sasuke-kun. Why don't you kill yourself and do everyone a favour. It's not like anyone loves you, and if you're not around, Sasuke-kun would only have to save me when we're in danger, rather then you as well." A dreamy look appeared in her eyes. "Did you see the love in his eye's when he defeated that Haku person? He didn't want anyone to hurt me."

Naruto looked into the distance thinking over what Sakura had said. He recalled a conversation with the Hokage...

'jiji, do you have a wife?'

'Yes Naruto, why do you ask?'

'I want to marry Sakura-chan. I love her, but she doesn't love me...'

'Are you sure you love her Naruto.' The old twinkled down at him. 'Love is something very complicated. Something much different from attraction. I think you were lonely, and saw Sakura being bullied, and thought she was like you, but really she has no idea of the hardship you've been though. When the time comes, look deep inside yourself, and ask yourself if you really love her.'

Naruto looked confused for a second then smiled up at the old man. 'Thank you Hokage-sama, I'm sure I'll understand someday.'

'You will. Now I've got work to do. Kage-Bushins can't do all the work themselves you know' He grinned motioning to the three identical copies of him at a desk by his side doing some paperwork. 'I've got to meet representatives from Rain country about the upcoming Chuunin exams. Why don't you have yourself some ramen.' He pulled out some ramen vouchers from his desk, and passed them to the young boy, chuckling at the ecstatic look the young boy was giving him. 'If you ever need anything, I'm always here for you Naruto.'

'Thank you Jiji. You're the best!' He yelled over his shoulder as he ran from the room clenching the ramen vouchering firmly in his fist.

"I think I understand jiji" Naruto murmured to himself.

"What are you on about idiot. Are you going to leave me alone or not?"

"Yeah..." He murmured subconsciously, trying to think of a time Sakura had been nice to him. He couldn't. "I'll leave you alone... pink haired bitch." He muttered the last part, obviously not quietly enough though, as he saw a fist come out of nowhere forcing him to quickly dodge.

"Good. Now I'm going to find Sasuke-kun." Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully finding Sasuke was more important than a punch on the head for him.

"What do you want me for?" Both of them jumped in surprise looked up, and saw Sasuke standing in a tree above them.

"Sasuke-kun will you go out with me!" Sakura yelled.

"Listen to yourself. You're worse than Naruto. I'm going to train. Do you want to come Naruto?"

Naruto grinned up at his rival. "Can have you getting ahead of me can I." And followed the black haired teen out of the park, and to the nearest training ground flicking Sakura off as he went.

They spared, Sasuke winning as usual by using an advanced fire Jutsu Kakashi had taught him to take out Naruto's clone army, and using his Sharingan and superior speed and Taijutsu skills beat him around a bit before smashing him into the ground.

They sat down in the clearing after Naruto had woken up, and ate the small lunch Sasuke had brought with him.

"You should learn more Jutsu's Naruto. We would be more evenly matched if you could do something more than just Kage-Bushin."

"I can't... no-one will teach me. Kakashi-sensei says I need to work on my chakra control before I can learn anything, even though I practice for two hours every day, and jiji says I'm as good as some Chuunin. I've already mastered the water walking exercise which even Sakura can't do. I'm not allowed in the library because the old man there won't let me in, and they have a Henge detector at the entrance, so I can't sneak in, so I only know the academy styles and jutsu, and Kage-Bushin, which I learnt from the secret scroll." Naruto suddenly realized what he had said, and glanced at Sasuke.

His teammate was looking at him curiously, but didn't ask anything, he just stood up, and looked at Naruto. "I'll teach you something."

"What."

"I'll teach you a Jutsu, and you can have some of the family fighting styles scrolls that I've used." He made the best attempt he could make at a smile, which turned into a twisted sort of smirk, but luckily Naruto managed to interpret it as friendly.

"Why would you do that."

"For some reason no-one will teach you, and when you run away, you need to be able to look after yourself, or you'll die within minutes, and we'll never be able to have a re-match."

"What do you mean, I'm not running anywhere."

"You will. I've seen how the villagers, and most of the Shinobi look at you. In the end it will get to you. I'm going to leave here too, soon as the right time comes."

"But..."

"If I were you I'd leave. Take this special scroll of yours, and leave. There's plenty of jobs out there for missing nins, and not all of them involve killing people, and plenty of people out there to train you. What do you have to lose?"

"Hokage jiji."

"If he cared about you, why didn't he adopt you? Now here's the basic Uchiha stance, and a low level fire technique. Once you've proved you're not a dobe and can learn by yourself, come back to me, and I'll show you something that will help you when I leave." Sasuke said, then jumped off into the trees, too fast for Naruto to stop him.

'Why would he do this for me, we've always been rivals. What does he get out of it?' Naruto thought as he slowly climbed to his feet, and set off out of the training ground.

- ONE WEEK LATER -

Naruto emerged from the forest to see Sasuke sitting in the exact same spot as one week ago. He sat down next to him, and passed him the scrolls.

Sasuke looked up a gleam in his eye. "Let's fight."

Naruto grinned, and got into the most advance stance on the scroll. "I've been busy."

Sasuke ignored him, and sent a string of punches at Naruto's chest. He dodged them all but the last one, which he ducked, and punched up, catching Sasuke in the chin, sending him flying twenty feet back.

"You've improved." He sat up, and spat out some blood. "But is it enough..." Jumping to his feet, he did a series of hand seals, and breathed out a huge tongue of flame. Naruto had just enough time to jump up into the air to avoid the fire, but was caught with an elbow from behind. Sasuke grinned in victory, but it was quickly replaced with shock when Naruto disappeared in a cloud of white smoke.

Kunai clashed, as Sasuke managed to parry Naruto's surprise attack from behind his back. Not being able to hold him off for long, Sasuke flipped back, and flashed through another set of hand seals, creating a long rope, which spread round the blond, but Naruto clumsily made a series of hand seals just in time, firing a set of mini fireballs from his mouth, burning the rope to a crisp.

The two continued to fight using Taijutsu, with the occasional fire Jutsu, till one of Naruto's clones tripped over into the real Naruto, causing him to lose his concentration, and not be able to finish the set of hand seals he was trying to complete in times to meet Sasuke's similar fire Jutsu.

He collapsed to the ground, and waved off Sasuke who came hurrying over to see if he was alright.

"You should get to the hospital. Those burns look bad."

Naruto chuckled dryly. "I've had worse than this. I have enhanced healing, so I should be better again in about ten minutes."

Nodding, Sasuke motioned for Naruto to follow him. "I'm leaving tomorrow, and I need your help."

"What! Where are you going? Why do you need me?" Naruto spluttered, hurrying to catch up with him.

"I'm the last Uchiha, and people treat me like royalty. They shouldn't. My father was evil. He was trying to gain power to overthrow the Hokage. He wanted power, and wasn't afraid to kill innocent people to get it. However people ignored that because they though they needed the Uchiha for the safety of the village. I lied when I said I wanted to kill Itachi, I had too, because I overheard a conversation I wasn't supposed to. Itachi is working for the Hokage undercover in a secret organisation called Akatsuki. My father found out Itachi was working for the Hokage, and tries to kill him." Naruto could see tears in Sasuke's eyes.

"Itachi had to kill all the Uchiha under the Hokage's orders, and because they attacked him, but he left me alive."

"I'm leaving because this village think I'm the answer to their problems, and I'm not! Because I need to find out why Itachi left me alive, yet killed my mother. She hated my father, and his schemes, and would often get beaten by him. I need to find out why he killed her."

"But...why are you telling me this."Naruto asked nervously, he could see the anger and emotion in Sasuke's face.

"You know I mentioned Itachi working undercover in an organisation called Akatsuki." Naruto nodded. "They're objective is to capture all the tailed beasts. One through nine. Twelve years ago, The nine tailed fox attacked this village, all the villagers hate and fear you, the Hokage mentioned your name when he was talking to Itachi. It all fits together."

"Oh..."

"I thought you might want to know there are a group of S-class missing nins out to get you and the other tailed beasts. Also In case I... in case I die. Can you find Itachi, and kill whoever was responsible for my mother's death."

"I promise." Naruto said sincerely, and Sasuke nodded his thanks.

"Now here we are." Sasuke motioned in front of him.

Naruto looked around, and realized he hadn't been looking where he was going. He figured he must be under the Uchiha district somewhere. They were in a dark solid looking room, with the only light coming from a bare light bulb above them. The room had a pile of boxes in one corner, and shelf of scrolls, with a few racks of weapons along another wall. In the far corner Naruto noticed a funny shaped object covered in a moth eaten dust blanket.

"This is the Uchiha storeroom. All important objects and weapons used to go in here. Itachi took some of the useful stuff when he left I think, however you can have what you want out of here to help you.

Naruto spent a few minutes looking through the scrolls, detailing some more advanced Uchiha techniques, and a few of the smaller weapons he found in one of the boxes.

"What's this?" he asked, motioning to the odd object in the corner.

Sasuke walked over and dragged the blanket off the object to reveal a bent over human form. Naruto cautiously walked over, and peered intently at it. It was a lady, just tall with long black hair but the skin was different, dead and dried up. Sasuke lifted it up, and Naruto staggered back as bright red eyes stared back at him.

"She's my aunt, Kimiko." Sasuke said grimly, my mother's sister. She too didn't agree with my father, and disappeared when I was six. Apparently she was found by some ANBU working undercover in Suna. They managed to sneak her and everything they found with her out of Suna, and gave it all to the Uchiha, out of fear of what might happen if someone found out they didn't. People had a habit of disappearing when they crossed my family back then.

"There are some books too." Sasuke continued, holding out a pile of books Naruto hadn't seen. "They don't tell you much of the art, just a journal of some crazy Shinobi I think."

"But what is she." Naruto said, ignoring what Sasuke was saying, and looking at the object in horror.

"A puppet of some sort, but not like the normal sort that some people in Suna use. There's an old legend that details a technique that can be used to bring dead humans to life...apparently someone out there can still use it, and made this."

"But if the instructions are here, why doesn't someone use it."

"The Uchiha" Sasuke sighed. "Are lazy, very lazy, and this puppet thingy takes a lot more work then copying other people's techniques. However without training, you can't master a technique. This is why Itachi was strong enough to kill them all; he would train so often we hardly talked to each other. Oh and they were very arrogant, thinking the techniques weren't strong enough to bother with."

"If you want it, you can have it all. I don't know much about puppets, but I think you'll probably have to know a bit about our style to use this puppet, so you can use the scrolls in the corner, I've finished with them all."

"But why don't you use it."

"Think dobe. Why would I want to fight with an Uchiha when I am one myself? It wouldn't suit my style, and I'm going to be travelling too much to deal with all this. Why don't you focus on the scrolls over there? There are some pretty powerful techniques, and you can take them all, I've got copies."

"Maybe, Thanks Sasuke this is awesome, I'm going to become the world's greatest ninja." Naruto shouted loudly, waving his hands in the air, ignoring the half scornful, half annoyed look Sasuke was giving him. "You said you needed my help, what was it, and is there anything else I can do?"

"Yeah, I'm leaving tomorrow; I'm packed everything, and made a spare key to this room, so only you and me can access it. You're going to have to be careful when you visit as this area will probably be searched when I leave."

"Won't they be able to break in?"

"Impossible, too many secrecy Jutsu's. The only reason you can even see his room is because I have a key and brought you here, and now you have a key." Sasuke said, passing a large dull gray key over to Naruto who carefully placed it in a pocket.

"Anyway, as I was saying, I'm going to leave tonight at about twelve when the guard changes, I need you to make a distraction at around one in the afternoon of the next day, when we're supposed to be having 'team training'." He said emphasising the fact that team training meant Sasuke training, which Sakura watched, while Naruto was ignored. "That is the earliest people will start to miss me, and I need more time to get clear. It has to last long enough to give me a good twenty four hour head start as hunter nin's will be much faster than me, and I'll be setting up traps and diversions as I go. You have to get team training cancelled, and distract Sakura somehow. Maybe some sort of Prank, something perverted that will get Kakashi's attention."

Naruto reached forward in shock and punched Sasuke in the arm.

"What was that for?"

"Checking for Henge, you told me to do something perverted. That's just so...un-Sasuke like." Naruto said in a daze. Sasuke returned the punch. "Yeah I think I've got an idea, should last most of the day, and will defiantly keep Kakashi occupied." Naruto grinned evilly; I think Konoha's perverts are going to get a wakeup call tomorrow."

AN: Something that came to me when reading another puppet story, about the possible ways of getting Naruto into puppets other than the other story idea's I've read.

I know Sasuke is OOC, however if he did know about Itachi, and the arrogant thing was just a cover, I think this is how he would act. This fic is set between the wave arc and the Chuunin exam; let's say about a month before the Chuunin exams.

Happy 2009 people!