Chapter 22

It was still around a week and a half before the chunin exams final round and for Team 10's first training day of the week they switched venues, mostly due to the fact that Asuma had to take a personal day on that day. Ino kept insisting however that he was just taking that day to do something for Kurenai's birthday. That prompted Naruto and Shikamaru to wonder why she knew when Kurenai's birthday was.

However, due to that, instead of meeting at their training field they met at Shikamaru's home in his clan compound for a change of scenery to keep things from getting stale. It was definitely a change.

The Nara clan compound was set in the woods at the edge of Konoha and had houses built in spaces cleared with the tiniest amount of effort, you could look out of a window and see a row of trees five feet from the houses sometimes depending on whose it was. The compound had the narrowest roads leading through it, and the wall that separated it from the rest of the village didn't even have their clan crest emblazoned on it anywhere like the other clans in the village did.

Lazy… the whole lot of them. It did help with the deer that they raised all throughout the area, so that could have always been the reason for it. It was doubtful though.

At the moment they were in the woods near Shikamaru's home running walkthroughs with their formations using a trio of Naruto's clones as dummies to imitate the responses of their opponents in the instance of a team battle during the exam tournament. After a few hours of going through whatever possible looks that Shikamaru figured they'd see from potential opponents, the team filtered back to his house for a rest of sorts.

Despite the rather mundane practice, Naruto was beaming at the moment. He had been that way all day and no one had figured to ask why until then because he was usually pretty chipper most of the time, this was ridiculous though.

Being the 'host' of the team, once they took up spots sitting out in front of Shikamaru's house for a break he took it upon himself to bring up the topic, "So Naruto, why are you so happy today? It's not like I even came up with anything new today. We were just going over older stuff."

Naruto turned his attention to his teammate, still grinning widely, "Oh, it's not that, it's just that… well, remember that little problem with that seal of mine that I had? The time thing?" Both Ino and Shikamaru nodded, "I fixed it." He said, sounding quite pleased with himself.

"You fixed it?" Shikamaru said, raising an eyebrow, "You mean you can hold off an enemy for three minutes now to do it by yourself?"

Naruto blinked before rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, "No. But the three minutes isn't an issue. I just sped the whole thing up." To the others it sort of seemed like he was hesitant to talk about just what he had done.

Ino looked at him in a confused manner, "I thought you said fuuinjutsu was set in certain ways of performing things. How in the world did you speed it up? Didn't you say doing things the wrong way with fuuinjutsu could kill you or turn you inside out?"

"I did…" Naruto said, looking away from inquisitive eyes, "But I didn't change the way that the seal works. I just did something else." '…Like change the source that's actually powering the seal.' The seal was designed to be powered by using human chakra as a generator, but chakra was chakra and it would all work in this instance, 'It's a good thing Ero-sensei's been trying to train me to use it for the last week or so.' He thought to himself rather bitterly… even if he wasn't necessarily thinking that way at the time at all.

(Flashback – Three Days Earlier – Two Weeks Until Chunin Exams Final Round)

For the last few meetings Naruto had with Jiraiya, the man had been trying to stir some way for Naruto to draw upon the Kyuubi's chakra in an effort to teach him how to harness or at least tap into it before the finals. It was rougher going than either of them thought it would be.

Jiraiya thought that with the way that most jinchuuriki in recorded history were, Naruto could already use the Kyuubi's chakra, he just couldn't control it well. Most jinchuuriki were constantly fighting a battle to keep their powers in check. Naruto seemed to be the opposite. He didn't know anything about what the Kyuubi's influence provided him with until he realized that he had been using its chakra against Haku in Nami no Kuni.

The last resort for Jiraiya to think of a way to access the Kyuubi's chakra was based off of Naruto's description of how the battle with Haku went, and he forced Naruto to cut out all embellishments to make himself look good. He needed the truth out of the blonde if he was going to figure out what to do.

According to Naruto he had taken quite a beating from Haku while he had been isolated from the rest of his team inside of her dome of ice, so he was worn down. In addition to that, Haku put his teammates into a state of false death, making Naruto believe that she had killed them and his emotions had been fuzzy for the entire battle with everything that had happened before it, so that pushed him into a rage.

Strong negative emotions and being pushed to his physical limits brought out the beast so to speak. Yeah it was going to be easy to work with that.

It didn't mean he was going to like what he was going to have to do though.

And neither would Naruto in all actuality.

For that day's session of physical work, Jiraiya had told Naruto that they were going to forego training him to hold him off in combat. Naruto would have to achieve an objective against him, and Jiraiya's method of motivating Naruto into deciding that a straight-up battle was a good idea was that if he could achieve the objective and defeat him then there wouldn't be anyone that Naruto couldn't defeat. The other sticking point was that Naruto was officially allowed to go all out in the battle, not only was he allowed to, he was expected to. Nothing less would do.

The thing about Naruto going all out though, was that you didn't realize that you were out of your league until you actually took the chance and stepped up to play with the heavy hitters. He had been smacked around by Asuma, just like the rest of his team, but he had never really had his head kicked in by someone that was head, shoulders… hell, entire torso above him. Not until then anyway.

So eventually Naruto did get rolling and he did start fighting as hard as he possibly could. It was too bad that his best just wasn't good enough.

It wasn't even close.

Naruto's body collided with the trunk of a tree, bouncing off and hitting the ground with a dead weight thud. He lay motionless for a moment before slowly stirring and getting back up to his feet. His face was a bruised, blood-stained mess and his clothes were completely wrecked. He thought his nose had been broken earlier, but another punch he had taken might have put it back into place later since he could breathe out of it again, despite the fact it was pouring blood like a faucet that wasn't turned all the way off.

"You heard what I said gaki." Jiraiya said in a grim voice as he held up a bell attached to a string between his thumb and index finger, "You can't leave until you take this from me. So stop pussyfooting around and fight to win." He demanded.

The immediate thing Naruto wanted to do was yell at him that he had been fighting to win the entire time. Jiraiya had taken his weapon nearly right from the start and had almost broken his hand in doing so. Since then no matter how many clones Naruto made, Jiraiya eradicated them all with extreme prejudice. He had turned half of their usual training field into a swamp and had submerged and drowned the clones, he had shot off a massive fireball bigger than anything Sasuke had ever conjured and had charred most of the other half of the field, and he had summoned a trio of large toads to completely demolish him in conjunction once he had apparently gotten tired of beating seven shades of shit out of Naruto with his fists and feet.

"Well?" Jiraiya said expectantly as he walked out in front of his summoned trio of toads, all of them looking at Naruto with the same deadly serious expression as their summoner. Suddenly Jiraiya's face twisted into one of anger, "Are you just going to stand there and let me beat you to death or are you going to fight me? You're like a helpless infant right now! For Kami's sake do you think any real ninja would hold back on you just because you look so pitiful right now? Never giving up won't do you any goddamned good if you've got the power of a rodent to back it up with!"

"What the fuck do you want me to do about it you old bastard!" Naruto shouted back at him, glaring although one of his eyes were nearly swollen shut, "I've done everything! I'm out of weapons! I can't get close to you unless you run up to me and hit me yourself! Tell me what you want from me!" He shouted, losing his temper and running directly at Jiraiya in a desperate attempt to hit him somehow, to make him feel what he was feeling at the moment any way he could.

Before he got close, a tongue wrapped itself around Naruto's waist and jerked him towards one of the larger toads prepared to give him a powerful shot once it reeled him in. Naruto grit his teeth in anger and fear, knowing that he didn't want his clock cleaned by that toad again.

As he was being pulled in, Naruto linked his hands by the bottom of his palms and tucked them back to prepare for a double-palm thrust as he gathered wind chakra in them, "Giga Shinto-!" Before he was pulled close enough to try his jutsu that would damn sure make that toad pay for trying to beat on him some more he was kicked in the side of the head and sent flying from the grip of the toad's tongue through the brush at the edge of the clearing, ending with him landing in the shallow water nearby that usually had women in it that Jiraiya peeked on. Naruto wasn't that lucky for there to be witnesses today.

Jiraiya stared at Naruto after landing from his kick, watching the boy try to pick himself up face-first out of the water, "That jutsu of yours that you made by accident?" He said questioningly, remembering what Naruto was about to use on his toad, "That's more like it! Fight to end a life that's trying to take yours! No one's going to come to save you, so take it into your own hands!" He then proceeded to swallow the bell, "Remember what I said. Take this bell from me or you're not leaving, I'm a man of my word… and I don't feel like staying out here all night so I'll just have to make sure you can never leave again." The killing intent radiating off of Jiraiya was palpable.

"You can't do that." Naruto said, trying to get up weakly once more, "You can't just kill me here no matter what."

Jiraiya just stared Naruto down, "I could kill you here and be gone from the entire village within five minutes. You don't meet with your team for the first meeting of the week until tomorrow so no one would find you until at least midday tomorrow. Do you know how difficult it would be for anyone to find me and actually make me pay for anything that I do? I won't let a loudmouth weakling be my student so prove that you're not dead weight or I'll literally turn you into dead weight. I have a reputation to keep that you're not going to stain."

Naruto grit his teeth as he tried to keep his legs from shaking. He could barely stand up despite his ability to heal quickly, and Jiraiya's killing intent was crushing. He had never felt it directed at him from someone so much stronger than himself before.

Jiraiya made two hand-seals and leaves began to kick up around them, obscuring Jiraiya from Naruto's view until he vanished altogether from his sight. Naruto was about to take what he saw to be an opening and attempted to use Shunshin to obscure his own movements so that he could leave the area as fast as possible, but Jiraiya's voice stopped him and put him back on the defensive, "You still don't get it." Naruto turned around and found Jiraiya standing right there holding his own machete at the ready.

Naruto attempted to move, but Jiriaya's arm came down before he could do so, leaving the blonde helpless to defend until a figure came between the both of them. Jiraiya's swing drew a large spray of blood from whoever had stepped in front of Naruto and the figure dropped backwards into the water.

Looking down at the figure, Naruto's face twisted in horror as he saw Iruka laying at his feet, a deep wound across his throat where he intervened and took the damage for Naruto. His blood was draining out into the water turning it red as it rolled along with the flow of the stream. The man's eyes seemed to be straining in pain for a moment before they finally went dull and dead.

All Naruto could do was look up at Jiraiya who was still holding the machete that was dripping with Iruka's blood. The man didn't seem to have any remorse whatsoever for his actions, "You see what barking gets you when you don't know the first thing about what we ninja do? Now you've made Iruka die before his time… but you'll be following him in a moment." He said as he lifted the machete again.

Naruto's eyes were locked onto the man as tears started coming out of his eyes, and those very same eyes turned red in the process as his canines and fingernails enlarged and his whisker-marks deepened. Before Jiraiya's arm could lower, Naruto let out an earsplitting shout of anger and agony and knocked him away with the pure force of the red chakra radiating off of him threateningly. As Jiraiya was sent flying away from Naruto his body disappeared like a specter, as did the body of Iruka at Naruto's feet.

XxX

Nearby in the trees, Jiraiya watched as the Kyuubi's chakra began radiating off of Naruto. Once it began to generate from his body, Jiraiya seemed to let out a sigh of relief, "Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu (Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique). Sorry kid, at least you managed to break it." Whatever Naruto saw in that genjutsu pushed his exhausted body over the edge, and now Jiraiya had to solve it in case Naruto was berserk.

He dropped down from his hiding place and the splash of his feet in the stream turned Naruto to him. Jiraiya seemed unintimidated at the sight of the power exuding off of Naruto, he seemed more apologetic than anything, especially once he saw the tears on Naruto's face. Jiraiya simply extended his arms in a wide gesture as if he were inviting Naruto to take a free shot at him, not caring what he did for revenge.

Naruto just stared him down, his teeth bared as he seemed to strain visibly against charging over and beating Jiraiya to a pulp.

"Well you did it kid. Remember what this feels like. This is the Kyuubi's chakra. Everything you're feeling right now, I want you to learn how to harness that." Jiraiya said with a weak smile on his face before letting the expression drop, "Aren't you going to come over here and rip me apart for that genjutsu? For beating the hell out of you the way I did?"

The look on Naruto's face showed that he was struggling with the decision until he finally shook his head in the negative, wiping his eyes at the same time. The inhuman chakra flowing from him faded away, leaving Naruto's normal physical features prominent once more, "I… I just want to go home." He said before turning around to walk away. He didn't know what to say. All he did know was that he just wanted that day to end.

"Naruto wait." Jiraiya said, getting Naruto to stop before he was able to take a few steps away from him, getting him to stop and turn around with a tired look on his face. Jiraiya stuck his fingers down his throat and basically choked back up the bell he had swallowed minutes before. It floated down the stream towards Naruto, directing his attention towards it as he took the effort to bend down and pick it up, "I'm a man of my word."

Naruto nodded and put the bell in his pocket as a silence fell over the two of them, only the running water and the birds cawing in the sunset making any noise in the area.

Jiraiya sighed, "I know you probably hate me right now, but I did one of the only things I could think of to get you to trigger the Kyuubi's chakra and keep you relatively safe at the same time. If you don't want me to train you anymore that's your choice, if you would like me to keep training you I'd be more than happy to, but for what it's worth you did great. There's nothing embarrassing about calling you my student at all. I'm not even sure the Yondaime could have taken what you did and kept from trying to kill me afterwards."

"Yeah… sure." Naruto said quietly before he stopped and looked at his hands without turning around to face Jiraiya, 'The only reason the Kyuubi even gave me the chakra was so that I'd have the power to make you pay for beating me up and for the genjutsu. If I had done that, if I had tried to beat you to death then I would have given in to it.' He dropped his hands and started walking again to look for the last place his machete had actually been, 'I'm never going to let the Kyuubi get any influence over me, I'm the one in control here.'

As he walked away he could hear faint dark chuckling in the back of his mind in response to his thoughts, "I'll help you for now boy, because you dying wouldn't be beneficial to me. One day you will be weak, too weak to put up any sort of pitiful defense against me. In the end you're still just a human, and just like any other human if you have enough hate or darkness in your heart you won't be able to keep yourself from holding me back." It was only a matter of time.

(End Flashback)

The break had ended for Team 10, but they didn't venture too far from Shikamaru's house as the practice was beginning to wind down anyway. Naruto was in a circle surrounded by five clones that all took turns going through slower than full speed motions of sparring with the machete, just to get a feel of fighting multiple armed opponents at once. In case the team from Kumo made it out of the first round against Tenten's team he would need to be ready for that possibility since they all had blades of their own.

The bell he had been given by Jiraiya after the whole ordeal, given because there was no way he could have possibly taken it from the man from where he had it, was tied at the end of his machete's hilt to a chain and a strong cable as a reminder of just what it took to access the Kyuubi's power.

Naruto had enough of working with his clones and jumped out of the circle, the clones dispelling in puffs of smoke as he did so. As this happened, Shikamaru looked up at the orange colored sky, "Alright I think we should call it a day for now." He said, getting Ino and Naruto's attention.

"We still have daylight." Naruto said, almost whining at having to stop for the evening, "Why are we stopping now?"

Shikamaru pointed up at the sky, "Don't you know? It's like 8 p.m. right now. Sunset is the best time to take a nap before you go to sleep at night." He said matter-of-factly.

Naruto opened his mouth to argue, but his stomach beat him to the punch with a rather loud grumble, "Heh, well I guess I am pretty hungry right now." He laughed rather sheepishly, "Fine, I'm going home then." Actually, he was going to go see if Iruka wanted to eat. After what had gone down with Jiraiya's genjutsu he wanted to hang out with his old teacher more in case something like that actually did happen in the future. He hadn't told anyone of what had occurred for multiple reasons, the Kyuubi being a subject of it being one, another reason being that he didn't believe Jiraiya had wanted to hurt him. Still though…

"There you go Goldie-kun." Ino chirped brightly as she socked him lightly on the arm, "No need to kill yourself to get in every extra scrap of training you can. Thirty minutes of you puttering around isn't going to change anything. Now walk me out of here, I'm tired!" She insisted.

"Walk you out of here?" Naruto muttered out of earshot, "You live less than a mile outside of the Nara compound, I live all the way on the other side of the village. What do I look like, a bodyguard?" As a ninja he technically could be called upon to be a bodyguard, but that was not the point. The point was that at the moment he wasn't a bodyguard, let alone Ino's bodyguard.

Ino waved to Shikamaru as she and Naruto began to walk through the forest path leading away from his home, "Later Shikamaru, tell your mom I said hi whenever she gets back okay?"

Shikamaru just waved weakly at both of them before turning to head into the house, "Yeah, yeah… I'll see both of you troublesome blondes later."

XxX

After getting out of the forest that Shikamaru's clan populated, the rather well-to-do looking street that it turned into split into two paths. Ino stood frozen in place as Naruto began walking down one of the roads to go home, "Goldie-kun where exactly do you think you're going? You're supposed to be walking me home."

Naruto turned around to look at Ino and managed to peer down the other unused street side that he had chosen to not take. The walls lining the side of that particular road eventually began to be covered in a certain design on them, something that Naruto commented on since he had seen that design repeatedly, mostly at Ino's clan flower shop, "Ino-chan your clan compound is right there. It's literally 100 yards away."

Puffing her cheeks out, Ino disputed this as if she were informing Naruto on something obvious, "That's not the point, it's just what you do. As a gentleman you have to make sure that the lady gets home safely."

Naruto gave her a look with a raised eyebrow and pointed down the street, "It's right there. I could probably run to your house in the next thirty seconds if I knew where it was."

Refusing to budge on the matter, Ino put her foot down as she crossed her arms over her chest, "Well then that's another reason for you to walk me home, so that you actually know where my house is, you know, for future reference."

"What future reference!" Naruto asked/shouted while waving his arms indignantly, not particularly caring if any passersby thought he was insane. It probably wasn't that far removed from what they thought of him in the first place, "If I need to know where your house is and you're not there to tell me I'll ask Shikamaru." He was really hungry at the moment. Being hungry made Naruto cranky.

'Unbelievable Goldie-kun…' Ino thought to herself with a twitching eye, 'Was that too subtle for him? I thought it was obvious what I was hinting at.' She let out a sigh and shook her head before walking down her street towards her compound, "Someone needs a little more seasoning…" She said quietly in a sing-song manner.

"What was that?" Naruto said as he almost didn't hear her speak.

"Nothing." She replied, waving over her shoulder at him, "But I'm going to make you pay for that tomorrow during practice." Ino turned around and pointed at Naruto as if her finger was some sort of firearm while she took aim by grasping her forearm with her other hand, "You can't run from me forever, you know that." She finished with a firing motion and a wink before turning to go about her own way once more.

"Run from what? Are you talking about your new jutsu?" Naruto said questioningly before shrugging it off as Ino being Ino, "Ugh, whatever. I'll see you tomorrow Ino-chan." He said before making a ram seal and leaving the area concealed by a small puff of smoke, leaving behind a platinum blonde shaking her head in mild amusement.

XxX

(The Next Day – Team 10 Training Ground)

Ino was grinning at Asuma and pretty much had been all morning during downtime, "Okay Ino, what do you want?" The man asked in an exacerbated voice.

"Nothing Asuma-sensei." She replied, "I just wanted to know how yesterday went with Kurenai-sensei."

Hearing Kurenai's name unexpectedly due to not really listening to what was going on at the moment, Naruto who was about to light up a cigarette, dropped it from his mouth onto the ground as he whipped his head around rapidly in an attempt to locate the pretty red-eyed lady to save himself another lecture about smoking.

Shikamaru shook his head with a smirk on his face at Naruto's reaction, "Kurenai isn't here Naruto. Ino's just talking about her. You don't have to be scared of getting scolded again."

"I'm not afraid of Kurenai-sensei trying to bust me again for smoking." Naruto said confidently, "What's she going to do, make me smoke another carton? Good, I still have all of the ones from last time she made me do that since I don't even smoke that much." He then heard Asuma let out a groan, "What's the matter Asuma-sensei?"

"Since Ino asked…" Asuma said, directing a pointed look at an innocent looking Ino, "Yesterday with Kurenai was fine, then we started talking about the finals of the chunin exams and got into an argument over whose team was better. So we made a side bet… either you guys go further than Team 8 in the tournament, or more of you get promoted out of this than more of them."

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, "So what's the bet?" He asked, wondering if it would even be worth his while to put forth the effort to bother winning it for Asuma.

"Don't worry about it." Asuma replied coolly without missing a beat, keeping it concealed. It was just like the way he handled most things with Kurenai, and the kids weren't dumb. They knew that it was more than a 'comrades' thing, more than a relationship as general colleagues. They just weren't sure how far it went, and the two boys on the team weren't really listening to Ino's prattling theories on a secret relationship, at least not until more facts were on the board, "It wouldn't be anything you'd be interested in anyway."

Naruto raised his hand and chimed in, "Well what about me?"

Asuma looked down at Naruto as if he were actually thinking about it, "Because of who's been giving you personal training over the last month or so I'd say that in a few years you'd appreciate it, but for now no." Naruto gave him a squinted-eyed look of confusion before Asuma's point finally hit him. He went wide-eyed before nodding dumbly, "Good boy." He ignored Shikamaru's mumbling of 'troublesome' and let the matter drop.

Deciding to change the subject, and speaking on his training with Jiraiya, Naruto spoke up again, "Uh Asuma-sensei, could you go ahead and show me the next step of controlling my wind element?" He asked, putting his hands together in a beseeching fashion.

Asuma scratched his head, not sure how he was going to explain this to the kid, "Damn Naruto, you've got a funny time of asking." There was a week left until they were to set out for the exams final round. He was aware of the fruits that Naruto's Kage Bunshin technique could breed in the instance of speeding up his training, but this was less than a week to work with, even if he could have fully focused each day on it he wouldn't finish in time, and even if he did, then what? All that would have done would have been to open the door for him to be able to control the higher-level techniques and to allow him to begin creating his own wind-based ninjutsu once he got the proper way to do so down. It simply wasn't practical at the moment.

"There's just no time Naruto." Asuma said to him, "And I know about what you can do with your clones. But even then there just isn't enough time for you to get it down. And even if you did it wouldn't help you in your actual matches." He saw the boy visibly deflate at that and put a hand on his shoulder, "I didn't say I wouldn't help you out at all, and I never said that you'd never learn how to do the last step, it's just that now isn't the time for it."

Naruto cocked his head to the side curiously, "So you are going to help me out?" A grin spread back over his face, "How?"

"Freaking brat…" Asuma said as he ruffled Naruto's hair before asking another question, "But I thought you were learning a 'special technique' from Jiraiya-sama?" By special technique, he meant the Kyuubi's chakra. Naruto figured that someone that needed to be kept in the know of how he was trying to access the Kyuubi's chakra was Asuma, thus he told him.

"I learned it." Naruto said simply, leaving it at that. His eyes turned away from Asuma as he did so.

That was something he would have to look into later, but for now seeing the kid so out of character just didn't seem right, "Well I have a move for you that you might be able to use-."

"-Is it Hien (Flying Swallow)?" Naruto asked excitedly. He really couldn't extend his blade's reach the way Asuma could any further than the little inch that the coating of wind chakra provided his weapon because simply coating his blade in wind chakra wasn't the technique.

"Seriously, what is it with you and that jutsu?" Asuma said, shaking his head, "No it's not Hien. I've got something new for you altogether, a very old move of mine. I can't do it anymore with my equipment, but your machete should work just fine, especially with that new little customization you added on to it." He said, flicking the chain and the bell at the end of Naruto's machete.

Naruto looked down at the weapon curiously, "It's just a chain Asuma-sensei, it's not a big deal." He drew the machete out of his sheath and held it up to look at the chain he had attached to the hilt closely only for Asuma to more or less snatch it out of his hands, "Oi!"

"Shut up kid." Asuma said, dangling the sharp blade by the chain at the end, surprised that he actually used something sturdy instead of the cheap materials he expected, "Yeah this is perfect. Now let me show you how this jutsu works and you can get your clones cracking on trying to get it down."

XxX

(Two Days Later – One Week Until Chunin Exam Final Round)

Jiraiya sat by himself in the corner of a bar, drinking quietly with an air of contemplation around him. Despite his status as a living legend he wasn't approached by any of the shinobi in the bar for anything, he was just giving off that aura that he didn't feel like being bothered at the moment.

Which was why there was some surprise in the place when the chair across from him was filled by another person, "I didn't think you were one for drinking in the daytime Asuma." He commented dryly at the bearded jounin in front of him.

"You're one to talk Jiraiya-sama." Asuma replied in a joking manner to the man, "Aren't you supposed to be a role model that every shinobi should look up to?"

"Who said I wasn't? I'm a fine, upstanding ninja." Jiraiya said before deflating back to his previous state of more or less sulking.

Asuma sat with the man in silence before finally breaking it by speaking again, "So are you going to make me ask, or are you just going to come out with it and tell me?" He said expectantly, "Naruto's been all weird since after Wednesday. That was the last day he was with you, and from how he was talking to me the other day it sounds like he isn't training with you any longer. So what happened?"

"I got him to activate the Kyuubi's chakra. This time he was able to control it." Jiraiya said plainly before getting a proud inflection in his voice, "He did… great actually. Better than I expected." Since he had expected Naruto to try and turn him into a stain on the earth after the genjutsu had broken, the most he had hoped for was that Naruto would have pulled back from trying to kill him enough to get satisfaction out of beating him to a pulp and leaving it at that, otherwise he would have had to seal his demonic chakra away.

Asuma's eyes widened, "That's great." He was confused then when Jiraiya shook his head, "It's not great?"

"Not really once you hear about how I did it… I didn't even bother telling Sarutobi-sensei what I did since he probably saw it through that damn crystal ball anyway." Jiraiya muttered as he took another sip of his drink and shook his head again, "Minato did a fantastic job on the seal. Really top-notch stuff. Only the most extreme conditions can get the kid to pull out the demon's chakra. Exhaustion, fear, anger, despair, pain… things like that make it easier for him to draw upon the chakra."

Asuma remembered Naruto's episode in Nami no Kuni. That was the best point he had heard as to how Naruto drew upon the chakra by far. But he then knew where Jiraiya was going with his explanation.

"So in order to get him to draw upon the chakra again I pushed him to his physical limits… and I can tell you one thing at least. If anyone beats on the kid during the tournament the way I did the other day then I'll be one surprised son of a bitch because I kicked the hell out of him and kept him conscious." Jiraiya said, sounding revolted with himself as he took another swig, "Then I cast a genjutsu on him, Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu (Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique)." Asuma let out a low hiss, understanding the situation.

"Naruto sucks at genjutsu." He said quietly so that only he and Jiraiya could hear. The white-haired man nodded, having picked up on that fact after witnessing the effectiveness of it on Naruto. Whatever he saw had to have been something that upset him, "I guess we'll have to get started on teaching him how to break that."

Jiraiya let out a laugh that didn't have any humor behind it, "I think that one will be all up to you Asuma. After it was all over I told the kid that I didn't expect him to forgive me for what happened then. He might have the capacity to forgive people that are close to him or people he thinks are friends, but tell me something. After he beat up that nuke-nin girl in Nami no Kuni and they made up, did he trust her again after that?"

Asuma shook his head, "He didn't untie her, he didn't even show her his back a single time until we parted ways." Come to think of it, even when they thoroughly disarmed her on the way out of Nami no Kuni, not only did Naruto never let Haku see his back, he didn't let her see Asuma's back… just in case she would hold a grudge and attempt to take the man's life for killing Zabuza.

Wow, he didn't even notice that until right then. Naruto was a pretty trusting guy, but apparently if you broke that trust then you were on his shit list until further notice.

"Did he say anything to you?" Asuma asked Jiraiya, "Because he won't even say anything about it to me."

"He just said 'yeah, sure' and left." Jiraiya informed him, "He seemed pretty mixed up about the whole thing." Letting out a deep sigh, he continued to talk, "I'm not much for praying or anything, but if the kid actually wants me to help him again after the other day that would have to be something of a miracle."

Asuma just leaned back in his chair and placed a cigarette in his mouth, "Well, you might as well try to talk to him sooner or later. It's obvious you don't hate Naruto and he probably knows that. You can probably get back in his good graces. But if you'd wait that would help me out, I need his head clear for when we head back on up to Tetsu no Kuni for the finals."

Jiraiya watched Asuma light up his cigarette and take a breath and had a flashback to his work with Naruto over the last month, bringing deep laughs from the man that confused Asuma, "Oh, sorry. It's just that it's kind of obvious where he get it from now. There's nothing like seeing 40 Kage Bunshin all sitting cross-legged in the grass glaring down at practice seals with lit cigarettes in their mouths." He then had another thought and his grin turned lecherous, "Come to think of it, with that Kage Bunshin ability of his he might be able to conduct 'research' better than I ever did without the threat of any repercussions for it."

Both Jiraiya and Asuma sat there thinking about being able to use Kage Bunshin the way Naruto did for less than pure minded reasons before yet another thought hit Jiraiya like a bolt of lightning and he created one that immediately ran out of the bar faster than anyone could follow.

Asuma completely understood.

And was officially never so grateful that he knew how to properly make Kage Bunshin. At this point he only wished he could make massive amounts of them like his student.

Damn it, his old man would probably say no once he questioned him on why he would want to learn it and Naruto probably wouldn't do it either… at least without making Asuma cough up Hien first.

XxX

"Achoo!" Naruto sneezed and wiped his nose before frowning deeply and throwing the explosive tag he was preparing away to the side, "Goddamn it!" Naruto yelled once he realized that he had just wasted his last strip of sealing paper by messing up because of that sneeze.

On his day off, following some time spent at Shiho's house helping her re-catalogue her books and time spent hanging out with Shikamaru and Chouji doing a whole lot of nothing, he had taken to just getting his affairs in order for the next week since by Thursday his team would be setting out with the other finalists to Tetsu no Kuni. One of these affairs saw to it that he was merely hanging out in the woods to make an abundant supply of explosive tags because you could never have enough explosives, and in Naruto's own personal opinion enough explosives could fix any problem.

Deciding that he had spent enough time just sitting there and that he might as well take some time to go grocery shopping since he had some free time, Naruto let out a large burst of his chakra for his sonar jutsu to see how close he was to town. Once he did so however, he heard a shriek that set him off once he felt the signature behind the person that had let out the noise, "I see you motherfucker!" Naruto shouted before swiftly moving into action, "Nobody gets the drop on Uzumaki Naruto!" He yelled before he said something else as an afterthought, "…that much!"

XxX

What did her sister see in that weird blonde kid?

It had been a question she had been asking for an entire year to herself and her sister as well, even though she had never gotten an answer from her. All her sister would do whenever questioned on the matter was turn red and clam up. In some cases she would try to stammer out a denial of the fact that she was somewhat into the guy, but that just solidified that she indeed was if she was that embarrassed about it.

Her sister was so nice, timid but nice, and there seemed to be no particular reason that she would find anything attractive about the weird blond kid.

He wasn't that good looking… but then again it wasn't like he was ugly. The thing about him being kind of short wasn't that big of a deal breaker. Those whisker-marks on his face looked exotic and his blue eyes were brimming with emotion that she didn't much see when she looked in the eyes of those of her clan.

He didn't seem to be that smart from what she had seen upon running into him in the past with him wandering the forest in the Nara compound a few months back muttering about how he couldn't find his sensei. But then again he was working on fuuinjutsu as she watched him. From what she knew of her own clan's dabbling in the art it was very complicated to say the least, so he couldn't really be dumb right?

He didn't look like a very effective ninja either and she heard that he was a rookie from the buzz around town. On the other hand though, that same buzz was saying that he was one of the Konoha teams that were about to head out to Tetsu no Kuni to compete in the final rounds of the chunin exams along with her sister's team. That had to mean that either he was just as good or better, or he had one hell of a team to help him get that far. He also had very unusual chakra… and a lot of it. Seriously, this guy had a lot of chakra, a whole lot of chakra.

Okay, so there was something about this guy after all.

And she had to admit he was rather entertaining though when he sneezed and yelled after screwing up an explosive tag. She almost started laughing once she saw that, almost, because if she had then she would have blown her cover, even from the range her kekkei genkai allowed her to spy on him from.

Hey, she hadn't been placed in the Academy yet. She had to take training into her own hands outside of what her father did somehow right? To do otherwise would be lazy. And maybe if she could find out what her sister liked so much about him she could come up with some way to help her get him. She deserved that much since even she had to admit their father had been rather cold to her a few months back after she graduated. She hoped he wouldn't be like that once she entered the Academy.

Wait a second she couldn't just let her mind wander, she had a mission (self-presented of course) to do.

And just as she thought that, from the boy she was watching a blinding ripple of chakra burst from his body. Her ability to see chakra itself came back to bite her because as her kekkei genkai witnessed it, she saw the equivalent of flashbomb going off in her eyes… again.

Him and that damn move of his managed to get her in the past.

"I see you motherfucker!"

Oh, and there was the fact that after he did that he was always able to know where she was at the time.

"Nobody gets the drop on Uzumaki Naruto!" This was not good, "…That much!" Kami her eyes hurt! Damn that bastard!

She deactivated her doujutsu and tried to run, but unlike the last few times she tried to spy on him he went too far into the forest for her to beat him back to town by just running away. She did her best, but he was so much faster than her. He wasn't a joke at all.

And thus she finally came face to face with Uzumaki Naruto and expected the worst.

"Huh?" That was not the first thing she had expected someone to say after catching the person that had been spying on them.

XxX

"Huh?" Naruto was nearly beaming while he had been chasing his would-be spy through the forest. He had a bone to pick with this person since after he felt them skulking around him back before he got his basic elemental training. It was a different feeling from the first person he had felt spying on him when he had first learned the jutsu, but it was similar enough that he just figured that the person had changed and had gotten better like he had.

This was not what he was expecting in the least.

He pointed lamely at the person he had managed to corner, "Why are you watching me train little girl?" He asked nicely, though in a curious tone of voice. She was around Konohamaru's height give or take an inch or so, and had long dark brown hair with bangs that went down to her back. She wore dark blue shorts, a sleeveless dark blue v-neck shirt, and a mesh shirt underneath the v-neck.

The little girl was currently rubbing her eyes as if they were irritated. He kind of wanted to make her stop so that she didn't hurt herself. She finally took her hands away and looked up at him with her white, pupil-less eyes. She had an owlish expression on her face as she stared up at him before realizing that she had been compromised and fell into a taijutsu stance, getting Naruto to tilt his head to the side in confusion, "Prepare yourself Uzumaki Naruto. I won't let myself get captured by my target so easily."

It took Naruto a second to realize that she was going to try to take him on, "What? I'm not going to fight you, you're miniature." He responded, gesturing with his hands to their size difference.

"Then move aside and leave me to my own devices." The little girl said placidly, but still holding up her stance.

Naruto just gave her a deadpan stare in return, "Not when your own devices include spying on me. Now if you don't mind, could you tell me what you're here for?"

"That's a secret I'll take to the grave." She said seriously, getting Naruto to palm his face before her eyes suddenly changed. Her pupils became slightly visible where before they were nonexistent, and the veins around her eyes on the temple area became bulged and visible, "Let's see how you like Hyuuga-style taijutsu. The feared Juuken (Gentle Fist)."

"Hyuuga?" Naruto said, taking note of her features and name, and then of the name of her clan technique just before she sprang into action and closed the distance on him.

"Hitosashibi Suiryoku (Index Finger Thrust)!" The little Hyuuga girl shot out her right hand at Naruto's chest with her index and middle fingers extended. Hearing an attack from the girl, Naruto stepped back out of her range but she kept coming forward with attacks, using her fingers for precise strikes that Naruto kept backstepping out of the way from.

Finally sick of evading the girl, Naruto stepped back with his foot on a tree and started scaling said tree backwards until he was firmly out of her reach, fifteen feet off of the ground, staring down at her, "Stop trying to attack me already! I'm a ninja in your village, I'm on your side you know!"

The little girl blushed in embarrassment, realizing that he was right. Not only could he not attack her since she was technically a civilian, not even an Academy Student yet, he was an active member of Konoha's shinobi force. Trying to attack him was akin to treason, hence she stopped her attack and bowed low for forgiveness, "I'm so sorry Uzumaki-san! Please don't report me to Hokage-sama, I don't want to go to prison!"

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the strange little girl and dropped to the ground where she was still bowing towards him, "Sarutobi-jiji wouldn't send a little girl to jail just for messing around with me." He said, patting her on the head as he felt rather weird at the moment. Nobody bowed to him, and there was something very wrong with the fact that this little girl was doing it, "So what's your name?"

"Hyuuga Hanabi." She responded rather elegantly. This girl kind of reminded him of someone. Hyuuga… Oh! She reminded him of that Neji kid without the aura of jerk radiating off of her. She was kind of quiet too… like Hinata! Only she didn't seem shy at all. She could at least speak to him as if he didn't intimidate her, "And you are Uzumaki Naruto. You're heading to the final portion of the chunin exam next week aren't you? My sister is as well."

Hearing that this little girl he had never met knew about his advancement so far in the chunin exams put a grin on Naruto's face until he processed the other thing she said, "Wait, your sister?" He only knew one female Hyuuga, and there was only one of them in the tournament, "You're Hinata's sister?" Hanabi nodded in confirmation and Naruto narrowed his eyes at her, "Have you been spying on me to try and help her with a strategy to try and beat me in case we face off in the tournament?" He asked accusingly.

Hanabi was about to more or less call him stupid in her own special way, but then she realized that the way he had discovered her and the past times where he had been aware of her presence could be construed as her spying on him, "No! That's not was I was doing Uzumaki-san, honest! I've never seen you train or any of your techniques! Well… other than your concentrated chakra pulse of course."

"My what?" Naruto asked her in confusion. He didn't have any technique like that.

"Your concentrated chakra pulse!" Hanabi urged him as if he had just let it slip his mind, "Of course I probably have the name of the jutsu all wrong, but it's really brilliant!" She insisted spiritedly. He didn't know that a Hyuuga could get so excited about things, but then again she couldn't have been any older than eight years old, "I was looking directly at you with my Byakugan and it was terrible! You released that wave of chakra from your body and I felt like my eyes were on fire!"

Hanabi's expression as she thought about his jutsu made Naruto just want to give her a hug. The effect of the little Hyuuga girl's white eyes nearly quivering with tears as she remembered his chakra pulse was in Naruto's opinion completely adorable… not that anyone would ever know that he felt that way.

Guys didn't think that things were adorable. That word was expressly forbidden from the male vocabulary except for extreme circumstances.

Jiraiya's book had reinforced this sentiment in one of its many run-on allusions to things that had nothing to do with fuuinjutsu.

Once again, Naruto placed his hand on the girl's head once he realized what she was talking about, "Oh, you mean Chakura Hankyouteii no Jutsu (Chakra Echolocation Jutsu). My jutsu hurts your eyes 'Little Firecracker'? Sorry about that." He said apologetically.

Hanabi puffed her cheeks out at the nickname and shook her head to get his hand off of her head. Eight years old or not she was still a Main Branch Hyuuga and she wasn't going to just take that, "It's fine." She insisted haughtily before going back to normal once she was sure Naruto wouldn't put his hand on her head for a third time, "But yes. Your jutsu hurts my eyes. It's like you poked me in them with chakra." She rubbed them again because she could still see stars from Naruto's jutsu.

He wanted to say that he was sorry, but it didn't seem like that was enough even though he couldn't tell what he had done wrong if someone had asked him why he felt guilty. There was only one thing he could do as far as he was concerned, "Do you want to get something to eat?" That seemed like a good way to apologize to him. Feed someone and that's a pretty good 'I'm sorry' gesture.

Hanabi stopped rubbing her eyes and looked at Naruto strangely before her stomach growled and she nodded slowly. Free food was free food.

XxX

(An Hour Later – Ichiraku Ramen)

"Alright yeah! We're starving to death, right Akamaru?" Kiba said rather boisterously as he pushed open the curtains of the stand to enter, small white dog in his coat riding along. Once he did so of course he saw someone pretty familiar sitting up at the counter, "Hey, it's Naruto! How's it going man?"

Naruto turned around on his stool and saw Kiba and Akamaru grinning at him, "Kiba? Akamaru? Hey, what are you guys doing here?"

Kiba shrugged and he grabbed a seat next to Naruto at the counter, "Well we're hungry. This is a really good little stand, so why not eat here eh?" Akamaru let out a yap of agreement from the front of Kiba's coat as he was panting rather excitedly, "So why are you here?"

"Same as you." Naruto said with a grin of his own on his face, "It's my day off and I just wanted to grab some lunch. Also it was the easiest place to go to take Hanabi for some lunch and she agreed since she hasn't been here before."

Kiba's eyes widened slightly, "Whoa, you're on a date?" Part of him had to applaud that even during the training period Naruto could find the time to take a girl out.

Naruto gave him a squinted-eyed look and shook his head slowly, "No… that's weird. Hanabi's seven years old." He said, gesturing to the little girl on the opposite side of him that wasn't even paying attention to what he was saying due to her eating that was reserved, yet still pretty rushed, "This is Hanabi. Say hi Little Firecracker."

Hearing Naruto's nickname for her put a tick on her head and she stopped eating long enough to turn towards him and let him have it over his choice of address, but when she did she got a look at Kiba and Akamaru, "You, you're my sister's teammate aren't you?"

"Hinata's sister?" Kiba said once he had gotten a good look at her. He had seen Hanabi before, he just hadn't met her. How she had managed a run-in with Naruto was beyond him, "How'd you end up hanging out with this bum?"

Hanabi shook her head with a frown on her face, "Naruto-oniisama isn't a bum. He's really cool actually." She said with a smile, "He's saying he's sorry for hurting me."

"You hurt Hinata's little sister?" Kiba asked Naruto, at this point kind of hoping that wasn't the case, at least not enough of a case for the little girl to take it to the rest of her clan because of who her father was, "You're going to get your ass-."

"-It was an accident." Naruto grumbled, "Look at her, she's fine. And I'm apologizing and being nice. You don't have any complaints about me do you Little Firecracker?" He asked Hanabi who had gone back to eating her ramen in a respectable manner.

She stopped when he asked her his question though, "…I wish you'd stop calling me by that name…"

Naruto shook his head firmly, "Not happening little lady." He said as Teuchi set a bowl of ramen in front of him, "Ah, thanks a lot Teuchi-ojisan."

The man chuckled and gave Naruto a nod at the boy's grateful response. He turned towards Kiba and spoke to him, "And what will you and your dog have young man?" He asked, understanding the Inuzuka bond with their ninken.

Kiba gave him a small smile and waved him off, "None for us yet. We're waiting for some people to arrive before we get anything to eat. Thanks anyway though."

"You've got people coming?" Naruto asked while simultaneously digging into his food with vigor.

A nod and a small laugh came from Kiba, "Yeah. My team's been working on our own all week and we decided to link back up today for a small meeting. I chose here to meet for lunch, so yeah." At that moment he sniffed the air and was able to distinguish a scent through the delicious smelling food, "Speaking of my team."

"I didn't think you'd go in before your teammates arrived Kiba."

"Hey Kurenai-sensei." Kiba said, turning around in his stool to face the pretty, red-eyed lady and wave to her while Akamaru let out an excited bark. Naruto on the other hand was frozen in his seat with his chopsticks and ramen stuck at his mouth. Hanabi noticed this and started poking at him trying to get him to react, "I was going to wait outside, but then I found this guy inside and decided to say hey."

Kurenai gave her most boisterous student a smile at the welcome and saw who was sitting next to him, "Oh, well hello there Naruto. How are you?" She greeted to the blonde jinchuuriki.

"I am not smoking Kurenai-sensei ma'am!" Naruto suddenly exclaimed, almost startling Hanabi out of her seat at his loud proclamation.

Kurenai raised an eyebrow at the random outburst, "That's… good?" Okay, smoking was pretty distasteful, but if that's how he was reacting to her sudden presence then maybe she went overboard trying to break him of the habit? Especially since the attempt backfired anyway…

Hearing that Kurenai was not present to break his balls over smoking, Naruto let out a sigh of relief and went back to eating while Hanabi gave him a look of 'what the hell was that?' over what had just happened.

"Kiba-kun, Kurenai-sensei." A delicate voice filtered through everyone's ears as Hinata stepped inside of the ramen stand. She greeted her sensei and her first teammate with a smile until her eyes panned over to Naruto who was still eating, "N-Naruto-kun." At that point she noticed the little girl sitting next to him waving at her, "Hanabi-chan?"

"Hi Hinata-oneesama." Hanabi greeted her older sister with a sly smile before pointing at Naruto, "Look who I found."

Remembering what Hanabi had been asking her about from time to time and then seeing Naruto turn around in confusion after finishing his food only to smile and wave at her, Hinata turned bright red, getting Hanabi to roll her eyes as she had expected this much. At least she was still conscious at this point, but that was probably because there was a good four or five feet of distance between them.

In an effort to get herself under control, Hinata directed her attention to her little sister, "Hanabi-chan what are you doing outside of the clan compound without our father?"

"I was bored, and father wasn't around to train me, he was busy today. So I just… left." Hanabi answered lamely, "I found Naruto-oniisama walking around the village and followed him to the forest, and he caught me." She said, embarrassed at admitting such. She was supposed to be a powerful heiress of her clan with a Byakugan more powerful than her sister's, "Then he said he would buy me lunch so I said okay."

Naruto grinned at Hinata after Hanabi had recounted how she had run across him in the first place, "Yeah, I'm a giving man. All I do is give." Hinata's blush at being spoken to by Naruto went unnoticed by him as he turned to elbow Kiba jokingly in the side, "Just like the asskicking I'm going to give everybody during the finals."

Kiba turned to Naruto and got in his face at the challenge, "I've told you already damn it, you can't beat us! Me and Akamaru are going to put you down!" Kurenai shook her head and held back a smile at the banter as she was to be the responsible adult in the situation and was prepared to keep the clash between the two hotheads from escalating.

"This disguise is highly illogical. Why you ask? Because a rock is not a perfect square."

Hearing about a square rock made Naruto sigh as he paid for himself and Hanabi and went outside. Everyone's attention was then directed outside to where Shino was standing with his hands in his pockets staring down at a box painted like a rock with eyeholes in it, "Get out of here weird guy." The box hissed lowly, "You're going to blow my cover."

Shino raised an eyebrow at being called weird by a person in a box, "If this is your cover then I would consider it blown already my friend."

Naruto just stared at the rock with a dry look on his face before slowly pulling out his machete and speaking in a fake acting voice, "Oh look, a rock. I wonder if it's the kind that I can sharpen my weapon on. Let's find out by hitting it repeatedly with my razor-sharp machete."

Kiba caught on to what Naruto was doing and grinned, "Hey Akamaru, I don't think we trained enough this morning. How about we break one more rock for good measure? And look, there's a rock right there. Isn't that convenient?"

Naruto raised his machete over his head with an evil look in his eyes and Kiba cracked his knuckles with a similar look in his as well until the rock finally exploded in a large, colorful puff of smoke, "Why can't I ever get the gunpowder right?" The smoke cleared allowing Naruto to see Konohamaru on the ground before standing up and pointing at Naruto directly, "Boss! Fight me!" He demanded.

Everyone just stared between Naruto and the small boy pointing at Naruto and taking note of the similar goggles on both of their foreheads. Naruto just stood in place until he suddenly yelled, "Damn it Konohamaru go to school!" Everyone facepalmed due to it being Sunday, a day off for students.

"No way!" Konohamaru yelled back, "You're going to be a chunin! So if I can beat you then I don't need to go to school, they can make me a chunin right now!" He pulled out a shuriken and held it at the ready, "Get ready Boss, because today's the day you lose!" He threw the shuriken at Naruto and it was actually on target.

Shino had been watching curiously as to why the Hokage's grandson wanted to fight Naruto, Kiba had been holding back his own laughter the entire time, Hinata had been looking between them nervously, Hanabi wondered how this had all even started, and when Konohamaru pulled out the shuriken Kurenai's latent instincts made her want to walk over to Konohamaru, slap the weapon out of his hand and scold him for playing with weapons. But then he threw it.

Naruto used his machete to deflect the shuriken and marched up to the now scared Konohamaru before grabbing him by the collar and rapping him on the top of the head with the handle of the weapon, "Don't throw deadly weapons in public damn it! Especially not at friends!" He said as he let the boy go.

"You blocked it anyway so what's the big deal?" Konohamaru grumbled before Kurenai held out her hand in front of Konohamaru's face and caught the falling shuriken that Naruto had redirected. He slowly turned towards the stern looking lady that he was sure was going to confiscate his shuriken now, "Oh… that's the big deal."

Kurenai spun the shuriken around by the circle in the middle, "Using ninja tools and jutsu is a frowned upon practice in village streets." Frowned upon, but not forbidden… "You should save things like this for the Academy."

Konohamaru pouted at being admonished, "School sucks…"

Hanabi frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, "Stop being a brat." She said to the slightly older boy. Hell, she wished she could go to the Academy instead of being stuck in a dojo with her father all day for her training.

This directed Konohamaru's attention towards the girl that was the closest to his age, "And who are you?" He said before pointing at Kurenai, "I know her because she's Uncle Asuma's-." He felt low killing intent from the jounin and switched up what he was saying, "-Comrade?" He tested, and once the killing intent dropped he knew he was safe, "Yeah… she's his comrade. But you? I don't know-."

His adolescent brain began to work and put things together to make sense in his own mind. Little girl his age… hanging out with Naruto in what seems to be his spare time… calls him Naruto-oniisama and seems to value his opinion and point of view.

Konohamaru ran at Naruto flailing punches only to be stopped by Naruto's hand on his forehead, "Boss you jerk! You had me replaced? I just started going to the Academy, it's not like I just disappeared! How could you?"

Naruto kept holding the boy back from possibly trying to punch at his privates, "What are you babbling about? Are you upset about Little Firecracker?"

"Stop calling me that!" Hanabi snapped at Naruto before regaining her mostly stoic demeanor once eyes fell on her due to the outburst, "…Please."

"You gave her a nickname!" Konohamaru shouted as he stopped struggling and sank to his knees prior to having large streams of tears pouring from his eyes, "You didn't give me a nickname! What makes her better than me Boss? She's a girl!" He said, getting Hanabi to glare at him, "We're both dudes! We can both do dude stuff that you can't do with a girl!"

Naruto stared at him with a twitching eye, "Me and you definitely can't do 'dude stuff' because you're still too young to know what 'dude stuff' is supposed to mean." He then blinked in realization, "As a matter of fact I think I'm still too young to know what 'dude stuff' is supposed to mean. Damn it sensei… you and your book."

"I'm down for dude stuff." Kiba chimed informatively, raising his hand before Kurenai, Shino, and Hinata looked at him, putting him on the spot, "What? Dude stuff is great. Watch." He said before giving Shino several good-natured punches on the arm with a grin on his face, "Dude stuff!"

Shino just stared at Kiba expressionlessly, "Don't do that." He said plainly, in a way that sent shivers down the others' spines.

Konohamaru ignored this and pointed at Hanabi, "That's it! I'm not letting myself get replaced like some rusty kunai, I'll fight you for the spot as Boss's number two!"

Hanabi looked at the weird boy before her lips quirked in a momentary smile, "Why would he even want a number two that just wants to fight him and beat him up?"

"Shut up!" Konohamaru shouted, blushing in embarrassment, "You're going down for the count! There's no way you can beat me! My name is Sarutobi Konohamaru, and as the future Hokage I won't lose here!"

Hanabi just smirked and stood in her fighting stance, "Well my name is Hyuuga Hanabi, and you aren't going to have much of a choice in the matter in just a moment." She was actually excited to test her training on someone in an actual fight.

All of Team 8 was just staring at Naruto who shrugged at what was going on with the children standing between him, he didn't know what to say to them, "What can I say? I guess kids just love me for some reason."

"I'll beat you in one shot!" Konohamaru said as he formed the ram seal, "If you're really Boss's number two then you've got his special technique down by now!" Hearing 'special technique', Hanabi figured it was Naruto's echolocation jutsu and covered her eyes, prepared to try and fight blind and without her Byakugan if necessary.

'Oh shit, I don't like the sound of that.' Naruto thought to himself as there had been only one thing he had taught Konohamaru in the time they had spend together, "Konohamaru wait-." Too little, too late.

"Oiroke no Jutsu (Sexy Jutsu)!" In a puff of smoke, Konohamaru transformed into a very attractive nude brunette woman that winked seductively from a rather provocative pose, "How do you like this?"

Kiba's nose started gushing blood on top of Akamaru's head, "I like it a lot!" He said with a wolfish grin on his face. Shino stayed unchanging, but due to his high collar most people couldn't see the blood trickling from his own nose.

Hinata poked her fingers together rather tentatively, unable to even look at the mortified Naruto who couldn't believe Konohamaru's complete lack of situational judgment as he directly ignored the fact he had done the same jutsu in public in the past without hesitation, "N-Naruto-kun really taught you that jutsu?" There was no way her Naruto would ever come up with something so sleazy, right?

Konohamaru then suddenly transformed back when he noticed that Hanabi wasn't even looking at him, "Hey, open your eyes! How else is my awesome jutsu going to beat you if you aren't even looking at it?"

"If it would beat me then why would I look at it stupid?" Hanabi said in a teasing voice as she kept her eyes closed, prepared to try and use her other senses to fight. She was blissfully unaware of the chaos going on around her at the moment.

"Why can't I ever beat anyone with that jutsu?" Konohamaru asked before a shadow passed over him, getting him to look up at a rather furious looking Kurenai.

"Now Konohamaru." Kurenai said in a deceptively sweet tone even though the small boy saw the aura of a devil over her, "Tell me again who taught you a jutsu like that?" Konohamaru pointed a shaky finger at Naruto who was standing still nearby.

"I see." Kurenai said before turning towards Naruto with the same sugary tone of voice and pleasant look on her face, "Naruto I think you and I should have a talk about things that are appropriate and things that you should and shouldn't pass on to children."

Naruto took a step back and put up his only defense that he had been saving for over several years, "Um… I never had parents or guardians to teach me tact?" And when he saw Kurenai's red eyes soften momentarily in some sort of maternal empathy he almost fist pumped in victory. Almost because it still didn't work which left him with his other out, "I'll see you guys during the exams!" He hurriedly said as he made the ram seal and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Kurenai blinked at Naruto's sudden disappearance before snapping her fingers once she remembered, "Oh, I forgot he could do that." She said, deciding to let the matter end since chasing him all over the village wouldn't have looked good at all. With that she decided to escort her team inside

Hanabi stared at where Naruto had been now that Naruto was gone, "Wow, Naruto-oniisama is kind of fast."

"Yeah he is." Konohamaru said in agreement, "…I'm still his number two though."

"I don't really care." Hanabi said out loud in a dismissive manner, but on the inside she was sticking her tongue out at Konohamaru. She was the number two damn it. She was way better than him.

Jutsu List

Hitosashibi Suiryoku (Index Finger Thrust). D-rank taijutsu, kekkei genkai. Offensive. This very basic attack consists of a practitioner of Juuken using their index and middle fingers to jab at their opponent, directly aiming for a vital spot on the enemy's body. A precise strike can equal death in one blow depending on where contact is made, but the point of impact is small and can be avoided from causing such fatal damage by good evasive movement. Like other techniques borne of the same style, it sends chakra into the target to cause internal damage.

Hey You're Not a Genius. Who Cares? Read This and You Won't Suck at Fuuinjutsu (by Jiraiya)

Jinchuuriki: Power of Human Sacrifice

Let's take a minute to talk about a little something that you should hope to never come face-to-face with on the battlefield. Still though, you have to be aware of this just in case you ever do. Better to be safe than sorry.

A jinchuuriki is a human being, flesh and blood like you or me, only they have creatures of incredible power sealed within them, the biju. Nine demons of absurd strength differentiated by their amounts of tails and the powers they possess. The key word here however is sealed boys and girls, but we'll have more on that later.

A jinchuuriki is gifted with incredible powers bestowed upon them by housing the demons within their bodies. Some can manipulate extra limbs akin to their particular tailed beast, some can breathe fire, some can even transform into the demons themselves among tons of other abilities that many others could never begin to attempt otherwise.

In return for their powers however, the jinchuuriki are generally lonely people. Feared for their powers and the demons that they contain within, most are hated and discriminated against. Many are constantly in a battle for control of their own wills against the demons they contain, as the creatures are willing to take any opening or doubt in the heart of the possessor to break free, this does not help matters whatsoever with their personal lives. Some are even driven insane with the combination of it all.

A jinchuuriki is made by having a biju sealed within a person as I wrote above, and each village has its own particular sealing style to contain the monsters. You're not getting any of them out of this book since they are all village secrets that are supposed to be passed down to those worthy, not just given out because you're curious about them.

Somehow removing a biju from a jinchuuriki will kill the container, and killing a jinchuuriki will result in the death of the biju within as well. When put in dire straits of life or death, a jinchuuriki could possibly go berserk due to the intervention of the biju trying to protect them and by proxy itself. In the case of handling this you had better either be a badass of the highest order (like myself) or you should put your head between your knees, grab your ankles, and kiss your ass goodbye… hypothetically of course because there is always a way out of any situation.

The best way to deal with a jinchuuriki is not in a straight up fire-fight because that is never a recommended course of action to take. Instead of that, try to render them ineffective by disrupting their flow of chakra, or if you're far enough along you can simply cut it off altogether. On the coming pages you will learn the arrays and kanji combinations for setting up basic seals for fuuinjutsu that revolves around chakra itself. This is a more precise process than you've previously dealt with so prepare to spend quite a bit of time getting this right.