Chapter 25

'Yosh! First part complete!'

Standing fluidly from his crouched position on the ceiling of the ANBU Headquarters, Uzumaki Naruto quickly engaged his Invisibility Jutsu. It wouldn't really help at this point if any of them were to wake up; they were probably so attuned to Chakra detection that they could pinpoint his location without having to rely on their sight. For that matter, the Chakra Beacon technique may have been a better choice, but then again if they saw him, it would end in the same result.

Oh, he could use the two techniques together, yet the majority of the ANBU were sleeping, Naruto having planned his latest prank at 2AM in the morning, and so doing something as foolish as the Chakra Beacon in the middle of the ANBU HQ was the same as poking a sleeping dragon in the eye.

'Hmm...I wonder if dragons exist?'

Swiftly releasing his hold on the matte white surface, he dropped noiselessly to the ground, rolling upon impact in order to muffle any sound he would make. Quickly scanning his surroundings, he made good on his escape, sprinting for the open window that he had left open as he'd come in.

In the shadows by the wall at the back of the laundry room, a lone ANBU melted out from the darkness, purple, straight hair cascading down her back and swaying in the slight breeze from the early morning air.

'Uzumaki Naruto, what were you doing here?'

Uzuki Yuugao padded forward towards the out-pile of clothes left for the next day of work, her steps soundless and her body contorting and stretching with a seamless, feline grace. When she reached the edge of the Washing Machines lined up against a thick wall, she plucked a shirt from the pile, the one she had seen the blond boy drawing on. Shaking out the creases, she inspected the garment with a critical eye; it was a black shirt, non-descript in design with no frills or patterns. It was faded from use, the edges slightly worn and a small cleanly cut hole just under the armpit. That was obviously the work of a Kunai; the ANBU the shirt belonged to must have gotten into a fight on his last mission and hadn't quite dodged the blade from skimming him.

'Was it thrown or was it from a slash by hand?'

Shaking herself from her military thoughts, she returned to her original inspection. Having found nothing, she replaced the shirt on the pile and turned to the window which had now been shut, obviously by the same blond who had exited using it.

'What was he doing here?'

Shaking her head, she turned to the door that led to the ANBU HQ's halls of residence. It was best she kitted herself out and got to her patrol. It wouldn't do to be late, especially since she was meeting her new captain today. Hatake Kakashi had been an excellent field commander; she had never known the laid back man to make a mistake in judgement and it showed. He hadn't lost a single comrade in all his years of ANBU service, always going beyond enemy lines and above his true call of duty to ensure the safety and protection of his squad.

It was an impressive record and for all the elite-Shinobi's faults, he was still a captain that Yuugao would look up to for the rest of her life. She didn't know if this 'Tenzou' could live up to the same record...

But she would see. First things first, she had to report this odd movement to her superiors straight away.

Spinning on her heel, she glided to the room's door, quickly sliding it open and shutting it firmly behind her as she left. The shirt she had thrown back onto the pile lay awkwardly on its side; the moonlight from outside streaming through the window and catching on the inside of the material, just under the label where it would have rested on the ANBU member's neck. A small black seal glimmered as the light struck it, a foreboding black spider of characters, waiting to be activated.

XXXXXXX

3AM.

He had maybe two to three hours tops to complete the rest of his test before it would become too risky. Skipping sideways, he manoeuvred around a railing as he jumped to the roof of a red-brick building, his feet barely making a sound as he landed.

The Village was completely different at night, like a whole different world. The streets were invaded by a deluge of shadow, street lamps barely sufficient to navigate around. Naruto couldn't even see the cobblestone floor clearly from his perch. But what the lamps didn't make up for, the moon did. The silvery glow bathed the world in a mysterious glow, a feeling entirely foreign to the blond. How many times had he been awake on a morning like this?

Not many. He tended to sleep in late most of the time.

Grinning at his own internal joke, he spotted the entrance to the Hokage Tower ahead with the long flight of stairs to its right. His aim this time was the Hokage's office, so he could forego the formality of taking the traditional route. Jogging to the right of the circular building, he made his way around until he stopped in a small alleyway between the wall of the Tower and the north side of another building. The brickwork was slightly old and beginning to crumble; this was probably the evidence of the original Village infrastructure. Konoha had been built with the Tower and Monument at its centre; all of the later construction having spread out in all directions.

Naruto braced his foot on the side of the Tower and pushed Chakra to the soles of his feet.

This, at least should be the easy part.

Springing upwards, he ran up the wall as fast as he can...

Before landing on the ground on his head. Stars exploded before his eyes as his body slumped over backwards on his head.

"Ugh..."

'What the hell was that?!'

He rolled over slowly before pushing himself to his feet. Shaking his head as if to throw off his sudden vertigo, he placed his foot on the wall again and attempted to get it to stick. For some odd reason, his foot wouldn't stick at all.

'What's going on here?! Some kinda'...Chakra repelling paint?!'

Sighing at his obstacle, he flopped onto his behind, resting his chin in his hands. How the hell was he going to get up to the window?

Glancing up, the window to the Sandaime's office seemed so far away. What he needed was something like a catapult; stronger than the Chakra Pads technique but far weaker than say, the TSS...

'What could get me up there, which I could control, whilst still being able to change the height I would go up to?'

Pumping his fist in a sudden spark of intelligence, his eyes lit up as he realised just what he could use. Standing up, he brushed himself off from the gravel stuck to his clothes, the grimy, granular compound clouding the air as it was struck from his body, leaving a slightly moist feeling on his skin. He turned his back to the circular wall of the tower and walked as far as he could until he was right up against the opposite building. Crouching down he went through Anko's lesson on the technique he was about to use.

"Listen up brat! This is a defensive technique and not a particularly great one at that. All it does is raise a wall in front of you, so don't go usin' it when you need more than thirty degrees of protection! It should stand up to most techniques below B Rank, but if you get somethin' higher...Well we'll get to that later..."

'Crouch down and feel the earth as if it's part of you...'

Closing his eyes, he breathed in deeply, stretching his Chakra senses deep into the gravelly ground beneath him, searching and feeling every last speck of the rocky material, melding it, twisting it, becoming a part of it.

His eyes snapped open as he called out his Jutsu in his mind.

'Doton: Doro Gaeshi!'

Flooding the technique with Chakra, a solid wall of earth sprang up underneath him, catapulting his form at the Hokage Tower. Being the thrill seeker that he was, Naruto had to bite his tongue to stop himself from shouting in excitement as his blood pounded through his veins, the air streaming past him as he flew at the building. Everything was going so well! It was such a great idea-

CRACK!

With a yelp of pain, he found himself indented into the brick wall about a metre below his intended target. Small pieces of brick rolled from the jagged edges and tumbled to the ground where they formed a small heap of brick and mortar.

'Ugh, dammit...Nothing ever goes right on the first try...ever.'

Extracting himself gingerly from the hole, he stuck his feet firmly onto the edge with Chakra; the surface of the wall might have some weird anti-Chakra paint or something, but the actual brick certainly did not!

Slowly, he patted himself down carefully, making sure he hadn't broken anything.

'Ah well, even if I have, the fox will probably fix it...'

The Fox! As if hit by a premonition, the young pre-teen stiffened as his mind took a different path, one that he had never thought about before.

'Why...Why hasn't it tried to contact me? Why is it so quiet?'

Forgetting his impromptu mission his mind's-eye turned introspective. Surely the fox was a thinking, living entity? It had attacked Konoha for some reason after all, although if he was honest with himself, the blond Uzumaki knew next to nothing about the attack twelve years before. What had happened that day? Why had it happened?

And why was he the only one affected twelve years later?

That was a dangerous thought and he didn't want to fall back to his old mindset again. He was stronger now and far more capable. There was no way he would fail in his life after coming this far.

A small smile played over his lips as he raised his glowing eyes towards his goal. He could reach the window with a Chakra aided jump. But how could he get in without making a noise?

'Ah well! Gonna have to take risks sometimes eh?'

With another grin, he pumped Chakra into his heels and leapt for the window, smashing straight through the hardened glass. The solid surface shattered upon impact releasing a high note into the air as the window was thrown inwards under the impact.

Naruto landed quickly, right next to Sarutobi's desk. The ANBU would be here in less than ten seconds after that, so he immediately Henge'd into the form of the Sandaime Hokage.

It was time to put his earlier espionage as the Hokage to good use!

XXXXXXXX

Newly promoted ANBU Captain Yamato, or Tenzou, if you went by his real name, was plodding down the end of the corridor towards the Sandaime's office when he heard a distinct crash and the sound of glass breaking. Snapping straight into action, he raced down the hallway, his mind a hurricane of theories and battle plans.

The elite-Shinobi was a diamond in the rough. He had the bloodline of the Shodai Hokage, the ability to manipulate wood in any way he saw fit. It was a powerful asset for the Village, one that they would hate to lose and that granted the espionage operative a great amount of leverage in his decisions.

But then again, he was hardly ever wrong anyway.

He had been due to meet his new team this morning. Originally he had been assigned along with another ninja by the name of Sarutobi Asuma to the three man wonder team under Hatake Kakashi. Their record had been stunning; completing every single mission thrown at them, and even Asuma who had come in as a rookie, had risen fast up the ranks of the upper-echelon of Konoha Shinobi.

But as all things were in the world, the team was heading for inevitable change. Asuma had taken off his mask, both physically and figuratively whilst Kakashi had been switched to another, newer squad, and Yamato had been left with an empty after-taste that bugged him as he was re-assigned to a variety of teams. After serving under another two captains, the higher-ups decided that he was better used in a captain role himself and so it came that he was to assemble his team that very day.

The initiation mission standard for all Shinobi, was a simple set of objectives, usually no higher than an A-Rank. Yet Yamato's new squad had been assigned a C-Rank patrol mission in the Konoha Major. It was by no means a difficult mission, but as it was his first mission as a captain, he intended to make it count.

He was totally thrown off when a potential intruder appeared, or rather announced, his or her arrival in the Hokage's office. Foregoing the door, the newly promoted ANBU Captain Shunshined straight into the room.

As he experienced the slight disorientation from the sudden burst of speed, Yamato's eyes were met by a strange sight. The Sandaime was standing by the window, picking up shards of glass with utmost care and laying them on the side of his desk.

"HOKAGE-SAMA!...what's going on here?"

The Sandaime turned around, a genial smile spread across his lips.

"Ahh, Saru! Sorry about that! Damn kids these days! Seems they threw a brick at my window!"

Yamato cocked an eyebrow. Kids and bricks?

He took a look at the floor and there was indeed a brick lying at the centre of the mess of glass.

"Ah...I...See...Anyway! Sandaime-Sama, I am here for the portfolio on my new team."

The Sandaime nodded and bent down behind his desk and started rummaging through what Yamato could only think of as a drawer of some sort.

'A...Drawer? He stores information about the ANBU in his drawer?!'

Yamato decided right there and then that he'd never try to question the Sandaime's habits again; they seemed a bit...eccentric to say the least. It was a shame that his undying loyalty prevented him from looking further or he would have see a slight look of befuddlement cross the 'old Shinobi's' face.

"AAAAAAHA!"

The ANBU captain quirked another eyebrow as he saw the elder Hokage pull out his seeing ball. Wasn't he meant to be finding the folder on his new team?

"Err...Hokage-sama, aren't you meant to be looking for the folder that I asked for?"

The Sandaime's eyes seemed to twinkle as he smiled good-naturedly at his 'subordinate'.

"Dear Saru-san! In my old age, I have completely forgotten where I placed the folder and so I'm using my seeing ball to find it! Don't you think it's just so ingenious? What a lovely contraption it is, eh?"

If the elite Shinobi could have raised a third eyebrow, he would have. It seems the Sandaime's age was affecting him a lot more than the ninja population were led to believe.

'Is that the...Onsen?' His eyes flicked up to the Sandaime's before he blushed heavily and turned away. Did the Sandaime regularly spy on that?

"Umm...you forget to turn it off, Hokage-sama..."

The venerable leader's eyes widened comically as he took in the sight portrayed by the glass ball. If Yamato hadn't looked away in his shame he would have seen another look of confusion morph into one of complete and utter glee.

"Oh, no matter! All-seeing ball! I command you to find Saru-san's team folder that I have forgotten!"

Yamato almost sweat-dropped as he saw his leader moving his hands over the surface of the small globe as if he was casting a spell. More ridiculous yet, was the look of mystery and intrigue upon his face.

'I don't think I ever want to lead a Village...all the leaders seem to be crazy if what I heard about the Tsuchikage and Raikage were anything to go by...Then again, Hokage-Sama's not really any better is he?'

Yamato's treasonous thoughts convinced him that leaders were crazy. Maybe the job was too hard to handle or something.

'Wait a minute...I'm an ANBU Captain! That's a leading position too! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo'

His face comically degenerated into one that would totally freak anyone else out. So became the newly promoted ANBU Captain's 'Freak Face'.

"AHA! I have found it!"

Yamato's head snapped up as he viewed the Sandaime move to his bookcase on the right hand side of his desk and then pull out a green folder with the words 'ANBU squad 8: Codename Yamato' scrawled on its surface.

This time he did sweat-drop.

'He forgot the folder when it was right next to him...'

Sarutobi Hiruzen approached his 'subordinate' and deposited the portfolio into his hands before turning back to gathering up the shards from the floor. Taking it as his dismissal, Yamato made his way to the door uncertainly before stealing a glance at his leader. The Sandaime was hunched over humming a tune as he worked. Yamato shook his head and sighed. He had better get to his mission...

Trying not to disturb his leader, he opened the door and shut it as quietly as he could before taking off into the early morning. Inside the office, the Sandaime grinned uncharacteristically before making a hand seal and becoming concealed in a great puff of smoke.

Out of the smoke screen stepped a twelve year old blond who snickered into his palm whilst gathering up the glittering glass ball into the folds of his black night-jacket. With one last giggle he jumped out of the window and hopped over the rooftops towards the Hokage monument.

'Task number 2, COMPLETE!'

XXXXXXXXX

The population of Konoha woke to a very strange morning. The early risers didn't take long to realise that something was wrong; they could tell that the ANBU were about.

Usually the elite squads were so well hidden that the Villagers could never tell where they were. If a patrol ever ran into trouble, it was like they would pop out from thin air. But this morning, every ANBU member was followed by a stream of leaves apparently attracted to their posteriors.

It was a comical sight, and one particularly unfortunate ANBU attempted to get rid of them by using a Katon jutsu on his pants; he didn't stop to realise he was wearing them, thinking he was aiming at the leaves alone.

To one purple-haired ANBU member, the day's events were getting more and more bizarre. The leaves had been funny and all, especially when her new Captain had been forced to cover up his own backside with a hasty Mokuton Jutsu. Walking around a Village in broad daylight with a tree growing out of your...*ahem* was not the best way to maintain the 'badass and dangerous' outlook that the ANBU held.

Yuugao knew who had caused it of course; it had to have been the Uzumaki, and she had done the most logical thing in that situation by wearing her own clothes that day. She had a spare uniform in her closet and so she decided to forego wearing the HQ delivered set.

What boggled her though, was how he had done it. She was sure she hadn't detected anything on those shirts when she had scrutinised them, then again it had been dark and the shirt was black in colour. Maybe it was something black he had drawn...

'Seals!' She breathed out in excitement. 'Amazing! He could have killed every single ANBU out on a mission this morning and all he used was a seal!'

After realising the Konoha Jinchuuriki's intent, she decided against informing her superiors of the events she had witnessed. Every prank the blond kid had pulled so far, were ones that highlighted a very important area that was critical to Konoha in her opinion; Security.

Konoha had become lax, unreasonably so. Naruto was doing a good job in helping the ANBU make up for it and although it hadn't been made into an issue yet, it was keeping the patrol teams on their toes.

She had been very surprised to see the clouds in some weird formation though, that was some serious Fuuton work in her opinion. Her respect for the twelve year old went up a few notches even though she had no idea what the hell the clouds were meant to show.

Besides the leaves following around all of the ANBU squads, the thing that riled up most of her compatriots was the banner stretched over the Hokage monument depicting four people raising their fingers in a 'V' sign (one of them the other way around and Yuugao was sure that meant something besides 'Victory'). She recognised two of them; one was Hatake Kakashi, her former superior when she had been fresh in the ANBU and the second with the flipped 'V' was Uzumaki Naruto himself.

Most of the Shinobi population had been enraged by their leaders' faces, past and present, being covered by something as base and derogatory as that and so the whole Village was once again in a state of uproar. Yuugao had to hand it to the blond; he certainly knew how to cause total pandemonium at a moment's notice.

Yet for some reason, they couldn't find hide or hair of him! It was like he'd just disappeared off the face of the earth. His Chakra signature was nowhere to be found and there was simply no trace of him anywhere in the Village. Tenzou-Taichou had found a trace of the boy's Chakra in the Sandaime's office though, almost as if he had used a technique in there and it had led him to conclude that he was the one to break his leader's window that very morning.

For Naruto himself, he was having a great day! The sky was clear, the sun was shining (well apart from that large patch above the Hokage Tower, they would probably have some localised rain sometime in the day!). He snickered as he strolled along the throngs of shoppers crowding the Market District. His Chakra levels were at almost zero, and no-one would look twice among the masses of people milling about, some starting for lunch. The ANBU were a massive attraction that day and he'd heard one particularly funny remark that had set him off this morning that he'd kinda' forgotten.

Something about the new ANBU uniform being 'truly of the leaf'.

"Yo!"

Naruto looked up to find a grinning Kakashi facing him with his visible eye closed in an inverted 'U'.

"Ineteresting day, neh? I'm so glad I quit the ANBU you know? By the way, wasn't the cloud formation meant to be of the Sandaime picking his nose? That looks like one of your paint bombs gone wrong..."

Naruto simply held his gut whilst waving his hand at his friend.

"D-Don't say anymore...I c-can't take it..." He managed to ground out the words through his gasps of laughter.

Kakashi simply smiled at his young friend. It was stunning just how easily the blond had thrown the Village into uproar. A single morning and the entire Shinobi population were in cahoots, the upper ranks covering their shame literally. Anko had taught him well, they all had. And it was shown in his deviousness from carrying out every single one of those tasks with the gusto of a baker kneading his bread. Kakashi didn't think he'd ever like to fight this kid; he'd probably defeat him in the most despicable way possible and he would never want to be disgraced in such a way. The stories of what the brat had done to Orochimaru...

Kakashi shivered at that.

"Hey Naruto! I have a favour to ask."

Naruto breathed in deeply to steady himself as he glanced up at his friend.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, you see, my new Genin team are graduating tomorrow and I need to do a sort of test for them. Wanna help out?"

Naruto grinned and another shiver went down the Jounin's spine.

"Sure!"

'That was a bit too high to be innocent...'

Call him a genius, but there was one thing Kakashi felt at that moment...

Sorrow for his team.

ZZZZZZZ