Chapter 2

At the same 'time' Naruto uses the Dagger for the first time...

Far away from the forests of Konoha, hidden deep within the desert wastelands of what is now referred to as Wind Country, an ancient being, for that is the closest word mortal tongue can use to describe it, awoke briefly, before slumbering once more. Fate destination had not changed, merely the road to it, this was within tolerable limits. But if those limits broke... Well, all actions had their consequences, and Fate always had it's way.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The Next Morning...

Naruto sighed, he had grown to hate shopping. It wasn't that he was overpriced or anything, or that he was refused service, though he certainly never got any sale prices, it was that the customer service sucked! Of course to have customer service one would need to actually service a customer. So it was to his own devices that Naruto was left to shop with, well, them and a newly acquired book. The book had all sorts of great suggestions, although every time a color suggestion came up Naruto mentally replaced it with Orange, after all was not orange The Ultimate of the color world?

In the end, after 3 laborious hours Naruto emerged from the shopping district of Konoha as a new man, err, teenager. He had a pair of mismatched elbow length gloves, the left hand was the black glove that had the daggertail sealed in it. The right arm was a dark brown, with armor plating on the back of his hand and along his forearm. He had a dark orange muscle shirt underneath a brown fishnet t-shirt, with a brown leather vest over that. Or at least it looked like leather, it was secondhand anyways, with a few modified scroll and book pockets covering it. His brown cargo pants had also been modified with extra shuriken and kunai holders, as well as a sword belt, which his scimitar rested on. The blue fabric of his hitai-ate was wrapped around his forehead, along with a length of orange fabric that swept his hair back from it's usual straight up spiky style.* All in all he didn't look half bad, especially when one considered his previous outfit looked like something a blind otter came up with.

The genin to be fingered the dagger of time, sheathed on the front of his wait, absent mindedly. Even with the shopping trip of horror he still had 2 hours to kill before he had to go to the academy for team assignments. With a half thought, he quickly scaled the nearest wall, years of practice automatically finding the best hand and footholds of the wall, much to the awe of civilians below him. He soon found himself balanced on top of a flag pole, his legs dangling aimlessly below him as he bit into an apple he had bought in the market, not ramen but still decent, again, years of practice had him perfectly balanced in a way most ninja never achieved. After all, while chakra could be an incredibly useful benefit, ninjas had a tendency to use it for every little thing, especially when the were younger. Naruto didn't know, nor would he really understand unless properly explained with the use of large colorful pictures, he had a far better starting point, and far less chakra consuming habits that would only help as he grew older.

As he munched on his apple he mused on the things the Hokage had told him last night, mostly that he had significantly less chakra then he had before. Which really, was both a good and bad thing. He was close to the chakra supply of an average genin, which meant he suddenly had decent control over it, for once in his life, and could satisfactory perform the basic academy jutsu. But more importantly to his situation, while his supply was less, the pathways that carried it to various parts of his body were still just as wide as they had been. Which would eventually, as the Sandaime had told him, allow greater control over his tenants chakra, as it wouldn't clash with his own in a battle for space. Personally Naruto wasn't worried about that just yet, oh eventually he would seek greater control of the Kyuubi's chakra, but not before he himself was at a higher level. After all, he had his shiny new toys, err, weapons that should be handled with the utmost respect, to play wi- umm, learn to use in a responsible fashion. The Hokage had looked over the books Naruto had gotten and given him a recommended course of action, learn to use a scimitar before even trying to handle the Lion Sword. The latter was, apparently, one of the 10 legendary blades of The Old World, thought lost, although Orochimaru had proven that not all of them were lost when he had discovered the Kusanagi years ago, and could easily kill someone who didn't know how to use it. Naruto currently had it sealed in a scroll on his chest.

"Hmm... Training, that'll do." Naruto whispered to himself. A course of action decided he dropped gracefully from the pole he was on, to the roof below, before starting off towards the nearest training grounds.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Son of a bitch!" Naruto swore for the umpteenth time as he sliced open the palm of his hand. This whole sword thing was going to be tricky to get down. Oddly enough for the brief moment he had used the daggertail it went perfectly fine. One might think the chaotic nature of both weapon and user harmonized better then one might normally expect. Not that that thought isn't particularly horrifying in its own right.

Meanwhile, in the bushes to the left, sat a bemused observer. Tenten hadn't known the blond that well the year before, just that he failed the final exam. She would never know his failing had come down to a rigged coin toss between Naruto and Lee. But she did know the last time she had seen him he hadn't been using a sword, or whatever that chain thing of Awesome was earlier. She was intrigued then to his actions, chuckling as he helped expound her vocabulary of new and interesting ways to curse. It was really kind of funny, and adorable in an odd swears at you sort of way. So funny in fact she started laughing, and didn't notice until to late Naruto was now looking at the bushes she was hiding behind. Tenten stepped out from her spot and waved nervously, "Hey, Naruto, right?"

Naruto glanced at the girl, he recognized her from last years class, but damned if he remembered her name. "Uh..." He paused, it something with numbers... "Twotwo?"

Tenten's eye twitched ever so slightly, "Tenten."

Naruto snapped his fingers, "Right! That was it. Sorry, I'm bad with faces."

Tenten sighed then shrugged, "Eh, no big deal it isn't like he really knew each other."

There was an awkward pause. "So... Why exactly were you watching me?"

Tenten blushed ever so slightly, "Sorry, heard you training and came to check it out, I stayed because I love weapons, and your using some pretty rare ones." Slowly, without realizing it, she was slipping into weapon girl mode, "I mean you NEVER see scimitars out of Suna, and even then it's rare, and what was that chain thing you were using? I've never seen anything close to it before!"

Naruto scratched the back of his head, "Eeeeh, well I can't really tell you how I got them, but I got them yesterday... Say your good with weapons right?" He wilted slightly at her glare. "Right, I don't suppose you could give me some pointers."

Tenten glared a bit longer then shrugged, "I don't really know how to use a scimitar. I could probably tell you the best way to pin a fly with it at 50 meters though." Naruto stared blankly at her. "Right, forgot most people don't throw melee weapons... Well what were you going to learn from?"

Naruto sighed, "Well, the sword kind of came with a manual..." He pulled the book from his pocket, only to have it ripped from his hands by the brunette.

She flipped through the book a pensive expression on her face. In the back of his mind Naruto made not of how incredibly cute it looked on her. Before looking back up to the blond. "Well, the style is similar to something my dad taught me... Say how about we both practice, learn it together." A faraway look came to her face, "Mm, I'll get to make a new weapon to for it." Her eyes started to glaze before Naruto shook her out of it.

"Konoha to Tenten! Stay with me here." He said, a smile playing at his lips.

She smacked him lightly in the shoulder, Naruto winced and rubbed the injured area pouting. "Anyways, do we have a deal?"

Hmm, studying with hot weapons girl or not... Hmmm... This was not a hard decision. "Sure! After I get assigned to a team we'll figure something out."

Tenten nodded, "All right, meet me back here tonight around 7." She paused, "Wait doesn't the academy usually assign teams around now?"

Naruto glanced up at the sun, his eyes widening as he did so. "SON OF A CRAP I gotta go Tenten, seeya tonight."

Tenten smiled and waved as the blond took off at a dead run before leaving to go meet up with her own team, neither realizing just how much it sounded like they were setting up a date.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

At the academy Iruka sighed internally. Naruto was late, as usual. Of course that lent his team assignment a certain amount of poetic justice, provided he passed. Alas he could not wait for his favored student, he had to start with the assigning. "...And Team 7 will be Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke-" He paused and sighed as Sakura squealed with joy and Ino cursed, " And-"

SMASH BANG THUD "KAMI DAMNED SON A SPURRNED WHORE WHO CLOSES THE DAMN WINDOW THIS TIME OF YEAR."

"-Uzumaki Naruto." Sakura wailed and slammed her head into her desk. Sasuke just brooded in silence, while the rest of the class breather a collective sigh of relief. Not that it really occurred to any of them that last they knew the blond shinobi had failed. But hey, this wasn't a particularly bright generation.

"Wait, what?" Naruto said, confusion evident in his voice.

"Your on team 7, with Sakura and Sasuke, your sensei is Hatake Kakashi." Iruka said, gesturing to the pinkette and broodette.

"Is this because I was late? I swear it'll never happen again! Next time I'll just shove that old lady out of my way, and leave the cat stuck in the tree!" Naruto said waving his arms frantically.

IN the other room, the gathered jonin gave a collective sigh of relief, grateful not to be having him on their team. Lord knows all this village needed was another Kakashi. Of course that thought sent a small shudder down their spines when they realized that he would be on Kakashi's team.

Back in the classroom Iruka finished calling the teams while Naruto sulked in the back of the class in relative silence. Shino would later attest to the small chocked sobs as being most off putting. Hinata of course had gone into fantasy land where Naruto was upset that he wasn't on her team, then promptly turned beat red and fainted, Causing Kiba, her new teammate, to sigh.

4 hours later, Naruto was reading his new books, Sasuke was, low and behold, still brooding, and Sakura? She was contemplating murder, and rape. But not for the same person. Iruka had long ago abandoned his students, leaving them with only a backwards glance of pity, before going off to eat.

Kakashi walked into the room, humming a tune while reading Icha Icha Tactics. Sakura and Sasuke immediately came to attention, while Naruto gave the man a half glance up form his book, eerily reminiscent of the Copy Ninja himself. "Hmm, my first impression is, I'm intrigued. Meet me on the roof in 3 minutes. Oh, and do avoid the traps."

Sakura gulped, Traps? What kind of crazy teacher did they have?

Sasuke smirked, maybe this man would be worthy to teach him.

Naruto? Well as soon as he heard roof, he had already left via window, arriving the same time Kakashi did. Kakashi merely raised his sole visible eyebrow and motioned Naruto to sit.

10 minutes later Naruto was left with a slight sense of foreboding, don't eat breakfast? Screw that! Mornings were his chicken ramen time! He wasn't giving that up come hell or high water. With that thought firmly in mind he wandered off to go find Tenten and tell her about these latest developments.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Hours later Naruto returned home, the sky was dark and the blond was in a good mood. He and Tenten had talked for hours getting to know their new training partners. It was always nice making new friends. So if his mind was a little elsewhere it can be forgiven, so it stands to measure that his situational awareness was slightly less the normal. Meaning he missed the giant scraggly looking, sand covered vulture that was perched on the middle of his bad up until he flopped onto it and it bit him. He glanced at the bird, the bird glanced at him, and he did the only rational thing, and screamed. "SON OF A BITCH! WHAT THE HELL!"

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A/N: Aaaaand cut. So, chapter 2. little expositiony but hey what can ya do? How'd ya'll like it? Hmm, I should point out that this will not be a bash fic, its just that most of Naruto's graduating class was pretty damn pathetic, especially for a group of clan heirs. Hmm, as always read and review, it always makes me happy. Laterz!