So, I'm back and with a chapter and a half of a new story written. Honestly, I like my other stories and will probably finish at least the major ones eventually, but this idea stuck in my head... So, sorry if you were hoping for an update of another fic, here's what I got for now. Hoping this'll help me be motivated for my other fics.

Disclaimed.

"Naruto, you fail." Iruka announced with a heavy heart to the small boy standing before him. He may have been wary and distrustful towards the young jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, but he had never seen the child say an unkind word to anyone. More than that, he had witnessed Naruto defending the younger children from bullying even though it'd gotten him beaten up more than once. After seeing that, he'd known the boy was no monster, whatever anyone else thought.

As the boy quietly nodded and left the testing room, Iruka sighed unhappily. Despite Naruto's reticence, he'd become fond of the boy's gentleness and hated to see him fail because of a single jutsu. Naruto was average in most areas, not extraordinary, but passable. It was only the boy's chakra control that was unusually lacking. And without the ability to perform bunshin no jutsu, he would never be allowed to become a genin. It was a waste. Even though there'd been another boy in the year before who'd been given an exemption, the teacher's council had voted not to grant one to Naruto.

With a shake of his head, Iruka straightened the paperwork on his desk and prepared to present the results of the exam to the Hokage. He wasn't looking forward to breaking the news to the Hokage, knowing of his love for the quiet boy.

–

Naruto sat on the swing, watching as the parents congratulated their children on becoming genin. Hokage-jiji had promised to buy him ramen if he passed the exams and he didn't want to disappoint the grandfatherly old man, but there was no chance that Naruto would ever become a ninja. While he was watching the other kids, admittedly day-dreaming about what having parents might be like, he failed to notice the chuunin that had come up to stand next to him.

"Naruto-kun, I'm sorry about today." Mizuki said in a sickeningly sweet tone.

Naruto looked up at the man standing over him, masking his surprise. Day-dreaming was dangerous.

"Try to understand, Iruka just wants to make sure his students are ready to become ninja. He's strict because he cares." Mizuki continued kindly.

It was unnerving. Naruto knew the man hated him, had seen the familiar look in his eyes often enough, but right now he looked completely sincere. It was scary how easily ninja lied.

"But I believe that given the chance, you could prove that you're ready to pass. There's a special retest that you can take tonight. You want to become a genin, right?" Mizuki's smile was just a tad too toothy.

Transfixed, Naruto nodded his head. What was Mizuki up to?

"All you have to do is take the scroll of sealing from the Hokage's library. If you can learn a technique from the scroll, then you can become a genin." Mizuki finished with satisfaction.

Naruto turned back to stare at his former classmates, pondering his options. What would happen if he said no? He didn't really want to find out.

He turned back to Mizuki. "Even a genin can't get past tower security." He stated skeptically.

Mizuki smiled in approval. "Security will be lowered for tonight. You think you can't do it?" He asked with a mocking sneer.

Naruto stood up from his swing with a nod of his head. "I can do it. Where do you want to meet?"

Mizuki laughed, "There's a clearing on the other side of the river by the Nara lands. Meet me there at nine. That'll give you an hour to learn a jutsu. Still think you can do it?" His face was beginning to fill with malicious delight and Naruto had to look away.

"I will." He said simply before turning and walking away. He didn't like showing his back to the ninja, but he didn't want to look at the man anymore. He took out his toad wallet and checked the contents. He had just enough for a bowl of Ichiraku's miso pork ramen. If he was gonna live through the night, he would need some food in his belly.

–

Security really was light at the tower that night. Just a couple of chuunin guarding the doors, as far as he could tell. He wondered how Mizuki had managed to pull that off.

He walked up to the chuunin. "Good evening, I'd like to speak to the Hokage please." He said. No harm in being polite.

The one on the left with a scar on his cheek nodded and opened the door for him. It was a standing order that all the Tower guards were given. If Naruto wanted to speak to the Hokage he was to be let in unless the old man was in a private meeting. It was a privilege very few were given and he'd made sure never to abuse it. 'First time for everything' he thought with a regretful sigh.

He made his way to the Hokage's library and slipped in. The Scroll of Sealing was kept in the center of the room. The security seemed nonexistent, but Naruto knew the alarm would sound as soon as the scroll was moved. He'd once seen the Hokage deactivate it though, and ran through the seals before touching the seal on the scroll, hoping he'd gotten it right.

To his relief, nothing happened when he picked it up and he quietly headed to the nearest window in the hallway. He also ran smack dab into the Hokage.

The man quirked an eyebrow at Naruto in question while he regained his balance. "Naruto, why do you have the Scroll of Sealing?"

With another sigh, Naruto grimaced. "Sorry Jiji, but I need to borrow this for a bit."

With that, he disappeared with a shunshin, already running towards the meeting place. He had barely an hour before Mizuki would find him. He needed to hurry.

–

Sarutobi watched the boy disappear with a thoughtful look on his face. Naruto wasn't the type to go out of his way without good reason.

One of his ANBU guards dropped down in front of him. "Hokage-sama?"

Sarutobi hmmed as he took out his pipe. "Follow but don't interfere unless you have to."

The ANBU nodded slightly before disappearing.

The Hokage lit his pipe as he headed to his office, wanting to see what was happening for himself.

Just as he was taking out his crystal ball though, his office door burst open showing a crowd of angry looking ninja.

"Hokage-sama, the demon has stolen the Scroll of Sealing!" The man in front yelled in panic.

Sarutobi looked at the portrait of his successor on the wall briefly, suppressing a sigh.

Not for the first time he thought, 'I am too damned old for this.'

–

Naruto panted, stubbornly stamping down on the dizziness he felt. This clone jutsu was difficult, but he'd almost gotten to the point where he could make only one. It hadn't taken him too much time to make a dozen or so clones, but getting the number down was excruciatingly difficult. Even if his control was decent, this new jutsu required him to control all of it while it split. That was easier said than done.

He got up determinedly, looking around the darkening clearing. He was so close. Once he got this jutsu down, his training would go much faster. He formed the cross sign and called out "kage bunshin no jutsu" once again. Sweat broke out on his forehead from while he struggled with his chakra, but after a moment a single clone appeared next to him. It looked around triumphantly before giving him a thumbs up and expelling with a puff.

Finally, he'd gotten it.

He slumped to the ground to rest before Mizuki arrived, leaning heavily on the Scroll of Sealing and taking deep breaths.

–

Twenty minutes later and his sense of accomplishment had disappeared altogether. He stared as Mizuki explained that he was the Kyuubi and Iruka struggled to explain. He'd never meant for his teacher to get hurt. He genuinely liked the man.

Once he saw that Iruka was lost for words though, he decided to cut his losses. He grabbed the Scroll and ran off, knowing that Mizuki would follow him. From the moment this began, it was between him and Mizuki. He didn't want to have to decide whether or not to defend a man who thought he was a demon.

The wind whipped his face as he used shunshin to escape. He heard yelling behind him and stopped to hide.

As he heard Iruka defend him, he felt nothing short of awe. He'd never given the man a reason to trust him, but here he was giving him the benefit of the doubt. Even though his parents had been killed in the kyuubi attack.

He jumped out not even trying to control his chakra this time. "Touch Iruka-sensei and I'll kill you." He said in a calm and menacing tone. Mizuki didn't listen. The rest, as they say, is history.

–

The day after Uzumaki Naruto became a genin was quite possibly the most bittersweet day of his life. He'd gained the acceptance and love of a person who'd been one of the only constants in his turbulent life. Iruka, while boring to listen to and easy to anger, truly cherished Naruto as only another orphan could. Somehow on that night they'd become the one thing Naruto wanted most- a family. He knew that no matter what happened Iruka would always defend him and worry for him. It was nice.

On the other hand, he'd discovered the reason for his blighted existence. The Kyuubi. It was something so horrible, so overwhelming that he couldn't think the name and breath at the same time. Inside him. No wonder he was hated. He hated being the jinchuuriki and hated that the villagers thought he was no different from the demon within him. Most of all, he hated being so hopeless in the face of something he didn't choose and couldn't change.

With so many different thoughts and feelings swirling in his head, it was no surprise that he'd spent the day day-dreaming (again) on top of the Yondaime's head. He didn't miss the irony, but was unwilling to forsake his usual thinking spot even for the Sandaime's stone head. His admiration for the man hadn't changed, but it was tempered with a hint of bitterness that he couldn't ignore. It felt like his greatest hero had failed him. Even if it was to save the entire village, it still stung.

To distract himself his thoughts turned to the new jutsu he had learned. The Kage Bunshin was perhaps the most awesome jutsu he had ever heard of. He wasn't particularly strong at taijutsu, but his massive amounts of chakra made ninjutsu difficult to control and genjutsu impossible. A jutsu like Kage Bunshin that could split his chakra into smaller amounts was a godsend. That wasn't even considering the benefits of receiving the clone's memories, the clone's invulnerability to genjutsu, and it's ability to execute taijutsu attacks. It was practically made to cover his weaknesses while accentuating his strengths. Why fight his own battles when his chakra could do it for him? Too bad it was barely as solid as his henge.

…

At that moment, Naruto had one of those intuitive flashes of understanding that some would come to consider genius, but which most would see as no more than a highly advanced form of stupidity.

'Why...is my henge as solid as my bunshin?' He wondered incredulously.

Even though he knew that henge was a genjutsu, he'd never thought about the implications of the fact that he could made an illusion solid. After all, if he could do it then his clones could do it. The possibilities were staggering.

But hell, he barely even understood how the regular henge worked. He wouldn't be able to figure out the difference between his oiroke no justu and the regular henge just by thinking about it. He'd always learned jutsu through sheer dint of determination. He knew next to nothing about jutsu theory.

The same could be said of the shunshin, for which he'd refused ramen for a whole week to show Sandaime-jiji how serious he was about learning it. Even ramen couldn't compare to the allure of being as speedy as the ninja that often chased him.

Eventually the Sandaime had caved to his pouting and given him the jutsu scroll with some written advice for his tenth birthday. It'd taken over a year to learn to control the technique, but it was his greatest source of pride as a ninja. Well, before he'd learned Kage Bunshin, at least.

Even as Naruto smiled in reminiscence, his mind raced ahead. If he could make henge more solid than it was supposed to be, then why not Kage Bunshin? True, one was basic genjutsu and the other was an advanced ninjutsu, but in both cases he would be making a chakra construct more solid than it ought to be. If he was able to do so with one, then he would eventually be able to do so with the other.

As mentioned previously, this was an absurdly stupid way of thinking. But the insight underlying his train of thought was nothing short of pure genius. No one else would have derived such a ridiculous answer from such a simple question.

That simplistic way of thinking would become both Naruto's greatest asset and his greatest weakness.

For now, though, naïve dreams of greatness were swimming through Naruto's head, easily chasing away any lingering disquiet in the young boy's mind.

–

Kakashi was a man that people underestimated. For all his fearsome reputation in the ninja world, he constantly encountered ninja that would swear that he was a weak opponent...until he killed them, that is.

He was a man in his late twenties that had over two decades of experience as a ninja. In addition to that he had one of the best mission records of anyone in the history of ANBU, excepting only his sensei. He rarely failed missions and almost never lost comrades on the field of battle.

His fighting style was subtle and efficient, focused on protecting his allies and exploiting his enemies' weaknesses with a minimum amount of expended effort. His reliability was legendary and he had often been entrusted with the task of supervising ANBU rookies while he was an active member of the elite corps.

For all of this, he remained an unassuming personage, calmly avoiding the spotlight and focusing on completing his missions. He didn't want to accidentally wind up Hokage, after all.

So he was surprised to find himself a bit ruffled after an encounter with his most boisterous student.

-Flashback-

He knew the boy had potential, but he always acted like an uncouth idiot. What made the situation even weirder was that by all accounts Naruto had been a calm and quiet boy while in the academy. As for his genin teammates, they didn't really notice the change because they'd never really noticed him much in the first place, both preoccupied with other things (or people, rather.)

But he'd been puzzled by the boy's behavior since meeting him. The boy seemed to be purposely trying to distract people from noticing his abilities. At first he'd assumed it was merely a result of finding out that he was the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, but after the last mission he was less sure.

Despite Naruto's potential, he'd been unable to defeat Haku without unleashing the Kyuubi and had needed Sasuke to save him when they'd been surrounded by the ice mirrors. Since then, he'd been training by himself feverishly. Kakashi hadn't bothered to find out what his student was working on- it was poor ninja etiquette to spy on a comrade training, even a student- but he knew the boy was serious when he sought Kakashi out for help with his taijutsu.

That had been a week after the mission to Wave. Since then, he'd taken to sending a kage bunshin off with the boy and he was quite happy with the genin's progress. If things kept up like this he would consider nominating his team for the chuunin exam that was coming up soon, although ideally he'd like for Sakura to show some more interest in training before he did.

He was pondering over whether his team was actually ready (or rather his clone was) when Naruto abruptly broke off from their training session.

"Sensei, what's the sharingan? You and Sasuke both have it, but if you ask me it looks more like a bad case of pink eye than anything useful." Naruto said with a dubious look on his face.

Kakashi blinked at the random question, bemused by his student's characterization of the rare doujutsu.

"Well...the Sharingan is the bloodline limit of the Uchiha clan. When fully matured, it allows the user to discern the most minute details of their surroundings and commit them perfectly to memory. This leads to a multitude of possible uses depending on the skill of the user.

Generally, though, the sharingan allows the user to predict their opponents movements by reading muscle twitches, copy any ninjutsu that uses hand seals, and see the flaws in most genjutsu. Theoretically, taijutsu masters have the best chance of defeating a sharingan user, since they usually learn not to telegraph their movements and have reaction times that the sharingan can't usually keep up with. However, it's not impossible to overcome the sharingan using any of the three main branches of jutsu. It all depends on the relative skill of the combatants."

Kakashi hated lecturing and almost never answered questions directly, preferring instead to let people figure things out for themselves. Still, he couldn't deny curiosity as to what Naruto would do with the information. It was the first time Naruto had asked him a question about the ninja arts.

The boy still looked skeptical. "But doesn't it use a lot of chakra? You past out after using it to fight Zabuza. If there are really so many ways of beating it, it doesn't seem worth the trouble."

Kakashi sighed, this was why he avoided answering people's questions. Most people mistook a willingness to answer one question for a willingness to answer all their questions.

"I'm not an Uchiha, so it's much more tiring when I use the Sharingan. For an Uchiha, it takes very little chakra to maintain the Sharingan during combat." He answered off-handedly, hoping his student would be satisfied and stop asking questions.

Naruto looked pensive for a moment.

"That doesn't really answer my question. Even if it's worth it to an Uchiha, why do you use it?"

Kakashi resisted the urge to twitch in annoyance. The Sharingan eye had been a gift from Obito. He wasn't really happy to hear his student talk so disparagingly about it. At least the brat didn't ask where he'd gotten his left eye from like Sasuke had.

"Against a strong enough opponent, it's worth the chakra drain to use it." He asked, as unflappable as ever.

Naruto stared at him in disbelief. "But you and Zabuza were both jounin right? He didn't need a special eye to fight you. Was he really that much stronger than you, sensei?"

This time he couldn't resist a slight twitch of his hidden eyebrow.

"Yes." He answered evenly.

Naruto merely looked puzzled.

"But Iruka-sensei said that you're the strongest jounin in the village."

The boy shook his head in consternation.

"Being a jounin-sensei's making you lazy, Kakashi-sensei. You should train more without your Sharingan. What would we have done if you'd died from chakra exhaustion from overusing your Sharingan eye?"

Kakashi merely eye-smiled at blond-haired genin.

"Maa, but I didn't, did I?" He answered easily.

With that he ended the conversation and restarted the aborted training session. But despite his non-chalance, the boy's question remained on his mind, troubling him for the rest of the day.

-End Flashback-

For the first time, he considered the wisdom of relying so much on the Sharingan. He knew using it had its drawbacks, but it'd saved his life so many times over the years that he'd gotten used to using it in combat against powerful opponents.

It helped him avoid traps and generally it wasn't worth taking the risk of being caught off guard just to conserve chakra. Still...perhaps it would be better if he focused on fighting without it as much as possible in the future.

Still, it was somewhat disconcerting that it was his student that had managed to make him question his own fighting style. He knew better than to think it was just a random comment on Naruto's part. The boy really seemed to be thinking seriously on the best ways to fight effectively.

Truthfully, that sort of practical thinking reminded him of himself when he was that age and trying to out think Minato-sensei during team spars. He'd been pretty good at it despite the way he'd foolishly treated his teammates as liabilities.

But that was all part of the past now, one of many painful memories that he refused to dwell on too much. Still, if his student was going to make the effort to fight smarter despite his natural inclination towards being a knuckle-head, Kakashi would willingly help the boy when he asked for it.

Truthfully, he would do the same for any of his students, although the other two showed no sign of requesting assistance themselves. Most of the time he saw no reason to go out of his way to guide his team's training.

It was important for a ninja to take the initiative themselves regarding their development. And besides, he had more important things to do; just because he was a jounin-sensei didn't mean he wasn't still taking short-term missions on the side. He would leave the nagging to Iruka.

–

Despite his determination in the area of jutsu improvement, Naruto had had very little time to actually going through with his plans. By the time the Chuunin exam started, he'd barely mastered using Oiroke no jutsu for anything other than pranks and it wasn't much use in the combat that ensued.

He'd discovered to his dismay that the bigger the size difference between himself and whatever he transformed into, the more difficult it was and the more chakra it required. In other words, not only couldn't he transform into anything smaller than himself; transforming into anything much bigger required a lot more chakra.

Add to that the fact that a solid hit could undo the jutsu and he'd ended up spending a lot of time perfecting the henge. Especially since he'd wanted to be able to do it seal-less to be able to transform faster. It could only be used effectively for spying if he could reapply it almost instantly.

He sometimes wondered if it was worth the trouble focusing so much on the academy three. He'd also started altering the kage bunshin and the kawarimi only to find that doing so was even more difficult than working on the henge. It required so much effort, enough so that he wouldn't have bothered if it didn't seem like it would be worth it in the long run.

Fortunately his efforts had begun to bear fruit. He'd discovered that the reason his henge was different was because his chakra had some of the Kyuubi's mixed in with it. He didn't really like using Kyuubi's chakra, but he'd sucked it up and worked on focusing the chakra and putting more of it into the henge to find that it did stabilize the jutsu a great deal.

The intensive meditation required had had an unpleasant side-effect, however. The Baka-kitsune had made his presence felt and proceeded to mercilessly rib him for his reliance on the red chakra. He'd been too happy to really resent the Kyuubi's harassment though once his henge didn't dispel from a single punch anymore,.

Eventually he'd had the additional breakthrough that while he couldn't henge into anything smaller than himself, his clones had no such difficulty. He'd jumped around for a good half hour after discovering that. He'd been ecstatic even though they had to expel most of their chakra into the jutsu to do it and consequently didn't last very long-yet.

He was determined to get around that somehow although he still couldn't figured it out. He hoped that when he managed to fully stabilize the Kyuubi's chakra when making clones that the potent chakra would make it easier for his clones to stay henge'd into smaller forms longer, but admittedly it was a long shot.

As for the kage bunshin, adding more of the Kyuubi's chakra hadn't helped much, while making it a lot harder to even make the clones in the first place. He'd spent endless hours trying to stabilize and split his chakra for the jutsu and when he managed it his clones still couldn't take more than a couple solid hits and on top of that using jutsu became impossible for them. For whatever reason, the clones couldn't control the Kyuubi's chakra anywhere near as well as he could.

Still, it was progress, but not nearly enough to satisfy him. It wasn't until after the battle of the chuunin exam final that he had enough time to try to solve that particular problem. He almost couldn't bring himself to continue working on it after finding out the Sandaime was dead, but after having his clones beat on him a bit- and having a close call with the Kyuubi's chakra in the process, he threw himself into his work with near reckless abandon.

After getting nowhere for awhile, he sheepishly admitted to himself that effort alone wouldn't cut it. Also, he was giving himself a headache concentrating so hard. He finally calmed down enough to think about the problem calmly and after a full day he concluded that it wasn't working because the clones lacked physical substance.

He had a theory that using blood might help make the clones better in more ways than one, but how was he supposed to bind the chakra and blood together? All the complications that came with jutsu improvement made him realize why so few ninja ever bothered.

After all, why spend so much time inventing or improving jutsu and risk wasting your effort when you could just master jutsu that already existed? You would still have an edge in combat and it would save you time, too.

On second thought though, if he really wanted to be a great ninja (not to mention Hokage) he'd have to create his own jutsu eventually. Every Hokage was known for their unique jutsu that made them unbeatable by anything but sheer numbers or a serious disadvantage.

The exception was the Sandaime Hokage, whose mastery of the ninja arts was so complete that creating new jutsu had become practically unnecessary. The old man had once told him that the only jutsu he'd created himself were non-combat jutsu- a fact that still shocked Naruto even today. Apparently a significant portion of the jutsu that Konoha used in the course of its daily operations had actually been invented by the Sandaime Hokage.

The Shodai used his ability to control the bijuu to secure the village's place in the world, the Nidaime was an organizational master and political genius that provided the concrete foundation and political alliances that the village came to depend on, but in the end it was the Sandaime's creations that kept the village running smoothly enough to survive two additional wars. Just as the Yondaime was unmatched in dealing with external threats, the Sandaime was the master of the mundane.

Naruto knew better than to think that he was capable of something like that. Even though he looked up basic information on a number of subjects in order to have a basic understanding of the ninja arts and the ninja world, he still wasn't much for studying. He still preferred to figure things out himself.

Which is exactly what he did. He spend the first couple days of the trip to find Tsunade trying to thing of a way to create a clone using blood. It didn't help that he didn't know anything about creating clones from solid objects.

Even as he struggled to burst the rubber ball in order to learn Rasengan, he was still thinking about it.

When it finally burst, he was euphoric (once he woke up.) Not only had he gotten closer to mastering the Rasengan, he'd also gotten a clue about how to make what he was officially calling the chi kage bunshin (blood shadow clone.)

When he finally realized he needed to expel his chakra as quickly as possible to create enough pressure to burst the ball, he realized that that might help with his chi bunshin as well. He remembered the way the med nin had used their chakra to literally keep the blood in Lee's body after his legs were crushed. If you could use chakra to keep the blood in, then why not use it to pull it out?

If he cut his hand and expelled his chakra quickly enough to mix the blood and chakra together, then maybe he could create a clone with the resulting substance. It was dangerous- his chakra wasn't anywhere near as good as a med-nin's and adding Kyuubi's chakra to the mix would make it even more difficult.

There was also the danger of losing so much blood and chakra from his arm all at once. If he messed it up, he could lose his arm or even die blood loss. The chi kage bunshin was definitely gonna be a kinjutsu. He decided to hold off trying it until after he mastered the Rasengan. He figured his chakra control would be good enough if he could perform the A-rank jutsu one-handed like Jiraiya could.

And he did. His training with his kage bunshin made it so he could perform a one-handed Rasengan by the end of the agreed-upon week. He was justifiably proud, but his brush with death made him wish that he'd already mastered the chi bunshin. It also renewed his resolve to find a way to improve the kawarimi no jutsu as soon as possible. He couldn't use the Rasengan effectively if he couldn't catch his enemy by surprise and keep them from counter-attacking.

Shizune was a bit confused when he discreetly asked her to explain how med-nin moved blood. Fortunately it was one of the few medical techniques that didn't require too much control, although it was still dangerous if done incorrectly.

He told her it was so he could keep his comrades from bleeding to death if any were injured as badly as Lee in the future. While being able to do so would be good, he didn't intend to ever let any of his friends get hurt to that extent. He didn't like lying to a comrade, but he didn't want to be stopped from trying his new jutsu either.

After that he carefully practiced away from the others every chance he got. If they wondered at his paleness by the end of each day they didn't comment on it. Thanks to the Kyuubi he was fine by the morning although he had to consume a lot of food and water to make up the difference.

Shizune was a godsend. She patiently answered all his questions and made sure he got enough to eat (cause Tsunade and Jiraiya were cheapskates.) On top of that, she must have explained what he was doing to the two sannin because they didn't question him about it.

Still, he received considering looks from Tsunade every once in awhile. She looked at him like she was sizing him up for something, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what. Honestly, it was kind of creepy.

But by the time they made it back to Konoha (Tsunade was in no hurry) he had mostly mastered the technique. It was hell to learn cause he had to cut himself pretty deeply to get enough blood out. On top of that, his clones couldn't help, so he could literally say that he earned that jutsu through sweat blood and tears (it hurt, dammit.)

He'd also successfully infused his blood with a balance of his and the Kyuubi's chakra. It took every ounce of his control to expel the combination in a steady stream, and he still didn't know if he could do it fast enough to keep the mass cohesive.

He practiced that over the next week while Sasuke was kept in the hospital and Lee's surgery went forward. One of his clones managed to convince Tenten to show him how to make storage scrolls that would hopefully hold his chi bunshin together. By the time he went to visit Sasuke and Lee in the hospital at the end of the week he had just about gotten the mix of blood and two types of chakra to stay together smoothly enough to keep the jutsu from failing.

Thankfully he'd learned to do kage bunshin seal-less a month before, so that was one less thing he had to focus on. When he saw Sasuke awake and recalled all the times he'd seen his teammate in the hospital over the past few months, he resolved to make his first chi bunshin that night. He needed to move onto kawarimi as soon as possible. If he was right, it would be the most combat ready of the three.

What he hadn't expected was Sasuke to practically demand that the two of them fight before he was even released from the hospital. He thought about refusing, but one look at his teammate's almost animalistic expression made him realize that the slightly older boy wouldn't listen. He smiled to cover up his unease and proceeded to do his best to beat the shit out of the other genin once they reached the roof.

He left that fight feeling frustrated and angry at both Sasuke and himself. He'd accomplished nothing in that fight beside scaring Sakura and disappointing both of his sensei. He couldn't help it, dammit! It felt like Sasuke was fading out of his reach and he just knew that if he didn't fight the other boy earnestly that what was left of their nebulous friendship would crumble completely.

Despite his frustration and tiredness, he followed through with his decision to complete the chi bunshin that night. In years to come he would consider this one of the best decisions he had ever made.

–

If his hand could have moved it would have trembled. Encased as it was in the flesh of his teammate however, it was held still except for the slight vibration of Naruto's shredded heart as it struggled to beat.

The warmth and wetness of his best friends dying flesh made Sasuke gag as much as the coppery smell of blood on the air. He hastily yanked his arm out of Naruto's broken body; staring blankly as the other boys' body fell backwards at his feet.

His hand brushed absently over his scratched hitai-ate, the dobe had always kept his word, even in death. He yanked his hitai-ate off and let it drop to the ground as he slumped forward tiredly over his friend's body. He wanted to pass out, but all he could do was stare.

He hadn't meant to kill him. The scratch to his hitai-ate had been deep enough to lightly cut his forehead. The pain had caused him to miss and ram his chidori straight into Naruto's heart instead of his lung like he'd been aiming for.

He needed to leave before the others arrived. Even if he had second thoughts it was too late now. He'd made his decision, killed his best friend in the pursuit of revenge and he wouldn't regret it, wouldn't waste that sacrifice.

But as the rain fell down, forming tracks down his face in place of tears he couldn't cry, he found himself unable to move. After a minute he finally began the slow process of standing up, but before he could even straighten up completely, two things happened almost simultaneously.

The body beneath him dissolved into a pool of blood and moments later a punch caught him across the cheek. He'd barely had time to widen his eyes and feel a sort of shocked relief before his head hit the ground and he lost consciousness.

–

When Naruto walked into the village the rain was still pouring down. Sasuke was slung over his shoulder and Kakashi walked by his side. His other squad members had already returned, carried or escorted by med-nin. Even Shikamaru had quickly run back to the village, impatient to learn as much as he could about the fate of the shinobi under his first command.

Naruto was exhausted after using so much of the Kyuubi's chakra against Sasuke. His sensei and the med-nin had offered to carry Sasuke, but Naruto had insisted on carrying him himself. Kakashi had stayed with him in case Sasuke woke up and so they were the last to return to the village.

Sakura was waiting anxiously for them and when she saw Naruto and Sasuke she ran forward, crying in relief. One glance showed her that Naruto was unharmed and so she turned her attention to Sasuke as he was laid out on the stretcher. Except for the scratch on his forehead and a blooming bruise on his cheek he was unmarked. A little pale but still alive.

She moved to follow as the med-nin started to carry him to the hospital but hesitated, looking back at Naruto uncertainly. She wanted to thank him, but the stony look on his face as he stared at Sasuke's still form actually intimidated her a little.

She almost asked what happened before thinking better of it. Instead she quickly stepped forward and pulled Naruto into a hug, whispering a heartfelt 'thank you' in his ear before quickly running after the med-nin, blushing a little in embarrassment.

Naruto stared after him teammates for a moment before relaxing his stiff posture a bit, a slightly bitter smile gracing his lips before he sighed. He looked over to see Kakashi watching him, having observed the exchange silently.

"Ready to report?" The copy-nin asked, an uncharacteristic gentleness tingeing his voice.

Naruto nodded slightly and they took to the roofs, headed in the direction of the Hokage Tower.

–

"After I knocked him unconscious, I carried him back to Konoha. Kakashi-sensei caught up with us halfway and we walked the rest of the way back together." Naruto concluded in an almost toneless voice.

The Godaime Hokage looked torn between going to break all the Uchiha's limbs and walking around her desk to hug the obviously upset genin. She knew exactly what it was like to have a teammate try to kill you, and while Orochimaru hadn't come as close to succeeding as Sasuke had, the feeling of betrayal was the same.

She briefly contemplated simply throwing the Uchiha boy in jail and throwing away the key, but knew that that wouldn't help matters. It would only make the treasonous genin more likely to run as soon as he was let out. If she was going to go that far, it'd be safer to kill the boy and ensure that Orochimaru never got his hands on him.

But she knew the council would never allow it. Naruto probably wouldn't either, even as angry as he was with his teammate at the moment. She sighed, there was only one other way to handle the situation.

"Kakashi, I'm assigning you to watch Uchiha Sasuke effective immediately. Orochimaru will be after him again, sooner rather than later. There's also the chance that he'll try to defect again. Until further notice he will be staying with you. Needless to say, you wont be taking any high-ranking missions in that time.

Don't let him out of your sight. He's to be kept locked up while you sleep as well; I've sent word to the hospital to keep him in the prisoner's ward. This was too close a call; we can't afford any more trouble while the village is still vulnerable to attack. It's bad enough that I'll have to take you off missions for the time being. I'll leave the rest up to your discretion." She said grimly.

'Punishment' was left unsaid, but Kakashi nodded, understanding the unspoken message. Naruto merely stood there, looking tired and ready to be dismissed. He just wanted to get some rest and be left alone for awhile.

Tsunade turned her attention to him next. "Naruto, you're dismissed, but I'll want to talk to you about this chi bunshin of yours later." She said authoritatively before continuing more softly.

"You did a good job. Get some rest, brat."

Naruto merely nodded tiredly before walking out of the office without a word.

Tsunade exchanged a worried look with Kakashi.

"You think he'll be ok?"

Kakashi nodded confidently.

"It might take awhile, but he'll be fine. He's just tired. Making that bunshin and then fighting today must have taken a lot out of him. Given some time, he'll bounce back."

Tsunade hesitated before nodding after a moment. Naruto wasn't the type to let things drag him down for long.

"What do you think of this chi kage bunshin of his?" Kakashi asked pensively. His knowledge of the kage bunshin jutsu and the blood manipulation technique that Naruto had combined it with wasn't a thorough as Tsunade's even though he could use both himself. As an expert med-nin and the grand-daughter of the man that had invented both techniques, she had him at a bit of a disadvantage.

Tsunade looked thoughtful.

"It's amazing, really. I'm almost certain that the technique wouldn't work without either a very robust chakra, very fine chakra control, or some sort of seal reinforcement. In Naruto's case, his chakra and the Kyuubi's provide the necessary cohesion, although it's impressive that he can control it well enough to stabilize the jutsu.

Even then, for it to last until the bunshin bleeds out is nothing short of miraculous. His mastery of kage bunshin must be extremely advanced to create such a life-like clone. I may have been right about him having a talent for iryou-ninjutsu, although his poor chakra control would make it practically impossible to the more complicated techniques.

Shizune has already asked my permission to train him to learn what he can, and if he agrees I've a mind to approve her request."

She paused before continuing with a frown.

"I'll need to see him perform the technique in person before I can clear him to use in in the future though. It clearly qualifies as an A-rank kinjutsu and I need to make sure he's not damaging his tenketsu or circulatory system when he uses it. I suspect the Kyuubi will have already healed any damage he sustained in performing it yesterday."

Kakashi nodded with a twinkle in his eye. "I doubt he'll listen even if you forbid him from using it." Tsunade scowled darkly, unintentionally forming twin dents in the table her arms were resting on.

Kakashi watched in fascination before deciding to change the subject.

"The chi bunshin will have to be added to the scroll of seals. I believe that will make him the youngest ninja to create a jutsu that's powerful enough to be counted among the most dangerous in Konoha's arsenal."

Tsunade smirked arrogantly. "I'd expect nothing less of the boy that managed to get the Shodai's necklace from me."

Kakashi hmmed in agreement.

"I'll want your opinion on Sasuke by the end of the month, Kakashi. I'll give the boy one more chance, but I wont be so lenient a second time." Not waiting for an answer she waved her hand in dismissal. "That's all. I'll expect your report on my desk by tomorrow afternoon."

Kakashi bowed and disappeared in a whirl of leaves.

Tsunade rubbed her temples as she looked at the paperwork that still littered her desk. This job was already shaping up to be more trouble than it was worth. How had the brat convinced her to become Hokage again? Oh yah, she lost a bet. Not for the first time she bemoaned both her horrid luck and her gambling addiction.

Oh well, at least when she was losing nothing else went wrong. God knew she'd been winning far too often lately for her comfort.

–

As fate would have it, the day Naruto brought Sasuke back to the village was the last day that Team 7 would be gathered in one place for almost three years. Sakura went to visit Sasuke daily although he flat out refused to acknowledge her, preferring to brood in silence instead.

As for Naruto, he avoided both Sasuke and Kakashi knowing that if he saw one he'd have to see the other as well. Sakura tried to get him to talk to her and tell her what had happened on that mission, but whenever she mentioned it he would clam up, becoming almost as distant as Sasuke.

She felt so helpless; she'd been helpless to stop Sasuke and now she was helpless to bring her team back together. Kakashi, at least, acted no different, seemingly confident that things would resolve themselves in time.

Sakura tried to be reassured by her sensei's confidence, but she knew how stubborn both boys could be when they wanted. She needed something to distract herself with, so when she heard from one of the nurses at the hospital that the Godaime was expanding the medic training program and looking for genin with good chakra control to join it, she filled out an application on the same day.

She was pleasantly surprised when she was told she would be one of the few tested to join the new training program. Maybe if she did well, she would get the chance to train under the Godaime herself although she wasn't holding her breath.

When she told Kakashi the good news (Sasuke didn't react, as usual) he gave her his heartfelt congratulations, mentioning that Naruto would be studying under Jiraiya outside the village for the next year. He said it so off-handedly, as if one of the team wouldn't be gone for the next three years.

Sasuke did react then. He gave Kakashi a hard stare that the man ignored, only turning away after a full minute had gone by without any more information being given. Sakura felt left out yet again. For all her lack of skill in combat, she was sharp as a tack. She knew there was something the two males knew that they weren't telling her.

If Naruto was leaving the village in order to train and wouldn't even be visiting for three years, there had to be a reason for it. She had no way of guessing what that reason was though, and knew that if she wasn't being told then asking wouldn't get her any answers.

She left shortly after, slightly downtrodden, but determined. Even if he ignored her, she would continue visiting Sasuke, and she would train hard for when Naruto returned. So far her teammates had done all the hard work, but that was going to change. She didn't know if her team would ever be whole again, but she wasn't giving up until it was.

The sun rose the next day to shed light on Sakura as she slept with her head resting on an open book. The title of the book wasn't visible, but the partially obscured page she'd been reading detailed the anatomy of a ninja, complete with a full map of the chakra network and the various tenketsu points. It would be months if not years before she could put the knowledge to practical use, but it was a start.

Naruto had been genuinely relieved when Tsunade had cleared him to continue using the chi kage bunshin no jutsu. He would have kept using it anyway, but at least he didn't have to fight her over it. The damage incurred was surprisingly minimal, although it apparently caused his red cell count to stay elevated for a week or so; whatever that meant.

Not long after he'd returned to training as usual, unsure what his team's status was with Sasuke and Kakashi more or less confined to the village, but not wanting to waste the time nonetheless. He started to work on kawarimi, but unsurprisingly it was the most difficult. He'd already known an advanced form of both henge and bunshin no jutsu; it hadn't been much of a leap to figure out how to improve them even though it was difficult.

Kawarimi was a whole different story. He honestly thought that it would take him years to work out kawarimi; it was a deceptively simple jutsu. You took an object (usually a log) that was at least a third your size (preferably half), waited until an attack was about to hit you and then switched with the log. If you timed it exactly right, your after-image would appear wounded, giving an extra second before the enemy realized that you were gone.

The disadvantage of kawarimi was that it required knowing the exact location of the target that you were locking onto. On top of that, it had to be close enough for you to reach out to it with your chakra in order to activate the jutsu. It took a few seconds to accomplish this and the switch itself usually took a full second to complete, even if you were very adept at the jutsu.

There was a reason it was an e-rank jutsu. The upside was that it used very little chakra and required little control as well. It was easy to perform, but only effective against an attack that you had time to prepare for.

Naruto had his doubts about whether it was worth it or not to try to improve on kawarimi, but he didn't have any other options really. His control wasn't good enough to improve on Shunshin to combat-readiness (its path was predictable) and unless he miraculously became a seal master and uncovered the secret behind the Hiraishin, the only other option was gaining speed through physical training. He'd have to do that anyway, but he wasn't really built for speed in the first place.

He could always try to find a way to throw the Rasengan at his enemies, but he wasn't holding his breath. So he reluctantly settled for doing what he could with the Kawarimi, but it seemed impossible.

He was still thinking about it and learning how to do the jutsu without seals when Ero-sennin told him they would be leaving the village for two and a half years at the end of the week. He'd explained that there was a group of S-ranked missing nin including Kisame and Uchiha-fucking-Itachi that were out to kill him in order to gain possession of the Kyuubi. As an added bonus, Orochimaru was a former member that'd been kicked out.

They needed to leave the village and travel; they'd be harder to track that way. Jiraiya figured they had a little under three years before Orochimaru got desperate enough to make a serious effort to regain Sasuke and Akatsuki would probably need around the same time to complete their preparations.

There was no talk of a pre-emptive strike. It went without saying that they would be on the defensive against a group of s-ranked ninja that traveled in pairs. There simply wasn't enough information to do more than prepare and wait.

So Naruto spent the next few days preparing to leave his home village. Despite his mixed feelings for the Leaf villagers, he found that he would miss the village itself, as well as all the people he'd gotten to know. There were a lot of people by this point (mostly ninja) who treated him just like everyone else, but after the Chuunin exam final and the ensuing battle, some of the civilians had begun to speak of him more positively as well.

It was a nice change and he would miss it. No matter what, Konoha was still his home. He was looking forward to traveling and training with Jiraiya, though. He'd always wanted to see what the world outside the village was like. The few missions he'd taken outside the village hadn't allowed for much exploring.

After saying his goodbyes on the day he would depart, he found himself in front of Kakashi's apartment. He wanted to say goodbye to his sensei, but he still had lukewarm feelings towards Sasuke. He still had nightmares about his teammate's arm impaling him through the heart.

Kakashi answered almost as soon as he knocked, letting him know that the man had sensed him.

"Naruto, it's been awhile. It's good to see you." Kakashi said with a crinkling of his visible eye.

It was rare for Kakashi-sensei to be so demonstrative and Naruto felt slightly guilty for avoiding the man.

He smiled brightly, truly happy to see the older male again. "It's good to see you too, sensei."

At the sound of his voice, Sasuke appeared from the inner room, leaning his shoulder against the wall. He didn't speak and his face was blank, but Naruto had never needed words to understand Sasuke.

Just showing his face was a greeting.

Naruto felt a surprising surge of anger at the sight of the other boy, which surprised him a bit. He hadn't wanted to see Sasuke, but he hadn't been particularly angry with him until now, either. Now he just wanted to wipe the blank look right off the teme's annoyingly calm face.

Before he could act on his impulse though, Kakashi drew his attention back to him.

"I assume you came to say goodbye. Take care on your journey." Kakashi's words were simple, but the expression on his face was unusually serious.

It made Naruto smile. "I will, sensei. Until later." He glanced at Sasuke and turned his back to leave before hesitating.

He turned his head slightly towards the Uchiha that remained still as a statue in the hall.

"I hope the next time we fight will be with only our own strength, as equal Konoha shinobi."

Without waiting for an answer, he disappeared in a whirl of wind, leaving nothing but fluttering leaves in his wake.

Ironically, despite everything that had happened, he was pretty sure that this was the first time he'd used Shunshin in front of Sasuke. He'd never been able to use it in battle and had for whatever reason never seen the point in using it while his team was around. Maybe he'd just wanted to keep part of his life hidden from his two teammates.

He didn't want to answer their questions and he wanted to keep the jutsu that Jiji gave him for himself, as odd as that sounded. Even though Sasuke couldn't copy it since he didn't use the hand-seals for it anymore, he still felt that way.

It was petty to reveal it now just because he knew it would rattle the Uchiha, but he thought he had a right to that small bit of pettiness. After all, he'd already decided to let things rest between them once he came back from this training trip.

That's why he'd mentioned them fighting again. It was an offer of truce. Whether Sasuke would accept it or not was up to him, but regardless of Sasuke's decision he wouldn't mention that battle again or hold it against him. He more than anyone knew that people could change if they chose. Sasuke had nearly three years to decide whether or not he would accept Naruto's challenge, but Naruto was confident he would.