12

The people of the town had rejoiced on knowing that Gato was finally dead and Tazuna could continue building his bridge in peace. The team returned to Tazuna's house to rest. Everyone had been running on adrenaline the whole fight, so after the high was over, everyone was notable exhausted.

Naruto had, much to Sasuke's extreme embarrassment, carried Sasuke back to Tazuna's house in bridal style, easily ignoring easy feeble attempts to let him go. When Sasuke had demanded Naruto to put him down, Naruto had smirked and in an all too innocent voice, said that Sasuke was too injured and as his teammate, it was Naruto's duty to help him. When Sasuke asked him why he didn't carry him like he did with Kakashi, Naruto smirked and replied, "I just felt like embarrassing you."

What Sasuke didn't know was that after the carnage that Naruto performed, he needed some form of relief. Unfortunately for Sasuke, comic relief always worked well for Naruto. Naruto had kept his amusement to himself, lest Sasuke reverted to sticking senbon in his body from just cursing like a sailor.

After that, things in the town were slowly getting back to normal. Naruto and Kakashi performed a raid at Gato's headquarters the night after the battle on the bridge, which they found out after asking for directions from the residents. They were surprised that many of them knew of the place, but avoided it due to fear.

They had ransacked the entire place, looking for the money they knew that Gato kept. It was actually a good distraction for Naruto, and a very beneficial one at that.

Flashback

Kakashi and Naruto entered the area of Gato, on full alert for any traps that lay ahead. They were here to find and confiscate all the money and valuables that Gato had earned over the years. Kakashi turned to Naruto.

" Alright Naruto, here is where we split. We probably don't have to worry about his thugs anymore because he brought them all to the bridge, but just in case there are, be on guard.

" You will be searching the main building, where the money is most likely kept. I will be scouring the warehouses. Since this country was not that rich to begin with, Gato would not be that interested in what it had to offer, instead letting his thugs have it and concentrating on his business. I will find the valuables and any evidence that can ensure that Gato's shipping company is shut down for good. All clear?"

Naruto gave a silent nod and as one, they dashed to complete their respective objectives. Naruto extended his senses and couldn't sense anyone, so he pushed on without hesitating.

He blew the front door open with glee that he rarely felt. Perhaps I should blow things up more often, he mused. He climbed the stairs, carefully checking for traps in places he suspected they would be, but found nothing on the first two of three floors. He was almost disappointed, almost.

He missed it. It was only after he lifted his foot that he heard the subtle click. The door was locked and his danger sense rang, slowing down his perception. He turned around just in time to see almost fifty knives rushing towards him, leaving no space for him to escape.

He was insulted.

' Fuuton: Toppa!' (Wind style: Breakthrough) and all the knives were blown back. Scoffing, he shook his head and simple jumped on the ceiling.

' Who would think to lay traps on the ceiling?'

He easily walked upside down and jumped down in front of the first door he saw. He opened it and looked around, noting that it was Gato's study. Eyes sweeping around, there was nothing worth noting except for a small safe. 'There has to be something important in there', he thought as he tried to figure out a way to open it. As much as he would like to, blowing it open was not an option as he risked blowing up its contents as well.

Eyes roaming around, looking for a clue, he spotted a piece of paper that was sticking out of the lamp . Curiosity growing, he plucked that piece of paper and had to keep himself from cackling like the devil. The safe combinations, laid bare, just like that?!

Hurriedly, he put in the combinations and watched the safe open. To his mild disappointment, there was only a sealed envelope inside. "Just what is he playing at?" he muttered.

Turning it around, his eyes narrowed as his fingers brushed across something. 'Dried glue,' he inspected as he tore it with little difficulty. He took out another piece of paper and read it, seeing a whole new set of numbers written in similar format in comparison to another piece of paper.

He chuckled, "This guy is just asking to get robbed." Looking around for one last time, noting there wasn't any other safe, he got out of the study and walked down to the last room on the floor. He opened at and after seeing what was in there, he shook his head in disappointment.

' Leaving so many doors open, what the hell was he thinking?' he asked himself as he walked close to the enormous vault door to put in the combinations.

He felt almost bored as he put the combinations. 'The dwarf's memory must be terrible if he needs clues to remember his clues.' He opened the door and barely kept his jaw from touching the ground. Piles of money taller than him stood in front of him. If Naruto had ever dreamed of drowning in piles of money, this would be defined as dreams turning into reality.

' Let's get to work then. All of this should be pretty useful in helping this country get back on its feet and then some,' he decided as he prepared to make some shadow clones, but suddenly a thought struck him. A thought struck him, a thought that made his mind start wheeling.

From the way he was thinking, all the parties could benefit from this, including him. But first, he needed to know how much money this was. Within a moment, twenty shadow clones popped into existence.

" Start counting," he commanded.

The clones divided themselves into groups of five and started counting by dividing the pile into smaller groups. It felt like an eternity and Naruto feared that Kakashi would suddenly bust through the door, but a call from one of the clones caught his attention as he was looking out on the grounds.

" Boss, we're done," he called out. Naruto turned back to see that the one large pile had been divided into five smaller groups. He mentally dispelled them and his eyes widened at how much the big pile amounted to.

' A hundred million ryo,' he thought, dumbfounded. 'What the hell was he planning to do with all this money?' he asked himself. He pondered over that for a while, in the meantime sending a shadow clone to give Kakashi a report of what he found. Altered, of course.

Finally, he came to a decision. Considering that this was a high A-class mission, one million ryo could be taken from this and ease the burden off Tazuna. From the ninety-nine million that remains, he would leave ninety million for the Wave country, while the rest of it, he could take it for himself.

Now that would normally make him feel disgusted with himself, taking the money that should go to the people of the Wave country, unless he hadn't taken a look at Gato's records.

Wave wasn't a rich country to begin with, so Gato didn't have much to siphon off, but what he did was no small figure. Thirty million, collected over a number of years, was a very large amount, Naruto believed.

That tremendously eased the burden of feeling guilty from his mind. He was giving back three times the original amount of money! With a firm nod to himself, took out three sealing scrolls. With the help of some clones, he divided the money into three parts; one for Konoha, one for Wave and one for himself.

He sealed his part first and put it in his right hip pouch just in time as Kakashi entered the room.

"… .What ridiculous amount of money!" he breathed. Naruto slipped into his 'Normal and innocent' mode, the mode he usually used to take the blame off himself after pranks.

Keeping his voice level, he nodded and said, "Yeah, makes you want to think what you would do if you had this kind of money."

They both looked at the pile of money. Naruto added in, "I already divided the pile up. One million for the cost of this mission, ninety million for this country to get back on its feet." He was counting on Kakashi assuming that there was ninety-one million ryo.

Thankfully for him, Kakashi did just that.

Kakashi nodded, not suspecting Naruto in the least. "Good, you got some sealing scrolls?"

After seeing him nod, he motioned, "Seal them separately and let's get back. I've found found what I needed."

Hurriedly sealing the other two parts, they exited the headquarters.

Flashback end

After they came back, it all went downhill. People who had abandoned Tazuna had come back to build the bridge. Naruto and Kakashi had informed Tazuna about the money they had taken from Gato's headquarters. Kakashi told him that he didn't need to pay Konoha for the increased difficulty of the mission since they had already taken it from Gato, which Tazuna thanked Kakashi massively for.

A massive celebration was held after the bridge was completed. The celebration lifted Naruto's spirits greatly, especially the part where Inari looked like he wasn't the host of a pity party anymore. Naruto was subjected to hero worship, a concept he as grossly unfamiliar with. Nevertheless, he took it in stride and indulged him as best as he could.

Finally the day came when the team finally returned to Konoha. They were standing at the end of the bridge, facing a massive crowd. The Konoha shinobi graciously accepted the thanks given by all the people. They faced the family who had hosted them at last. Naruto could say without doubt that he had never seen the small family of three so happy before. Inari, it seemed, had finally stopped clinging onto Kaiza's memory and moved on.

"I can't thank you guys enough for doing all of this for us. You have done such a great favor to us that I don't think we can ever repay you!" Waving off the protests that came from Naruto, he brightened up even more and said, "Whenever Konoha need some serious repairs, just call for me and I'll be there!"

He shook hands with Kakashi and bowed to Sasuke and Sakura, who bowed back out of respect. Turning to Naruto, he offered his hand out to shake. Naruto looked surprised for a moment, but recovered and gave a strong handshake to Tazuna with a genuine smile.

"We really are going to miss you, Naruto," he said. Much to his amusement, Naruto blushed a little before acknowledging the man's comment.

Naruto looked down to see Inari struggling to hold back his tears. It was a clear failure though, as tears flew like a bursting dam. "You told me not to cry…." He said as he furiously wiped his tears.

Naruto smiled softly as he knelt down, "It doesn't apply when you are happy, alright? Don't hesitate to cry if you are happy, promise me?" He offered a hand.

Inari gave a watery smile but shook Naruto's hand with as much force as he could, "Hai, Naruto-niichan!"

With that, he stood up and with a final goodbye, Kakashi steered his team back to Konoha.

A man in the crowd shouted, "What are we going to name this bridge?!" Everyone murmured similar things, eyes turning to Tazuna.

Inari tugged Tazuna's pants, "Jiji, let's name it after Naruto-niichan!"

A childlike suggestion from a small child, who wanted something that reminded him of the person he looked up to near him. But it clicked perfectly in Tazuna's mind.

A full smile blossomed on Tazuna's face at his grandson's suggestion, "You're right! Let's name it: The Great Naruto Bridge!" He felt it was a great name, considering how Naruto played a big part in giving the town its hope back and not to mention, he brightened up their family considerably.

The ride back home was not what Naruto's teammates called pleasant. It was a very unfortunate way for them to discover what a speed freak Naruto was. Sasuke's jealousy reared its head when he saw his blonde teammate telling to Kakashi that they are going too slow and he was speeding up and he will meet them at the Konoha gates. That did not sit well with Sasuke.

With that, Naruto had ran ahead of Kakashi, who knew exactly what Naruto was up to. He was trying to rile Sasuke up and judging from the impressive scowl on Sasuke's face, it was working spectacularly. Kakashi was more than glad to sit back and watch the show.

Sasuke increased his speed to catch up to Naruto, who would, unknown to Sasuke, smirk playfully and increased his speed so that he was just ahead of Sasuke. This continued until Sasuke was panting to just maintain his speed instead of outright falling behind his whole team.

When they reached Konoha, no one was gladder than Sasuke, who was barely standing from all the exertion. Naruto on the other hand, was barely panting. In fact, he seemed to be in deep thought.

Sasuke mustered a glare as best as he could while panting heavily, "You….are…..a freak," he said.

Naruto, for his credit, blinked once and turned to him with a confused look, "Huh, did you say something?"

It proved too much for Sasuke, who collapsed. Sakura ran to him, worry written all over his face. Naruto scoffed, and turned to Kakashi, who giving him a strange look.

It almost felt like reverence and….pride?

"They grow so fast," he heard the man mutter while wiping a fake tear from his eye.

Naruto rolled his eyes and spoke, "Are we going to the Hokage's office or not?"

The visit to the old man was interesting. When Kakashi first told him what had actually happened on the supposedly C-rank mission, he took a deep breath and calmly asked the genin to wait outside his office while he had a word with Kakashi.

Naruto had figured out instantly what was going to happen and walked out, but not before giving a shit eating grin to Kakashi, whose eye visibly twitched. He knew that the blonde knew he was going to get chewed out, and he was enjoying it.

Fifteen minutes of chewing out later, they were called back into the office again, where the Hokage congratulated them on surviving the mission and then congratulated them individually on their performance. Though things got a little awkward because he had nothing to praise Sakura for.

After telling them to collect their pay from the mission desk, he told them to leave, except for Naruto. Kakashi told Naruto to be at their training spot at eight before walking out.

"Naruto, I want you to tell me the truth. Are you alright?" his eyes were full of concern. Naruto smiled softly.

"Jiji, I'm fine. I've made my peace with what I did back on the bridge. If I hadn't did what I did, those thugs would have continued to terrorize the town. Also, giving the country a wave to rebuild itself was enough to lessen the burden on my mind," he explained.

Hiruzen searched his face for any sign of lie, and exhaled in relief when he found none. When he had heard it the first time from Kakashi, he was so stupefied that the pipe had dropped from his mouth. Naruto had done exactly what his father had done in the Third Great Shinobi war. He could not stop himself from looking at the portrait of his now-dead successor. Seeing Minato's cold expression he was reminded of how Minato's mere presence sent enemies running from him.

He shuddered as he once again compared the similarities between Minato and Naruto, imagining Naruto instead of Minato. 'Oh, Minato. If Naruto is even remotely similar to you, he will change the whole world. Of that I have on doubt.'

Looking back at Naruto, he could swear he had seen Minato standing behind his Naruto, having the same expression on his face. Waving his thoughts away, he said, "Alright Naruto. But if you have to talk about anything, you are welcome anytime," he added a smile.

Naruto smiled and walked out of the office to the mission desk to collect his money first. The chunin sitting there glared at him as he handed the money to Naruto. Naruto only gave a cool smile, further infuriating the man. After taking the scroll, he immediately used the shunshin to get to his apartment. He had a lot of things to do today.

After getting refreshed, he sat down at his table and made a list of what he had to do today.

First, put an order out for his Hiraishin kunai. They would be a bit different than those of his father.

Second, secure the money he had taken from Gato. That was the easiest as it won't be going into the bank.

Third, work out a deal to get his special kunai for free. He would have to work on that a bit.

Nodding to himself, he set to work. The first and the last task he would be doing himself, while the middle one can be handled by his clone. He took out a paper and a brush and started sketching ideas for a new seal.

The seal would be similar to the Nidaime's Gojo Kibaku Fuda . If he wanted his third idea to work, he would have to offer the Higurashi weapons shop owner something interesting enough in return, as his order was quite tall. Ideas swam in his head as he worked out the original seal.

Gojo Kibaku Fuda was a simple explosive tag with a small addition: a replication seal that would create an identical tag. The second Hokage had designed the chakra circuit such that it would first replicate the original tag before exploding. Then the other tag would create another tag before exploding as well, and so on. This would result in a chain of reactions that had the potential to be as powerful as a nuclear bomb. The best thing was only the first tag would be real, the rest would only be copies.

He frowned a bit. Obviously, he could not give this exploding tags to Higurashi. The Nidaime must have labeled this as a kinjutsu for a reason. He chewed on his bottom lip in thought as he tried to think of an alternative. He could modify a normal explosive tag to increase the power, but that was it. What else could he do?

His eyes suddenly brightened up as he remembered his battle on the bridge. How he had used the kunai kage Bunshin . It was similar to the tandem exploding tags, only it required a bit more chakra.

' I could simply replace the idea of exploding tags with kunai!' he thought in satisfaction as he set to altering the seal to suit the kunai. Half an hour, he looked at the tag he had managed to create. It could be mistaken for an exploding tag from a distance, but a mistake was all it was.

He created a clone, who took a kunai and wrapped the tag Naruto gave him. Going up to the roof, he faced the direction where the training fields were. Pushing half of his chakra, he threw the kunai.

Normally, a hail of kunai suddenly appearing would be a cause of concern, but since it was the clone's kunai and as such, only a construct of chakra, it would dispel along with the clone.

The clone watched with a self-satisfied smile as the kunai multiplied greatly. Seeing that the tag worked, he dispelled himself, which caused all the kunai to dispel. Gojo kunai rendan was a success.

Naruto gave a grin of satisfaction as he went through the memories. The tag worked, which means he could now go to the weapons shop. Gathering the tags, he stood up and created a shadow clones, instructions already given.

He then used the body flicker to get to the Higurashi weapons shop. Opening the door of the store, he blinked at the girl who was standing behind the counter.

She wore a pink Chinese top with a green lower and had her hair tied in two buns. She smiled at him, "Hello, what do you need?"

Naruto rose an eyebrow at her. It was obvious that she was a ninja from the headband, and a one that specialized in weapons judging from her heavily calloused hands. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto. You are?" He asked, politely, of course.

Tenten replied, "Higurashi Tenten, nice to meet you." Ah, so she was the daughter of the owner, he mused.

"Tenten, I need forty kunai, thirty shuriken and seven explosive tags," he said. Tenten wrote down the order and said, "Ok, I'll be back soon."

As she walked away, he called out, "Tenten!"

She turned around, blinking at him. "Yes?"

Naruto smiled and asked, "Could you also call your father? I have a special order I need to run by him."

Tenten narrowed her eyes at him a bit, which he responded by giving a cool smile. Nonetheless, she went to fetch his order and her father. He looked around the shop a bit, blinking when the memories of his shadow clones came to him. He nodded when he saw where the money was hidden, a place that no one except him knew. That would only be used in case of emergency.

He snapped back to awareness as he saw a large man coming from the back of the shop. He was heavily built, as expected of a weaponsmith. Even though his large stature added to the intimidation factor, he had a gentle smile on his face.

Tenchi smiled as he saw who had requested his presence. No matter how many times he saw him, Naruto only looked more like his old friend Minato.

"Naruto, how can I help you today?"

Naruto smiled and nodded his greeting, "Tenchi-san, I have a special order that only you can see." He gave an apologetic look to Tenten, who gave a playful pout, but smiled and went inside the shop.

Taking out a piece of paper from the counter and a brush, he started sketching.

Tenchi's eyes widened as he started to recognize the shape that was being formed. It was the famed kunai of the yondaime, only a bit different. While Minato's kunai's side prongs were slightly curved in a semi-circular shape, Naruto's kunai's side prongs were straight, if not a bit shorter than the original design. The middle prong was also a bit longer. Unusual, like his father's, but not impractical at all.

Seeing where Naruto was going with this, he said, "I can see that you want your design a bit different, but it can be done."

Naruto then decided to put his proposal forward, "I was also hoping to arrange a deal between us for a future discount on these kunai. A trade, if you will."

Tenchi rose an eyebrow in interest, "Oh?"

Naruto grinned and pulled out the additional tags that he created, "I think you will be very interested in these."

In ten minutes, he explained how the Gojo Kunai Rendan worked. At the end of his explanation, he put his offer on the table, "I keep supplying you these tags, for free. In return, you supply me the special kunai, for free. A fair trade, considering their battle potential."

Tenchi rubbed his chin in thought. He could see that the tags had a very high chance of selling. Hell, he might even say that the value of the tags were higher than the tri-pronged kunai, as it was only an oddly shaped kunai and nothing more.

Still, he needed to see how much thought Naruto had put into making these tags. "I don't know, Naruto. Don't you ninjas have a jutsu that multiplies the number of kunai as well? Why would they use this tag and not that jutsu?"

Naruto had half expected this question, so he answered, "The Kunai Kage Bunshin is a variant of Kage Bunshin, so it uses up a large amount of the user's chakra, leaving them very little chakra and a high risk of getting chakra exhaustion quickly. In my tags, you only have to push a little chakra to multiply the number of kunai by large."

Tenchi grinned, "You have a deal Naruto! As long as you keep supplying these to me, you can get your order for free!"

Naruto grinned and held out his hand for Tenchi to shake, "Then we have a deal. You can keep these tags, so how long before I can get thirty of my kunai?"

Tenchi shrugged, "You can collect them from me tomorrow." Naruto smiled and nodded, walking out of the store after collecting and paying for the order he gave to Tenten. He blinked when he saw it was already early evening. 'Might as well get some training done. Master those jutsus back from the wave,' he decided as he made his way to the Senju library. He proceeded to spend the entire night training with his shadow clones, which were in an absurd amount of two hundred.

Suiton: Daibakufu no jutsu, to his pleasant surprise, required him to reduce only two more handseals, bringing the number to eight. The Suiryuudan, on the other hand, would require much more training. Reducing the handseals to thirty was good and all, but the Nidaime was able to do it with just four hand seals.

Finishing his training for the day, he turned in, exhausted more than he would like to admit.

Naruto had a very uneventful start of the day after. He got up at five, did his regular running routine with increased resistance, came back and showered. He ate omelets for breakfast, played around with seals until it was ten minutes to eleven and then went to meet his teammates, who were irritated and angry at Kakashi, again. He thought that maybe, Kakashi might give them something interesting to do, like another C-rank mission or some training.

But no! They did some lame D-rank mission of taking the weeds out of someone's garden, before Kakashi dismissed them, saying something about keep training. After that, he was aimlessly roaming around, thinking about what happened after their mission. It was the only highlight of his day until now.

Flashback

" Alright, you are dismissed," Kakashi said in his ever lazy tone, eyes not moving from his book.

Naruto groaned, "Come on, Kakashi-sensei! It is only noon right now, we have half the day to do some training!" While Sasuke and Sakura didn't say anything, Naruto knew even they wanted something interesting to happen.

Kakashi calmly flipped a page, "Naruto, I dismissed you already. You can do your own training now." He looked up from the pages, "Trust me, it's better that you all train by yourself right now. Perfect whatever you have learned until now."

Eye smiling, he was gone in a puff of smoke. Sakura turned to Sasuke, blushing lightly, "Sasuke-kun, would you go out with me today, now that we're free?"

As usual, Sasuke scoffed and walked away saying, "You heard Kakashi-sensei. I'm going to train myself." He looked at her from the corner of his eye, "It's better that you do too. Right now, you are the weakest member of this team."

Naruto winced at his teammate's blunt words, but what he said was true. A simple punch was enough to take Sakura out, which was not a good thing. Shaking his head, he formed a half ram and vanished in a wind shunshin, leaving Sakura to her thoughts.

He was walking towards a dango shop when he saw team 10 coming out, chewing on some dango. Smiling, he walked towards them to catch up with Shikamaru and Chouji.

" Oi, Shikamaru, Chouji!" The mentioned genin looked up in surprise and smiled when they saw Naruto waving towards them.

" Yo, Naruto!" Shikamaru gave a lazy wave while Chouji was more enthusiastic. Ino, on the other hand, scowled a bit. She never liked Naruto. He was too loud and annoying according to her.

Naruto stopped in front of them, "What's up? Where's Asuma-sensei?"

Chouji replied, "Asuma-sensei dismissed us for the day. What about you, Naruto?"

Naruto shrugged in response, "Kakashi-sensei dismissed us early too. Very unusual of him, if you ask me."

Ino couldn't hold back her sneer, "Well, no one's asking you."

Naruto glanced at Ino and rose an eyebrow, "Nice to see you too, Ino." That was all he said before he turned to Shikamaru, asking if he and Chouji could spar with him.

Shikamaru sighed, muttering troublesome under his breath, but agreed along with Chouji. It would allow them to see how far they have come. Though he knew that they wouldn't be defeating Naruto anytime soon.

Ino scoffed, smirking at Naruto, "You really shouldn't be asking to spar with Shikamaru and Chouji. They would wipe the floor with you, dead last."

Chouji did not like what Ino implied and he prepared to defend Naruto when Naruto spoke before him, amusement written all over his face, "Oh, really?"

Ino nodded, "Even I could kick your ass. I bet that on the C-rank turned A-rank your team went on, Sasuke-kun saved your ass and defeated Zabuza."

Naruto looked confused and asked Shikamaru, "How do you guys know about that?"

Shikamaru replied, "Asuma-sensei apparently heard it from your sensei and told us."

Naruto nodded and turned back to Ino. This was the perfect opportunity for him to teach Ino a lesson about 'How to not act like a bitch.'

He asked her, "How about a spar, Ino? If you said you can beat me, then I wouldn't mind a workout right now before losing to you."

Ino smirked, thinking she could easily beat him, "Then let's go. Training ground 10."

After they reached there, Naruto and Ino stood in front of each other, with Shikamaru acting as the referee. "This is only a spar. You only knock the other unconscious, not kill them. Are you ready?" Even speaking in his lazy tone, he sounded serious. Must be a Nara thing, he mused.

Naruto and Ino nodded, falling into their stances. Shikamaru chopped the air, "Hajime!" He fell back after that.

Naruto, keeping his guard up and deciding to bait Ino, relaxed and put his hands in his pockets. Ino scowled and asked, "What the hell are you doing?!"

Naruto cleaned his ear, "It's just that…..you don't threaten me Ino."

Ino snarled and dashed forward, throwing a punch, intending on breaking his nose. Her anger turned into shock when Naruto simply stopped her punch with one hand, he didn't even look like he tried!

Shikamaru and Chouji were surprised as well, but not as much as Ino. They knew Naruto was not the dead last, even in academy. If anything, he was perhaps the strongest of the rookies. "Ino's going to get beat up, isn't she, Shikamaru?"

Shikamaru simply hummed in response.

Ino was getting very frustrated. Naruto was dodging her attacks like he had all the time in the world. And he was blocking them like they had no power behind them. She decided to goad him, "Hmph, are you too afraid of countering? Or you don't know how to counter at all?"

Naruto was quickly getting bored of Ino's pathetic attacks and pathetic ways of goading him. 'Better to end this, otherwise I'm gonna fall asleep' he thought.

Catching a punch that was coming towards his face, he gave a devastating punch to her gut, knocking the air out. He didn't even give her time to fall to her knees, following with an uppercut to her chin that was strong enough to straighten her up and finishing off with a spinning back kick that knocked her a few feet back.

Ino was barely keeping from crying in pain. Her stomach felt like someone had been jumping on it for an hour and she was pretty sure a few of her teeth were knocked loose. She barely registered Naruto's mocking voice, "You sure showed me, Ino. You're just as pathetic as Sakura. What were you saying about kicking my ass again?"

Gritting her teeth, she fought the pain and began to form handseals, only to get knocked out.

Naruto shook his head, "Some people are nothing but full of air." He then glanced at the other two, who were barely surprised. "Well, patch her up and tell her that the next time blows hot air, it better be fire for her own sake."

With that, he walked away.

Flashback end

Naruto was snapped out of his musings when he heard something behind him. Glancing back, he barely registered the urge to smack his forehead when he saw a brown box with two holes facing him.

It was an eventful day, meeting the old man's grandson. He had managed to, somehow, become a rival of Konohamaru in becoming the Hokage. He had knocked some sense into that boy's head, showing him that not everybody bowed to him just because he was the Hokage's grandson. Ever since that day, he became an object of hero worship.

Turning to the box, he said with some exasperation, "Konohamaru, square boxes with holes don't exist, you know."

A squeaky, muffled voice came from the box, "Wow! Discovering my presence this early! As I expected from my rival and my hero!"

There was a bright explosion of colored smoke, from which three figures emerged, coughing. "Hey, you used too much powder!" It was then they noticed Naruto looking at them with something akin to amusement.

Naruto was looking at Konohamaru and two other kids he had never seen. One was a boy with black hair, glasses and a runny nose. The other was a girl with orange hair, a slight blush on both of her cheeks. Konohamaru grinned up to Naruto.

"Boss, you have some time, right?" Naruto looked confused at what he was trying to say at first, but he quickly pieced it together. Hyper eight year old kid with friends, asking if he was free or not. Yep, they wanted him to play ninja with them.

' How about you humor them', Kurama asked with a grin. Naruto rolled his eyes, 'If I humor them, Kurama, I would be stuck with them all day. That is something I don't want to do,' he said with resignation.

Turning his attention back to Konohamaru, he said, "While I do have some time, I won't be playing ninja with you. You guys get too carried away," he tried to gently let him down. Then something struck him.

"Hey, you haven't introduced your friends. Who are they?"

"I'm Udon and I like numbers!" The black haired boy greeted in what was the deadliest voice possible.

"And I'm Moegi! The most beautiful kunoichi in Konoha!" The orange haired girl said in a bubbly voice. Naruto smiled, 'God, how innocent these kids are.'

"What's the point of a ninja playing ninja?" A voice that sounded detached came. All of them turned to look at Sakura, who looked like someone had just told her Sasuke was gay.

Naruto's expression became his usual bored, indifferent look, "Sakura, what are you doing here?"

Before Sakura could reply, Konohamaru nudged Naruto with a sly look. "Hey boss?"

"Hm?"

"She's your….right?" He asked holding up a pinky with a smirk. Naruto chuckled, "No Konohamaru, she's just my teammate."

That seemed to fire up Konohamaru even more, "Just what I expected from my rival! Her forehead is huge and her chest is flat as a board!" Naruto's head snapped to Sakura to see her reaction. Konohamaru might as well have signed his death.

Sakura's mood did a full 180 after hearing the kid wearing the blue scarf. She got a menacing look on her face and cracked her knuckles, clearly saying "You are dead!"

Naruto pushed Konohamaru, "Run kid! I'll meet you later!" Konohamaru needed to more pushing as he ran in the opposite direction with his friends, screaming in horror.

Naruto shook his head and made to follow him, ignoring Kurama's chuckles. 'That kid has a lot to learn,' he thought as he made a shadow clone who took after Konohamaru while he took a different path. If he was fast enough, his little rival wouldn't have bumps in his head.

He kept his sensing active to track Sakura's signature and made his turns such that he would meet them in the opposite direction. What he did not expect was face the back of two shinobi his age, one boy and a girl, the boy holding up Konohamaru who was terrified.

' That's not good,' he thought as he perfectly switched with his clone, and that was when he got a good look at the foreigners. The one that held Konohamaru honestly looked like a cat, with how his headwear looked. He was wearing face paint of all things, black sandals, black shirt and black pants.

The other one was the one who caught his attention in a way that no girl had caught before. He somehow couldn't stop staring at her. She was, by far, the most beautiful kunoichi he had ever laid his eyes on. She wore a single light purple colored, off the shoulders garment that extended to halfway down her thighs, with a red sash tied around her waist. She wore a fishnet over her exposed shoulders, along with on her left thigh and right calf. She was also carrying a large fan on her back.

She had her hair toed up in four ponytails, with a rather developed chest for her age, which he guessed was a year higher that them, curves in all the right places, slightly tanned skin, sandy blonde hair and alluring teal eyes.

Temari noticed the blonde boy staring at her and couldn't help the slight blush that came onto her age. He was pretty tall, easily a bit above five feet and obviously well built if how his clothes fit him were anything to go by. His hair, to her pleasant surprise, was a very golden shade of blonde, bordering on yellow. She looked at his eyes and her blush darkened a bit. His eyes were the most beautiful azures she had ever seen, staring at her with curiosity and something else she couldn't identify, but it gave her a warm feeling.

She shook her head and focused on her brother, who was glaring at the kid with annoyance.

"That hurt, you damn brat!" He was clearly pissed off.

Naruto decided that now was the time to intervene and with a hidden signal to his clone, spoke up, "You might want to put him down, kabuki boy."

That only seemed to piss him off even more, "Yeah? What if I don't?" He then froze, getting the unmistakable feeling of a kunai on his neck. "I don't need to say it, right?"

Temari looked with wide eyes as the blonde who was standing before them had somehow made a clone who was holding a kunai to her brother's neck. And they hadn't even seen him move!

' He's good,' she thought as she saw Kankuro grudgingly release the boy, who ran and hid behind the blonde's legs. A second later, a pebble hit his hand, which he clutched in pain and cried out, "Who did that?!"

Naruto couldn't help the sigh that came out. 'Didn't he say he was going to train?' he had already sensed Sasuke, who was standing on the branch of the tree behind him, bouncing a pebble in his hands with a superior look on his face. Interestingly, he also sensed another guy, who was giving off a very malicious feeling and oozing off killing intent like nobody's business.

Deciding to address it later, he turned his attention back to in front of him.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura shrieked. Naruto rubbed his ringing ears at the terrible soprano. Temari looked at Sasuke, 'Hm, he's cute, but he's nowhere as handsome as the blonde,' she smirked, eyes turning back to check Naruto out.

Kankuro snarled and made to grab the package on his back, which Naruto deduced to be a puppet judging from their sand headbands and the fact that Suna is known for puppets, when he decided to intervene. Temari asked, "You're going to use Karasu, Kankuro?!"

"Wait!" His sudden exclamation momentarily stopped the sand shinobi momentarily. He pointed to the tree behind him, "I just wanted to know if the guy standing behind my teammate is with you or not?"

Both of their eyes widened along with Sasuke's, who whipped around to see a redhead standing upside down on a branch behind him. He had a kanji for love on his forehead, teal eyes with black rings around his eyes, giving him an appearance like a Tanuki and he was carrying a gourd on his back.

He disappeared in a whirl of sand and reappeared by the side of the puppet kid. "Kankuro, stop it. We're not here to cause trouble. Stop embarrassing our village," he spoke in a voice so cold that even Naruto shivered. However, the reactions of the sand shinobi were even more scared.

Kankuro stammered out an apology, "G-Gaara! They started it! They-"

"Shut up, or I'll kill you," Gaara said in his deadly voice. Kankuro shut up immediately.

Gaara turned to the Konoha shinobi, "Apologies to you guys." They made to walk off when Sasuke jumped in front of Naruto and demanded in an arrogant voice, "You there! What's your name?" pointing to Gaara.

All three of them turned, with Gaara speaking, "Sabaku no Gaara. What's yours?"

Sasuke gave off s challenging smirk, "Uchiha Sasuke."

"I wasn't talking to you," Gaara said monotonously, eyes turning to Naruto, who straightened up. "Uzumaki Naruto," he said in a strong voice. Eyes shifting to Temari, he smiled and asked, "What's yours?"

Temari smiled in return, "Sabaku no Temari, nice to meet you." They looked into each other's eyes and kept staring, neither wanting to look away. Unfortunately, Sakura chose this moment to speak up.

"Listen, although Konoha and Suna are allies, our treaty prevents shinobi from entering each other's villages without permission. State your purpose." Naruto simply looked on, his face not betraying anything.

Temari spoke up, holding up her passport, "As you can see, we're genin of Sunagakure no sato, Kaze no kuni. We've come to this village to take part in the chunin exams." She gave a mocking smile to her, "Don't you know, being the genin of the host village?"

Naruto gave a shake of head from behind Sakura, clearly mouthing, "Our sensei hasn't informed us yet, Temari."

Temari had thankfully seen him and received his message, giving him a nod. The three sand siblings then turned and walked away, leaving team 7 with Konohamaru and his friends.

"You all should already know why people from other villages are here," the Hokage addressed the assembly of jonin and chunin.

Kakashi spoke up, "Is it that time of the year already, Hokage-sama?"

Asuma replied to him, "I believe so. I have already seen a few shinobi the age of our genin in our village."

Kurenai spoke up. "When is it, Hokage-sama?"

"Seven days from now, Kurenai-chan. Now, will all the jonin step forward who are in charge of the newest batch of genin?"

Asuma, Kakashi and Kurenai stepped forward. Hiruzen gave them a contemplative stare and asked, "Do you wish to enter any of your genin in the exams?"

Kakashi spoke up, "From the squad that I lead, Team 7, I recommend Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke and Haruna Sakura to the Chunin selection exams under the name, Hatake Kakashi."

Asuma spoke next, "From the squad that I lead, Team 10, I recommend Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji and Yamanaka Ino to the Chunin selection exams under the name, Sarutobi Asuma."

Kurenai was the last, "From the squad that I lead, Team 8, I recommend Hyuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino to the Chunin selection exams under the name, Yuuhi Kurenai."

The crowd behind them erupted into murmurs. "All three of them nominated their teams!" "All the genin being entered are fresh rookies!" "It's been so long since rookies have been entered in the chunin exams."

Iruka, who had been standing in the back and watching his former students, who were not even one year into their career, get nominated for the chunin exams, could hold it anymore.

"Please wait, Hokage-sama! Permission to speak?"

Hiruzen gave him a silent nod to continue.

Iruka then spoke frantically, "Excuse me for saying this, but your nine students were once my students in the academy. They need more experience before they enter the chunin exams!"

Kakashi knew that Iruka was worried about Naruto, but he was now Kakashi's student, not Iruka's. So he spoke up in a serious tone that betrayed his lazy posture, "I became a chunin when I was six years younger than Naruto."

Iruka's comeback was spot on, "Don't compare Naruto to yourself, Kakashi! He is different!"

Kakashi knew that Naruto could easily ace the exams, but he addressed the issue that was common among all genin. "The genin are starting to believe that a shinobi's life is easy. Putting them in dangerous situations might set them straight."

Iruka began speaking, "But-"

"They are not your students anymore, Iruka-sensei. They are my subordinates now and as such, I am the one who will make such decisions for them," he sternly reminded the gentle chunin-sensei.

Hiruzen spoke to the defeated Iruka, "Iruka, I see where you are coming from." Iruka lightened up a bit, "Which is why, the rookies will be put through a special preliminary round. Dismissed!"