NARUTO 13

Nobodon was up early today because word had gotten around that the Hokage was going to make an important announcement today in the main square. He was just an unimportant orphan attending the ninja academy so he only got to see the Hokage during the opening and closing ceremonies. So he got up early so he could get his workout in before he attended the announcement.

Classes had even been called off for the morning so the students could attend, but that was no reason for him to slack off in his training.

While Nobodon was quietly gathering his gear so he didn't wake the other kids in the joint room they shared, he spent a moment considering his life here in Konoha. He considered himself pretty damn lucky, actually. He had somehow made friends in their first year with some of the clan heirs that were in his class, especially Carl Hyuga.

Right from the first he had seen how most of the civilians in the class had acted, not taking their training and classes seriously, they had constantly been sucking up to the Uchiha grump. Nobodon knew that his future success as an orphan depended on him succeeding in becoming a ninja, not on how good he could suck up to the Uchiha, so he had avoided the group that had been trying to hang onto the grump's coattails.

And amazingly enough, the Hyuga heir, Carl, had seen his hard work, and that of his two friends with civilian backgrounds, Junirio and Yamiko. He had invited him and his two friends to join them for training on a regular basis, which was amazing because usually there would be no one to help him get better aside from the academy teachers. And they wouldn't spend their free time after class helping him learn how to get stronger, since he had no backer. As a civilian and an orphan, no one would normally take the time to make sure he was understanding the curriculum and excelling in his studies since he had no political power, no money, no nothing to attract anyone to help him.

But Carl Hyuga had given him the opportunity to change his circumstances. He was different from those other rich kids.

Carl had even gifted him, Junirio, and Yamiko the most amazing belt that helped them develop their physical capabilities more. Back when Carl had gifted them the belt, what he said had made a lot of sense to Nobodon.

"The academy curriculum has changed greatly this year from the past." Carl had seriously explained to him, Junirio, and Yamiko. "My cousin Neji had started last year before they made all the changes. They used to have more classes for physical and combat training, and the practical work of a shinobi, and only a few classes a week for academics. Previously they would assign more of those academic studies for homework, done in the student's own free time."

"But in order to accommodate all the Uchiha ass-kissers that don't work hard, they adjusted everything to focus on academics so those fangirls can stay in class instead of getting kicked out. But that decision mostly hurts civilians like you who are serious about becoming ninja, because the clan heirs have training from their families to fall back on, while the civilians have nothing. I noticed you were serious in your desire to become ninja. I figure we can help you out with your goals, and Konoha get's another three serious ninja who won't die the first month they begin doing missions outside of the village."

So he, Junirio, and Yamiko had joined the rest of the clan heirs in their near daily afternoon training sessions. And he had learned a lot from them. About teamwork, battle tactics, traps, evasion, pursuit, and many other skills that the academy just wasn't teaching them.

Nobodon was in heaven, learning all that he could from the clan heirs. He swore he would pay them back one day!

Nobodon exited the orphanage quietly and began his workout in the field behind the orphanage. Just because he had a morning off from the academy was no reason to slack!

After his workout, Nobodon showered and got dressed, still wearing the gravity and resistance belt that Carl had gifted him. As an orphan it wasn't often that he received a gift, and when he did they were usually candy or little toys. The training belt that Carl gifted him was precious beyond all other gifts he had ever received. Not only was it amazing and surely expensive, but it helped him train constantly, so he almost never took it off.

After a bland but filling breakfast with the other kids, he made his way out and followed the crowds that were gathering in the open square to hear the announcement by the Hokage. Standing in the middle of the crowds, Nobodon felt a little frustrated. He was still pretty short, so he couldn't see past the heads and shoulders of the crowd.

Nobodon almost slapped his head when he suddenly remembered that he was training to be a ninja. Gathering his chakra to his feet like he had trained to do with Carl and the clan heirs, he walked up the nearest building to find a perch on the roof so he had a clear view. The wood that all the buildings in Konoha were made from came from the forests that the first Hokage created, so they were particularly tough and resistant to people constantly climbing and running along them.

Looking around, he saw large crowds of civilians. There were pockets up at the front of the crowd where the civilians didn't dare push against, where groups of the various clans of Konoha were gathered to also listen to the announcement. The ninja clans of Konoha were highly respected by the civilians, but also envied. He had heard plenty of talk from them in the market place and elsewhere about how if a civilian girl got accepted as a wife of a member of such a clan, then their future was pretty much assured.

He wasn't a girl, so those rumors never directly affected him. But because of the clan's prestige, he wasn't surprised that the civilians didn't dare push up against the groups of the clan members who were just standing there.

He spotted plenty of upper year academy students and lone ninjas also hanging around the roof tops like him. A moment later he spotted his two good training partners and friends a short distance away, so he roof hopped over to them.

"Hey guys. Morning." Nobodon greeted Junirio and Yamiko when he arrived.

"Morning Nobodon!" Yamiko cheerfully greeted him while Junirio just gave a lazy wave in response.

"Any idea what the announcement is about?" Nobodon asked his friends. He was just an orphan so he usually didn't get too much news. But Junirio and Yamiko had families and some ties to the civilian council, so they often heard extra bits of news at home.

"No idea." Junirio lazily stated. "I heard that the ninja council met yesterday, pretty much all afternoon, but no word about what they talked about."

"I hope it's not anything bad." Yamiko worried while nervously biting her lower lip.

"I'm sure it's not bad. If it was they would have had an emergency announcement yesterday, and not wait for a scheduled one like this." Junirio offered, which seemed to ease Yamiko's worries.

"Yeah, you're right." Yamiko lightened up a bit.

"Hey, here comes the Hokage." Nobodon blurted out as he saw the third Hokage come out and stand on the stage that was on one end of the square for public announcements. "Hey, who's the blonde guy and redhead lady next to him? And why is Naruko there with them?"

"Yeah, the blonde guy looks kind of familiar." Yamiko frowned in thought.

"Shh, he's talking." Nobodon hissed, which caused Yamiko to give him a dirty look, though he didn't see it since his gaze was focused on the Hokage.

"People of Konoha. Today I have a wonderful announcement for you. Through some unusual circumstances that can't be easily replicated, we have had a few important members of our village returned to us from beyond the grave." Whispers and shouts followed the old man third Hokage's announcement. He waited a few minutes for the whispers to die down.

"Standing next to me is the fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, returned from the dead. Next to him is his wife Kushina Uzumaki and their daughter, Naruko Namikaze-Uzumaki. Today is indeed a great day, for I'm announcing once more my long awaited retirement. My replacement, once more, will be the fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze. Please welcome him with a round of applause."

The three academy students looked at each other in amazement, absent-mindedly clapping along with everyone else.

"Holy shit. Naruko is the Fourth's daughter!" Nobodon exclaimed.

"Watch your language." Yamiko hissed at him, before also gaping at the stage. "Wow, she really does look like her mom and dad. How did no one know who her parents were?"

"And why was she treated so horribly by most of the teachers and lots of the civilians?" Junirio wondered aloud.

"Who knows." Nobodon shook his head. "I bet you a week of lunch that a bunch of those Uchiha ass-kissers are going to be hounding Naruko now."

Yamiko gave an exasperated sigh at Nobodon's language. She knew he didn't have any parents to correct him, and since he sometimes joined some of the day laborers to earn some pocket money he had picked up their colorful language. After more than a year of failing to curb his language, she only gave token protests anymore just because she didn't give up easily.

"No bet." Junirio replied as he kept half an ear on the fourth Hokage's speech about what he was planning to do as the Hokage once more. "I only bet when I have a chance to win, and that's a suckers bet."

"Damn." Nobodon acted like he was more disappointed that no one took the bet than he was. "I could have gotten a week of free lunch."

"Hey, look at that." Yamiko pointed in a particular direction after the fourth Hokage's speech was finished. "That's really weird."

Nobodon looked over and saw what Yamiko was pointing at. A group of Hyuga with their weird pale eyes were chatting, smiling, and laughing with those around them. They didn't have their foreheads covered like they usually did. It was very odd to see any Hyuga but Carl, Hinata, and Hanabi actually smiling. They were usually stone faced.

"Damn, seeing a Hyuga smiling and laughing is really weird." Nobodon laughed.

"And look how much it's freaking out the civilians around them." Yamiko laughed.

Nobodon laughed even more when he saw the creeped out faces of the civilians as they were edging away from the unnatural sight of happy Hyugas.

In those very same civilian's minds, they were frantically trying to make sense of the world that had gone so…odd. Something was fundamentally wrong and broken in the world. First the dead return back to life, which was really great because they had the fourth Hokage and his wife back; and now Hyuga clan members were smiling and laughing. Not to mention that Naruko, the demon child, was actually the fourth Hokage's daughter? They needed some booze to handle this new, broken world.

"Well, I'm off to get some more practice in before the academy classes after lunch. Want to join me?" Nobodon finally asked his two best friends once he finished laughing.

"Sure, I've got nothing better to do." Yamiko cheerfully agreed.

"Okay." Junirio kept his sentence short, as was usual for him.

The three academy students then roof hopped away to find a practice field where they could practice their skills.

XX

Carl walked into their academy class in the afternoon with Hinata. The two of them immediately saw that Naruko was already there and surrounded by a bunch of the fangirls of the Uchiha who were trying to make nice with her, now that her heritage was known.

Hinata exchanged glances with Carl, and the two of them immediately acted.

"Alright, that's more than enough." Carl announced as he deftly forced the few fangirl guys away, causing them to stumble over themselves. Hinata meanwhile was working on doing the same for the female fangirls. "Go take your seats and leave Naruko alone."

"Hey, how dare you be so casual with Miss Naruko!" One of the displaced male fangirls yelled as he jumped back to his feet from where Carl had caused him to fall and angrily pointed a finger at Carl. "And who are you to say that we can't be friends with the amazing and lovely Miss Naruko! I've always admired you, Miss Naruko. Can we hang out this afternoon? I'll even buy you some ice cream from the Silver Flight Sweet Store if you join me!"

The voice of the male fangirl turned sickeningly sweet as he tried to give Naruko smoldering looks. It failed abysmally because he was a scrawny runty nine year old that never worked on his physical fitness. An unimpressive nine year old trying to imitate sexy was doomed to fail miserably.

"Don't talk to my friend like that!" Naruko yelled at the guy fangirl. The idiot fangirl thought Naruko was yelling at Carl at first, delusionally thinking that his offer of ice cream had won her over. At least until Naruko grabbed him by the shirt and threw him back forcefully. "Carl has been my friend for a long time, and I don't want to see anyone badmouth him!"

The fangirl lay on the ground, mouth gaping in disbelief that Naruko wouldn't fall to his "charms". He was sure he did exactly what his mother and father had told him to, so how did it fail?

"Go on back to your seats." Hinata sternly told all the fangirls with an angry look on her face.

Hinata was furious that they were trying to act like they hadn't been annoyances and enemies of Naruko before this morning and were trying to pretend like Naruko couldn't remember that fact.

The fangirls had hoped that if they pretended to be her friend, then Naruko would be dumb enough to accept them in order to have someone be kind to her. Little did they know they were more than three years too late to make a friendly overture, especially because just the day before they had been quite rude to her.

As stupidly delusional as fangirls were, they still understood the looks on Naruko, Hinata, and Carl's faces that they wouldn't get anywhere at the moment and slunk back to their seats. They would change up their strategy and try to wear Naruko down into accepting them over the next three years of the academy they had with her.

Little did they know their plan was doomed to failure. They would have barely three months to work on their "plan".

Over the next ten minutes the rest of Carl's friends trickled in. Yakumo sat next to Carl like usual, with Naruko on his other side and Hinata next to her. Carl greeted each of his friends when they arrived and took their usual spots. Ino and Sakura sat just in front of Carl. Shino, Choji, Shikamaru, and Kiba sat in the row behind him. Nobodon, Junirio, and Yamiko sat in the row in front of him and next to Ino and Sakura.

Sasuke sat in the front row all the way against the window, and the rest of the fangirls in the class sat in the front rows, with a few girls fighting as usual to get the only spot next to Sasuke.

"Okay, sit down and shut up!" A voice boomed over the talking voices of the academy students.

Carl looked up to see that an unfamiliar teacher had entered the room. Based on the scar that crossed the ninja's face at the bridge of his nose and stretched from below each eye, Carl could guess that this was Iruka Umino, one of the only decent teachers in the academy in the original story. They hadn't had him as a teacher yet, which had made Carl wonder just where he had been up until now, since he had meant so much to the original Naruto.

"My name is Iruka Umino." The ninja with a forehead protector and his hair up in a high ponytail sternly glared at the students. "I'm your new teacher, since the curriculum of the academy is going through a revision. The Hokages were not too impressed with the reports of how the academy system and lessons had changed, so they changed it back to a better curriculum. I'll be with you for the next three years as I and my assistant teachers teach you everything you'll need to make genin upon graduation."

"Now, the past year has done woefully little to prepare you physically for the shinobi lifestyle. The sedentary classes and little amount of time spent on your physical development and skills has, sad to say, put you far behind where an academy student should be at this point in time. Unfortunately for you, we'll have to work even harder to bring you up to the expected levels over the next few months."

Iruka paused as he looked over the facial expressions of the students. Most of the civilian kids, aside from three that were sitting with the clan kids, were looking nervous at the change in curriculum. The clan kids, and the three civilians sitting with them, on the other hand were looking attentive, even hopeful at the mention of a curriculum change for the better. The lone exception was Sasuke Uchiha who sat in the front and looked bored, annoyed, and angry, as usual.

Iruka sighed at the sight of the Uchiha boy. He really didn't look like he would be a team player, which meant that he was destined to fail to become a genin, since there was a huge political shift and the civilian council was practically powerless now. They wouldn't be able to put on economic or political pressure to get their way.

"So the schedule has been completely revamped. First thing in the morning at 8:00 will be physical training. This class will be 2 hours long and will be used to build up your strength, speed, flexibility, and endurance. I'm warning you now, this two hours of physical training is important, but you need to have the drive to do more exercising on your own if you have any desire to be a ninja."

"After a short break, we'll return to the classroom to review basic ninja skills, strategies, and chakra control exercises for 45 minutes. After another break, we'll have a Taijutsu class for an hour."

Iruka felt a sense of sadness at seeing the reactions of most of the civilian born students. They were looking horrified at the new schedule, instead of happy. Iruka didn't feel like those civilians would make it to the first three month evaluation that he had yet to tell them about.

"After an hour lunch, we'll come back and work on team exercises. All of our ninja forces work in groups of at least three, so team synergy is very important to your ninja career. After a fifteen minute break we'll be spending another 45 minutes in the class going over maths, ninja code and rules of Konoha, codes, sciences, nutrition for ninjas, and other such life skills. A fifteen minute break will be followed by the final class of the day, which will be survival training and mock ups of ninja missions."

The civilians were visibly groaning and whining, which annoyed Iruka. They didn't even have the discipline to stay silent while their teacher was talking.

"Silence!" Iruka yelled while doing his big head jutsu which was an illusion to make his head appear to be the size of a beach ball. The civilian students in the front row were scared to silence. If his sense of smell was any indication, one of them actually wet themselves. Iruka groaned internally. There was no way this group of civilian brats was going to make genin, not without a lot of work and luck. Maybe not even with a lot of work. At least the group in the back seemed to be made of sterner stuff.

"Now, the final item to mention is that, due to the changes, there will be evaluations on all students in three months. If you aren't making significant progress towards the standards you are expected to keep, you will be removed from the program at that time."

Carl and many of his friends snickered at that news while watching all the fangirls moaning and groaning at the unfairness of it all. He had no sympathy, they were in a class to teach them how to be ninja. Assassins, bodyguards, escorts, and combat and sabotage specialists. They weren't training to be cheerleaders or clerks or anything like that. If they weren't prepared to do what was required to survive in this dangerous profession, it was best they were kicked out early.

Carl kept an ear open to the rest of Iruka's speech, but inwardly he was being amused by the situation he had caused in the village. It was good that enslaving Danzo, cutting off the power of the Civilian Council, and bringing Minato back to be the Hokage once more had changed so much in the village.

Even though he would once more be letting a blood clone replace him for schooling while he moved on to finding the third summons clan he would need before getting his invitation to the Divine Dragon clan, he didn't want his time in the academy to be too boring. He still got all the memories of what his blood clone experienced, after all.

And while he had all the skills needed to survive in this ninja world, he was glad that his friends were going to be getting a more in depth and relevant education in how to be ninjas. Heck, even for himself it would be good to go through the curriculum and subsequent genin life of a ninja so that he knew what was expected, made ties with his fellow ninja, and gained experience.

Besides, that was part of the fun of being in new worlds. Experiencing the lifestyle that the inhabitants did, and enjoying what the world had to offer. Of course it didn't mean he couldn't cheat and stack the deck for himself and his people. He would be stupid if he didn't.

As they left the classroom to go do some team exercises for the first time in the academy, Carl enjoyed chatting with his friends. He was especially amused by the glares he was receiving from various fangirls. They would be gone in three months if they didn't shape up, and he wouldn't miss them.

XX

"So, what is this circle supposed to do?"

Carl looked up from the ritual circle to see Anko, Minato, Hiruzen and Hiashi entering the room where he was setting up a ritual circle.

"Hello." Carl smiled and waved at the group. "This is a ritual circle that will tap into the magical, er…Yin energies. Since I have a piece of Orochimaru's soul from the Cursed Seal of Heaven, there is a sympathetic link back to him. Using the piece of him that I have, I'm able to basically reel the rest of his soul and essence in to the circle. It will essentially kill him, since his essence, chakra, spirit, and whatever will be dragged from his body."

"Can you do this with anybody?" Hiruzen looked like he was a bit disconcerted at the idea that anyone could do a ritual and kill them from such a long distance.

"Well, it really depends on what part of the person someone has. For Orochimaru, since he left a piece of his soul behind in the cursed seal, I can do pretty much anything to him. If I had someone's hair I could maybe give them a bad case of acne for a couple days, or a case bed hair for a week. Having someone's uncontaminated blood I could send some pretty nasty debilitating curses." Carl saw that the idea of someone doing that with their blood was concerning to the ninja, since they got injured regularly.

"You don't have to worry that much about the blood, really. If the blood was spilled on the battlefield, for example, it would be contaminated with the earth or whatever it fell on. That would fuzzt out the connection since it would also be trying to connect to the entire land where the blood fell." Carl tried to comfort them with the knowledge that doing curses and rituals wasn't that easy to do. "To use blood, it would have to be taken specifically for the purpose of the ritual, and you would have to use some magically neutral metals. Using an iron kunai or shuriken wouldn't work, as it would ruin the sample."

"Well, that's good news." Anko cheerfully said while Hiruzen and Minato nodded thoughtfully. Hiashi simply stood by with a smile on his face. The changes that his son Carl had caused to happen in the village and among the Hyuga still made him very happy. He was very proud of what he had accomplished.

"Ready to get this started?" Carl asked, looking at the people that were most concerned with what Carl was about to do to end Orochimaru. Jiraiya might have been there too, if he wasn't still out and about with his spy network, since he was Orochimaru's old teammate and a spymaster of Konoha.

"Yes, go ahead Carl." Minato nodded with a smile of his own. He still felt he owed a great debt to Carl for bringing him and his wife back to life so they could reunite with their daughter. The past several days had been amazing. While he had to take care of some of the official duties of Hokage, he had made sure to be home every evening so he could spend time with his reunited family.

Kushina hadn't even bothered to rejoin the jonin ranks, since they didn't need the money and it would take time away from her ability to spend as much time with Naruko as she could. Every morning and evening Kushina had been joining the group that centered around Carl as they trained and spent time together as friends. None of the kids actually minded having an adult with them, especially not Naruko who was still basking in the love and attention she was receiving from finally having parents.

Once Carl got the go ahead, he placed the scroll that had trapped the piece of Orochimaru's soul into the circle and began the chanting and magic injection that was needed to power the ritual.

A wind started whipping through the room, causing everyone's hair and clothes to get mussed. A heavy sense of oppressiveness was felt, and then a sort of tearing sensation was almost felt from the ritual circle.

A moment later in the circle, a ghostly apparition appeared. It looked like a ragged version of Orochimaru was floating there, with many small bits of holes in his body, and an expression of pain and rage on his pale face. Carl didn't let up, but continued to feed magical power to the ritual, since he could feel all the links to the various bits of soul that he left behind in people.

It was similar to back when he used the ritual on Voldemort in the Harry Potter world. As he tugged on the various parts of Orochimaru that were still out there, those pieces of soul didn't want to go. So they latched onto the people they were imprinted on and began dragging the host's energies and essence with them.

As the pieces of Orochimaru were returned to him, the chakra and power of the various people he had put his cursed mark on were dragged along. The ritual circle easily held all the power in place, not letting it free to rage as Orochimaru wanted to do.

Once Carl felt the last piece return to the main spirit body of Orochimaru, he began the next part: cleansing. The ritual circle was basically whipping up a froth of spiritual, magical, and chakra powers. It was stripping the essence of Orochimaru and whoever else's power came along for the ride, and letting the spirit essence drift on to the next life, while keeping behind the pure energy.

Orochimaru was ground down to nothing in the resulting sphere. Bits and pieces of him were torn off in the storm, which cleansed them and added to the power of the storm. Piece by piece, Orochimaru was destroyed.

Once all the power that was trapped in the circle was cleansed of the taint of Orochimaru, Carl funneled it into a large modified Potentia. The energy batteries from the Stargate universe were modified to work with more than just the pocket dimensional energy that the ancient Alterans worked with. The modifications were based on all the technology, magic, profound crafting, and crystal artificing that he had learned through the various worlds.

The large amount of chakra and life energy siphoned down into the Potentia as easily as water down a drain, and didn't even fill it up.

With the ritual finished, Carl let the energies wind down to a finish, releasing his hold on his magic. He turned to his audience to see their stunned faces at what they had witnessed. Anko's face was the first to change to a gleeful and giddy expression.

"Finally! The bastard is dead! Oh what a wonderful day!" Anko laughed as she danced around the room. "I'm going to eat dango and drink sake until I pass out. It's time to celebrate!"

"Anko! Keep this event a secret!" Hiruzen called out before the happy special jonin could run out of the room. "We don't need to stir up our enemies against us if they think we can kill them remotely."

"Got it, Hokage." Anko called out without losing her cheerful demeanor. "My lips are sealed!" The woman then ran out to find her bestest buddy Kurenai to celebrate with her.

"Well, that was somewhat anti-climatic." Minato stated with a smile. "I didn't think the snake would go down so easily."

"Yeah, that's why it's not a good idea to leave pieces of your soul lying everywhere." Carl shrugged as he began cleaning up and dismantling the circle.

"Why are you dismantling the circle, Carl?" Hiruzen asked as he pulled out his pipe so he could have a good smoke. Even though Orochimaru had turned traitor and was working to destroy their village, he was still someone Hiruzen had trained and made emotional ties with. It wasn't easy to watch the end of someone you still cared for somewhere inside.

"Eh, I figure I don't need to use this ritual for just anyone. Not everyone goes splitting off pieces of their soul to attain immortality. I only use this ritual for someone like Orochimaru, or some other enemies in my past lives, that were trying to attain immortality and usher in all kinds of hell on earth. Most normal opponents just need a good beating, or killing sometimes."

"I see."

"Once you're finished with that, you'll have to hurry to finish lunch before you need to be back at the academy, Carl." Hiashi finally spoke up, having seen no need to interject before.

"Yes, father." Carl simply nodded and sped up his work cleaning everything up before racing out the door.

"Do you ever worry about him and his past life memories?" Hiruzen asked while peering over at Hiashi.

"No." Hiashi didn't bother getting offended at the doubt that Hiruzen expressed, it was the role of a Hokage to look at all angles and be suspicious of things such as that. But Hiashi was a father and had faith in his son. "He has never done anything to warrant suspicion. He has done everything he can to strengthen his family, and by extension Konoha as well. He has strong ties to the village so he is unlikely to turn against us."

"But he built another village." Hiruzen pointed out. "Are his loyalties not divided?"

"I think he's fine." Minato interjected before Hirizen could keep pushing and anger Hiashi. "He's a very active boy with a lot of power. He wouldn't have been able to do anything as an eight year old here in the village, no one would listen to him. But he saw a lot of people in the world who needed help, so he did something about it. The village he built is allied to us, and we are benefiting greatly from his trading company. There's no reason to go looking for problems when there are none." Minato firmly stated, warning Hiruzen not to push it any further.

"As you say, Hokage." Hiruzen gave in gracefully. He was just throwing his concerns out there with no real expectation to act. As long as Minato and Hiashi were aware of the concerns, they would keep an eye out to make sure that Carl didn't turn against them. As such, his goal was achieved and he backed down when Minato made such a strong statement.

The three men then split apart, going their separate ways.

What none of them knew was that the moment that Carl had finished the ritual that killed Orochimaru and crippled or killed anyone with his Cursed Seal, Carl's forces from New Uzushio were working on saving any people that Orochimaru experimented on, as well as vetting the ninja forces in Sound to see if they would make a good fit in New Uzushio.

Only about 13% of the ninja forces of Sound made the cut. Too many had internalized Orochimaru's predatory world view, which wasn't something that Carl wanted to include in his New Uzushio. Being cruel to enemies and killing off opponents was one thing. But too many of Orochimaru's forces thought nothing about preying on their own civilians and fellow ninja.

And Carl wouldn't allow that kind of attitude in his new village.

XX

With things more or less settled in Konoha, Carl once more left a blood clone behind while he returned back to the Chameleon clan in the Land of Summons to continue his training.

While in the Snake clan and learning Senjutsu from the snakes, he had been injected with a bit of venom from the White Snake Sage that acted as a conduit to the Natural energies that they used in their Sage arts. He had then been left to sit cross legged while connecting with the Natural energy in his surroundings and mixing it in equal portions with his own chakra according to the methods of the Snakes.

The Chameleon clan, on the other hand, had him hanging upside down on a branch after eating some specific mushrooms that helped him connect with the Natural energy in the area. The methods that the Chameleons used were a bit different from the Snakes. While they both accomplished the same thing in the end, namely mixing Natural energy with his chakra to use in Senjutsu, the end result was quite different. Both clan's Sage Arts enhanced his strength, speed, and endurance, simply because of the great amount of energy that flooded his body, but the techniques and focus was different.

The Snake clan Sage Arts was focused on enhancing his physical capabilities so that he was faster and more agile. The Chameleon clan Sage Arts were focused on using Senjutsu to make him sneakier, blending in with his surroundings, and be capable of confounding the enemy.

So the methods that Carl used to connect with Natural Energy through the Chameleon clan's methods were different and had him hanging upside down on a tree branch, focusing on blending in to his surroundings like a Chameleon.

With his metamorphmagus abilities to change his appearance and physical attributes, he already had the mindset needed for the Chameleon clan's Sage Arts, so it didn't take him very long to master their version of Senjutsu.

After he finished his training with the Chameleons and while he was searching for the next summoning clan contract, he fell into a routine. One day every week he would spend in the Snake clan with his partner Dakir, continuing to train with her. Dakir was a very clever and skilled snake, and they were becoming quite good at fighting together, as well as becoming friends.

One day every two weeks he would spend among the Chameleon clan, working with their young as they trained. Carl was amused by the more laid back attitude of the Chameleons compared to the Snakes.

The rest of his time was split in several ways. Since he had plenty of people looking for the next summons contract, he decided he would spend part of his time in Konoha with his family and friends, even if it meant he would have to attend the academy. At this point the academy wasn't as much of a drag as it was before, since it had a lot of practical classes that weren't boring. Unlike before where the teachers basically read books to them.

He would also spend time in New Uzushio with his new friends, Nawaki, Karin, and Hanako. He could see that the three of them and his blood clone were becoming good friends, and he had fun joining them regularly.

He continued spending time with his Silver Dragon Flight members. He found that his Dragon form was still growing larger as he aged. He knew he had the blood of a Dragon God inside him, combined with the fact that he was the faction leader of his flight, so he was growing to fulfill the duty of being the leader of his race.

In the Azeroth world, the leaders of the Dragon flights were known as the Dragon Aspects. Five Dragons chosen by the Titans to be empowered to guard an aspect of reality. Time, Life, The Wilds, Magic, The Earth.

Carl had no idea if after thousands of years if he might grow into being an aspect, empowered with an aspect of reality. He was pretty sure that in the World of Azeroth that he would never have become an aspect because the Titans weren't around anymore, but he wasn't in that world anymore. It wasn't something he worried about; if it happened, it happened.

And besides, he was still a pretty young dragon at only a few centuries. He probably wouldn't get anywhere with that for thousands of years, at least.

So even though it might take some time to hunt down another appropriate summoning contract, Carl wasn't yet worried about failing the scenario. If it took too long, he could always reverse summon himself to the land of summons and take a trip in that land to the next nearby clan that was subordinate to the Divine Dragons and work on becoming their summoner in person.

But Carl was pretty lucky; after a few months he found an appropriate summoning contract in the Land of Dragons for the Wyvern Clan. The Land of Dragons was pretty much on the exact opposite side of the world from the Land of Fire. Going east from the Land of Fire across the Chigiri sea would bring one to the Land of Water, where the Kiri village was located. Further east was the Wani Ocean, followed by a large continent. And at the eastern edge of that continent, which had many countries, was the island country of the Land of Dragons.

Strangely enough, the Wyvern Clan's summoner contract was sitting abandoned in a rarely visited manor library in the capital of the country. After doing some research, Carl discovered that the family's manor where the contract was found used to be a ninja clan years ago. But the heirs of the clan had lost the desire and drive to keep up their skills, and so they eventually buried all their ninja scrolls in one of their libraries and forgot about them. Now they were considered nobility, so they hired ninja instead of training to be one.

Carl briefly debated whether or not he should simply snatch the scroll up, or if he should approach the Noble family to negotiate payment for the scroll.

He spent a bit of time researching the family, and discovered they had a reputation for being quite greedy. If they knew they had valuable jutsu scrolls in their library, they would likely take them to the auction or simply sell them for favors to their country's ninja. Carl didn't want to rely on the kindness of a notoriously greedy family, so he simply took the summoner's contract scroll, and the entire jutsu library while he was at it, and left behind a pile of gold to pay for it.

It felt like the proper thing to do so that he wouldn't subconsciously think he owed the family anything for taking their family's summoning scroll. They hadn't done anything wrong to him personally, so he wanted to keep the balance books even. If they had done something to him or his people, he wouldn't have felt any guilt about simply taking their things to balance the books.

Once he returned to New Uzushio, Carl signed the contract with his blood. He then reverse summoned himself to the Wyvern clan with a puff of smoke.

Ever since he had his encounter with Manda, he decided it was better to simply go to the summons land to meet the clan he was a summoner of. It had worked pretty well with the Chameleons, so he figured it would be fine for the Wyverns.

When the smoke cleared from his eyes, Carl looked around and saw that he was standing on a bare mountain crag with a huge drop off in front of him. He couldn't even see the ground through the clouds that were obscuring the ground a hundred meters down. All around him were mountain peaks and ledges. It kind of reminded him of Thousand needles, albeit a bit more cold and more dark browns and not tans.

A sharp whistle suddenly sounded, causing him to look for the source of the sound. Looking behind and to his left, he spotted the Wyvern that was sounding the alarm perched on a rocky needle over 70 meters away from him. The Wyvern was perched on its two legs, with its wings folded up. It was a predominately dark red color, with tiger stripes in various shades of brown.

Before Carl could introduce himself, he heard the sound of wings flapping coming from all around him. Looking around with his Byakugan, he saw there were dozens of Wyverns emerging from caves and flying over. They found places to perch nearby and simply stared, waiting. Carl decided to follow their lead and waited for whatever they were waiting for.

A large dark blue Wyvern came soaring down from above, nearly silent in the air. It was a massive beast, its wing span seemed to be at least two hundred meters, its long whip-like tail was trailing behind, acting as a rudder that helped guide its flight.

With a few flaps of its wings, it settled easily on the largest needle peak near Carl and simply stared for a moment. Carl looked into its blue vertically slit eyes, seeing the intelligence evident there, like all the summoning clans.

"So. You are our new summoner." The enormous blue Wyvern finally intoned in a deep bass. "You don't look like much." The various Wyverns perched around hissed in laughter.

"Yup, I'm a small package, but I pack a big punch." Carl stated agreeably. A little bit of needling to see what his character is wasn't too bad.

"Hmm. Well, let's see how well you'll fit in here among us in the sky, little one." The big Wyvern launched himself into the air. "Keep up if you can little one. If you can't, then I guess you don't deserve to be our summoner."

With that Big Blue flapped its wings and started soaring away into the air.

Carl snorted in amusement. Any normal ninja would have no way to keep up with the Wyvern in the air. Carl, on the other hand, had numerous methods to fly. He could pull out his Firebolt from the Harry Potter world, keep himself in the air with his profound energy, turn into a dragon, summon one of his flying mounts from Azeroth, manipulate gravity, use his teleporter, summon the Yamato or even his Profound Ark. Heck he could even grab one of the Wyverns that were still sitting nearby and force them to fly with him on its back.

He was simply spoiled for choices.

Since he was in the Naruto world, Carl decided to stick to the methods of this world. Like flipping a switch, his eyes changed from the normal pale Hyuga color to a silvery blue lotus flower shaped iris. He leapt into the air and controlled the gravity around him to fly after the large wyvern he mentally nicknamed Big Blue. He flew through the air fast enough that he caught up rather quickly.

He didn't even need to go into Tenseigan Chakra mode to catch up with Big Blue.

After playing follow the leader for a good hour, Big Blue finally landed on his enormous peak. Carl settled down behind him. Big Blue shifted around so he was facing Carl while sitting in his nest bed.

"Well, at least you're comfortable in the air, little one. Tell me, what is your name?"

"I'm Carl Hyuga."

"Hmm, the Hyuga clan brat. Yes, we've heard of you from the Snakes and the Chameleons." Big Blue mused. Carl wondered just how their messaging service worked. "Very well. Since they spoke highly of you and you passed the test, we will expect you to fulfill your part of the contract and train alongside our young ones. When you have demonstrated sufficient skill in our martial way, you may return to me for Senjutsu training. Based on what they tell me, it shouldn't take you too long."

"Thank you. Er…what should I call you?" Carl asked.

"Why, Big Blue, of course." The bass rumblings of laughter surrounded Carl, causing him to chuckle a bit and nod to Big Blue in greeting.

A green Wyvern landed nearby, bowed to Big Blue and then turned to Carl.

"Follow me, hatchling. We shall see how well you do in the way of Wing-fu." Without waiting for Carl to acknowledge his words or introduce himself, the green Wyvern launched itself into the air with Carl following behind.

Big Blue looked after Carl's form as they flew away.

"You already have Their interest, young Carl. You have proved how clever and skilled you are. It only remains to be seen if you will be steadfast over the next few years as they test your resolve." Big Blue muttered to himself. "A small test of your character, with a big reward if you succeed. Good luck, little hatchling."

XX

He blinked his eyes open and saw an unfamiliar ceiling above him. It was wood and painted white, nothing at all like the drywall of his own room. Sitting up, he saw he was in a hospital bed of some kind and his head was aching something fierce.

There were many bouquets of flowers on the nearby tables and floor, with notes pinned to them. He reached out to grab one of the notes, and that's when he noticed that his hand was much smaller than he was expecting.

He stared in shock at his small pale hand. He was definitely smaller than he should be. Picking up one of the get well cards, he realized he couldn't read the writing. Seeing that there was a mirror propped up on a cabinet in the corner, he got up and limped over to see that he was in the body of a ten year old kid. He had black eyes, delicate features, and peeking out from under the bandages was black hair.

'I…I'm not in my original body anymore.' He dumbly realized. He felt weak at the realization. He made his way back to the bed and dropped into it, trying to make sense of his circumstances. 'So if I'm not Dewey Bullock anymore, whose body am I in?'

Dewey wracked his brain, trying to remember the last thing he remembered in his old life.

'It was a Saturday. I was walking down the street to the corner store to pick up some frozen pizza, I remember that much. I saw some kid bouncing a ball against the wall on the other side of the street and it rolled into the road. A car was coming. I yelled at the kid to get back from the road, but he didn't hear. Some other dude ran out into the road and saved the kid from getting run over, but the car swerved, hit a truck, which diverted it and smashed into me. I…I died.' He realized, remembering the pain and blood from his body being smashed by the truck.

Dewey looked down at his body. His pre-teen body. He had a head injury, judging by pain and the wrapped up head. The realization hit him.

'Transmigration! I've occupied the body of someone who had died! Score!' After celebrating for a bit, a realization hit him. 'But wait, if I've transmigrated, aren't I supposed to get a memory pack, or something, right? So I can at least learn the language!'

At that moment, random memories began popping up in Dewey's head. He experienced the memories as if he had lived them, but they were somewhat disjointed.

He saw himself growing up as a kid, learning a language, getting training from his parents. He discovered that his name was Sasuke Uchiha. His older brother was Itachi!

'Holy Shit! I got the jackpot! I'm Sasuke freaking Uchiha! I get the Sharingan! So cool!' Dewey crowed to himself, careful not to say anything for fear of bringing nurses and doctors to his room while he was in the midst of receiving his memories.

'The world is my oyster with this! I've got the hax like sharingan!' Dewey bragged to himself before the memories grabbed his attention again.

He watched Sasuke's early training in taijutsu, throwing shuriken and kunai, blowing big fireballs from his mouth.

Dewey was ecstatic! He was going to be a badass ninja! Sasuke was revered in Konoha and treated like royalty. He could gather himself a harem of honeys! Sakura, Ino, Hinata, Temari, Tenten. Heck, if he played his cards right, he could even get the older ones like Kurenai, Anko, Yugao, and even Tsunade! Maybe even some of the ones outside of Konoha, like Mei, Samui, Yugito Nii, Karin!

The list was huge that he could have!

He really lucked out in this world! Unlike his last life, he was going to be drowning in women! They would flock to him because he was Sasuke freaking Uchiha!

The memories that were showing him the end of his clan made him a little sick, seeing the blood and guts everywhere, so Dewey tuned out the memories as much as he could while he planned out what he would do in the world of Naruto.

He knew the plot, he knew what was coming, so he could make this world his playground!

Dewey only paid enough attention to the following memories to see that he had the fan base following like he expected to, then he didn't pay much attention to the classes in the academy. He saw that it was mostly book learning, and with the Sharingan he could totally memorize everything to catch up to anything he didn't pay attention to.

He already began planning the amazing things he would do in this world! He would be a god!