Chapter Twenty One

The third test had come. Sasuke had been late, as before, delaying his own match by hours as the sun moved across the horizon enough for Shikamaru to use in his own fight.

Naruto had dropped enough poison gas bombs around Neji to strangle a horse (which was actually fairly easy, an appalling percentage of their body volume was lungs, and those still had to pump like bellows to keep the rest of that creature moving at the velocities they did). Safe in his too-tight armor, the gas had done him no harm because of built in breath mask, so Naruto had won that round with amazing ease.

At least something had gone right.

Much hadn't.

It had been so long Naruto had basically forgotten about the invasion. In an abstract sort of sense he'd recalled it, but he'd failed to plan for it in any meaningful degree, and so that had gone... poorly.

Trying to save the Hokage and stop Gaara both at once without previous planning, Naruto had managed to do neither. Orochimaru had knocked him out quickly with wounds that could have killed anyone else. His clones had stood up bravely to Gaara, but in his advanced demon mode as he was it was all they could do just to slow him down.

The village had been all but destroyed by the invasion forces. Many shops and buildings got leveled, high level ninja destroyed, and the streets littered with debris.

And, on top of everything else, when Naruto woke up under Anko's care outside of the infirmary, there having been no room for him within, he'd asked and she'd been forced to answer that in spite of his performance during the test, and the valuable contribution he'd made to the fight after, the village had elected not to promote him to chunin.

"But... but, WHY?" the blond called out his query in anguish of soul.

Anko sympathized, she really did. But the kid had to be grounded in reality, so telling him everything was going to be alright was a lie, and that left only a colder form of comfort for her to offer.

"Y'know, kid, don't worry about it too much. Chunin tests are as much of a popularity contest as anything. Look at me, why don'cha?" She gave him a self-deprecating shrug, allowing a moment of letting him see a fleeting glimpse of the vulnerability she had on inside, under her 'tough gal' exterior. "I could take almost any jonin in this town, most of them I could beat two or three on one. I could beat half of while them drunk or hung over. But I'm only a special jonin. You want to know why? My old teacher got into some freaky stuff that made himself so unpopular he got thrown out, and his reputation hangs in the air around me like a stink. There's nothing that I can do to get rid of it. People suspect I might've been brainwashed, that I'm a sleeper agent he's just waiting to activate. And you know what?" She shrugged. "I can't say they might not be right. I've got gaps in my memories of my time with him, and that's a BAD sign."

She paused for a moment, considering, before popping him a genuine smile, albeit a slight one. "But probably not. This whole invasion was the sort of thing you use sleeper agents to prepare for. We only survived by a thread, so this was a finishing move meant to kill us. If he didn't activate me for this then I'm almost certainly not his pawn." The lady stretched, and gave him a sad smile. "Hey, you gotta find your comfort where you can."

She sobered instantly, and informed him, "Still, this town hates him and everything about him. Now you've seen good reasons as to why."

The former apprentice of Orochimaru turned her gaze off into the distance and heaved a big sigh. "But you know what? That's nothing compared to the Kyubi. However much they may hate and fear my old teacher, that doesn't even make a dent in how much they hate and fear it."

"Her," Naruto absently blurted out while his mind was still caught up in the shocked horror of having been denied promotion after so much WORK.

"Huh?" His teacher found herself thrown off track.

Naruto tapped the side of his skull. "The demon fox is in a coma just now, and it wasn't too hard to slip inside the bars of her cage. So, while checking over the thing's wounds I lifted up the tails, just to see. She's a girl, not like it matters any."

"Okaaay," the special jonin blinked several times, somehow put off by that thought, but she quickly rallied, getting back on topic.

"Face it kid," Anko told him bluntly. "People don't see you, they see the fox. And they hate the fox. You'd need Kage-grade skills to make chunin rank in this town. You're too much like me, surrounded by a hate you did nothing to deserve. In spite of whatever skills I gain, I don't expect that I'll ever have more rank than I do now. I'm amazed they let me get this far, actually. And I suspect Sarutobi had something to do with protecting me from even more blocked promotions than I already suffered. Since they hate you more than they've ever hated me..." she sighed, before admitting a harsh truth to him. "I think you'd better get used to being a genin."

With that, she left him alone with his thoughts.

Naruto was left behind, miserable, until he thought about it a few seconds more. He'd need to have Kage-grade skills, huh?

Well then, he'd get them!

It was almost a relief when he woke up in the morning to face the first test of the chunin exam, all bright and early in a fresh and undamaged town, the Hokage back alive and every possibility once more placed before him.

The boy smiled widely. If being Kage-level was the only way to achieve the promotion he felt would get him out of this time loop, he'd do it! No Problem! He'd wanted to do it anyway, ever since he could remember!

And seeing that battle over again had given him TONS of new ideas!

The boy threw himself into his training with a fervor and passion unknown to him for quite some while. He was going to be Hokage!

Let's see, that meant being stronger, and faster, and he couldn't do that through training. He'd have to have some kind of chakra boost to his body, something like Kiba's family did.

And, come to think of it, he'd need an honest way to face Kiba and win...

I I I

"You!" Naruto threw open the door to the kennel and pointed a finger at Hana Inuzuka, Kiba's older sister. "I need your clan techniques!"

The woman smirked, not pausing in brushing her dog. "Sorry kid, not going to happen. They are for our clan members only. No exceptions."

The boy thought about it furiously for a second, before approaching and pressing himself nose to nose with her. "Marry me."

At this the female dog ninja broke out in barking laughter. "No way! Not gunna happen! Go sniff around someone your own age, brat!"

I I I

"Naruto!" Hana shouted out, awash in pleasure, before surging up off of the couch and grabbing him by his lapels. "Marry me!"

"Of course, I'd love to," he agreed demurely, setting aside the massage oil to take her in a hug, giving a wink to the clones in the background who went on playing soft music in the string quartet they had formed. The clones in the kitchen cooking food pumped fists while those presently designing her outfits amid the scented candles paused to give each other high fives.

"But I wouldn't want to feel an outcast on the inside," he murmured. "I've already had enough of that from the rest of Konoha. So really I couldn't agree unless I was going to be taught the clan techniques."

The older woman dragged him down to enjoy a fierce, animalistic kiss full of fire before releasing him just an inch to proclaim proudly, in a low growl, "One of our bitches just had a litter of pups. She'd a good bitch. You can get a quality familiar out of her lot, who were just going to be trained up as general replacements anyway. And I'll start teaching you the rest of our techniques tonight."

"Tonight?" The boy feigned surprise, as he was allergic to delays and wanted things NOW whenever possible. "Why not right now?"

"Because we're going to be busy," she declared, dragging him back down before the startled boy could even yelp.

The two then began a make-out session that put her scent all over his body, marking him clearly as 'her property'.

I I I

The boy had discovered that water techniques were now coming to him more easily than most others. Part of the reason why was easy to guess, as his primary form of chakra control training lately had been that ANBU-level river thing, soaking the water with his chakra.

Well, he'd finished that book now, and the suggestions it gave were few in specifics, but wide in generalities, bunches of theories but little practical value - which made it no wonder it was still on those shelves while the others had been checked out.

Still, theory was good for something, and Naruto knew just what he wanted to do. There was a great deal more wind around Konoha than there was water so he planted himself atop the Hokage monument and began adapting that same river exercise to the passing winds, filling them with his chakra so he could watch those patterns as they dispersed.

Not about to be tied down to any one idea for long, the next day he was also sitting on rocks, letting his chakra flow out of him into the ground, seeping into every cavity, vein and crevice. It didn't move like water or air, but there was so much there, minerals all reacting in slightly different ways to his chakra infusion, that there was much to learn.

The day after he was sitting atop of one of the town's power transformers, allowing his chakra to seep out along the electrical lines and listen to the flow of that kind of energy as it got transmitted along.

That left only one element uncovered and to his surprise he found that one the easiest of all. He'd been troubled over how to do that same thing without getting burned, as in every other case he'd had to be actually touching the energy, or very close to it, to perform the exercise.

No. No problem. It was initially scary, and at first he'd been all prepared to have clones pull him back, but once a fire was completely infused with his chakra he could influence it not to burn him anymore, convince it to send its heat elsewhere, and by doing so not get scorched or set ablaze.

And that discovery kicked all of those exercises up to the next level.

Soon he found himself adjusting the air currents in the wind in minor ways, then he began to do the same with water, and when he turned that to the power lines, well, things got interesting, as he learned he could tell it not to go one way over another, and by doing so cut off power to entire buildings.

Earth was harder to figure out an advanced exercise for, until he began to think of Gaara's sand. While he couldn't move it the same way as the red haired vessel, when he dribbled it out of his fingers he could let the grains fall in very specific ways, so that one mineral fell to one side, and others to their own. In this way he could play in a sandbox and by dribbling the sand out of his fist create a mound of sand particles, with one side of it a glittering pile of tiny metal dust motes that had been part of the mix.

Starved for progress, and seeing it at last, the boy would send clones out every day to do each exercise in a handful of different places so he could do all of his elemental training simultaneously. Some clones would be placed up or down the river, others feeling the wind from atop the Hokage monument, buildings, or trees. Earth was in plentiful supply, although electrical power was not over-abundant. However, he could make as many fires as he wanted.

By sending a handful of clones out to do each element simultaneously, he did gain some benefit out of doing the multiple training thing, too. Some would be on Earth, others Fire, and so on, so that each day he'd gained progress on all of them, and how welcome that progress was!

His chakra control began shooting higher, until he was back to where Ebisu would call him "Decent, almost average", which opened up his whole range of battle techniques for use in stressful situations again!

All thirty of them, plus those that Anko had taught to him.

Better still, while he had his limiters on, he had close enough to good control to qualify for much better medical knowledge and skills.

So, having his chakra powers back, Naruto also sent clones out to use and master them, using those same principles and exercises that Ebisu taught him for perfecting his basic three. He didn't just send out clones to use his battle jutsu either, but also his camping techniques and the essential eight, so he was effectively training to perfect each of them all day every day.

No need to waste time, and being free of the infinite reset loops, even just having been out into that extra month, had resparked some of his creativity that had been smothering under the weight of infinite repeating sameness.

What's more, having chakra control sufficient to use his advanced special powers in battle without those fragile limiters, he was no longer trapped in a single week and a day.

He faced both of the Gaara and Kiba fights just to prove to himself that he could. That he could now beat those two, who'd previously been all but insurmountable obstacles to his progress.

Deciding he still wanted to play with his new and better equipment, Naruto wore it to the fight against Kiba, and the dog user, as he took his place opposite him, called out as before, "You think no one's ever used a stink bomb on my family before, Uzumaki? I could smell you carrying those bombs before we even went into the forest!"

"I know," Naruto replied calmly, even confidently, gazing evenly at his friend. "I knew you could smell everything that I possess, from my poison packets to the number of kunai I'm carrying and what dye I used on my clothes. Just as I know you've got an almost symbiotic relationship with your dog familiar, to the point where you have begun to share each other's traits. I know that you can understand his barking. I know of your man-beast clone technique, and allow me to say that I admire your execution of it. I know you typically begin fights using your Beast Mimicry technique, which grants you extra strength and speed above your already admirable levels. I know that you are very loyal, Kiba, and I believe that you truly do deserve to be a chunin - however," the blond boy gave his friend a shrug. "Unfortunately that's not going to happen. Not this test, at any rate. But I have confidence you'll pass the next one. You just had the misfortune of facing me this time."

At Kiba's stunned and somewhat truculent stare, Naruto gave an earnest shrug. "Sorry, bad time to tell you I once dated your sister, I guess. She was pretty vocal about your clan's techniques."

The dog user's face turned to one of cold fury, and he pounded one fist into his palm. "You're so going to pay for that, Uzumaki."

"Begin!" the head examiner cried, slashing his arm downward before the fight could start without him.

Instantly Naruto formed a single seal, when usually it called for several, and shouted out, "Earth Flow River!"

The floor of the examination room instantly turned to deep, thick, slick mud, on which Kiba had trouble retaining his balance, slipping about frantically for a moment before plopping face first into the mire.

He looked up with a mud covered face, sunk up to his wrists and knees in the muck and about to brag that he could fight just fine on all fours, and that it was a much more stable position that wouldn't mind a little mud, but Naruto, who'd been standing above the surface of it on pads of chakra, had already completed his next seal.

And he vanished.

Startled, Kiba started looking around to the sides, up the walls, trying to see or even smell where the attack was coming from, but he only had a fraction of a second, and it was all to no avail.

The next moment Kiba, and his dog Akamaru, were both sucked down into the ground, leaving only their heads above it, and the mud instantly hardened, turning back to a stone floor again.

"Inner Decapitation technique, used along with and after the Underground Move," Naruto explained from where he was now standing safely behind and out of reach of the helpless dog user and his pet. Walking around to the front, he squatted down to apologize. "I'm sorry, Kiba. You truly deserve to win. You are strong, and I believe our village needs you as a chunin. Frankly, I think your whole team are due for promotion. However, you got me as an opponent, and you just couldn't beat me. But I hope we can be friends."

Naruto reached into his pouch and pulled out the scroll of earth techniques he'd taken from Sasuke's apartment. Placing it on the floor before Kiba's face, he said, "This is the scroll I got my earth techniques from. I'd like to let you borrow it for as long as you like." He gave an apologetic shrug to the other boy. "I'd even be glad to help you master them. Think of it as kind of a consolation prize. I can't give you chunin rank, but I can help you on your way for next time - not that I think you'll need any."

The whole time the dog user had been glaring around in shame, trying to avoid meeting Naruto's eyes. Finally he gave a sigh and nodded, turning his face back to Naruto's and matching his friendly grin. "Alright. You've got a deal." But then his face turned stern and he growled. "But if you hurt my sister!" He left the threat dangling.

"Furthest thing from my mind!" Naruto told him honestly.

After all, while he could perform those clan techniques now, he still needed tutoring on how to more fully master them!

And dang but if a sense of smell made a thousand times more powerful by chakra wasn't one of the most useful espionage tools EVER! How had anyone ever kept any secrets from these guys?

"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki!" the head examiner declared, and only then did Naruto draw his friend out of the entrapping earth, slap the scroll into his hands, and rub shoulders in the clan way so they bore each other's scent.

Kiba was surprised, but soon started grinning, and the two boys left the stage laughing together, dog yipping excitedly along beside at their heels, none of them interested in remaining to see the other fights.

A month of being friends with Kiba and training and dating his sister was also an astonishingly good experience. Naruto was not used to loyalty, he'd never HAD any... well, except from Hinata, but the Inuzuka clan were of a different sort. As bold as he was, as unashamed of their opinions as he was, and every bit tenacious enough to turn and growl at the whole village for treating him wrong once they'd begun to accept him as one of their own!

That was a totally new experience for him!

And one that he resolved to do often.

Although, when the invasion came, as it did once again at the end of that month, he was far more conscious of the losses Kiba's family took, and it hurt him to see so nice a family so heavily reduced. So he put that on his list of things to fix on future trips around.

Once he figured out what he was going to do about the invasion, that is. In his excitement over effectively having a family for the first time ever, he had forgotten to plan for that again.

I I I

It was going to take one heck of a plan, Naruto decided, as Orochimaru once again met him in a hurricane of fists and feet, instantly pulverizing his defenses and smacking him down off of the building to smash on the street, spurting blood as he impacted and creating a small crater in the road, ending his resistance for that reset in spite of his tremendous healing ability.

The trouble was clearly centered around the snake sannin. The guy was TOUGH! Unbelievably hard to beat, and ruthless as well, perfectly willing to launch mass attack powers over populated areas, or use large summons to cause havoc and disperse his clones.

No, this was going to take one heck of a plan, indeed!

I I I

"Hey Gaara!" Naruto called out as he met his fellow demon container on the floor for their prelim round against each other. "Before we start, I just want to make sure to tell you that whoever wins, I still want to stay friends."

The demon vessel from Sand nodded gravely, although not saying much of anything. Ever since the two had met and had dinner together in the forest, they'd been inseparable. Gaara had done everything short of using his sand to carry Naruto around like a teddy bear since that day one week ago.

Acting on a strange impulse, so glad to be having and using those again since the influx of more time had changed his situation around, Naruto decided that one extra cut short reset wouldn't hurt him, and decided to try out an experiment to test the other vessel's reactions.

"Gaara! This exam is important to me. Since I was a little child my dream has always been to become Hokage, the leader of my village, and to do that I must advance through the ranks. Still, the job would be meaningless if I could not perform the duties, and a Hokage must treat this village as his precious people. A strong ninja will always put the needs of his precious people before his own, and your happiness is more important to me than this promotion! If you want, I will forfeit this fight so you can continue on to the real match!"

The demon container of Sand stood motionless for precisely four heartbeats before turning to face the examiner, saying softly, "I concede."

Naruto popped over across the floor to clasp the other demon container in a hug. "Thanks Gaara! Hey! Does this mean I can date your sister? I'd have to two-time her, since I'm already officially dating Hinata, and maybe Tenten and Hana too. But would you be alright with that?"

"HEY!" Kiba called from up in the stands, objecting to having his older sister involved in this strange and bizarre deal.

Gaara paused, his brain short circuiting as it discovered whole new paths he'd never explored before. The hug was certainly one, no one had ever hugged him before, not that he could recall. The other?

"If you marry my sister, you would be my brother-in-law?"

"Yup! That's the way it works!" Naruto grinned widely. This felt SO much better than almost blowing up Kiba with those explosive tags! Why hadn't he always done it this way? Joking was so much more fun than moping!

Oh yeah, jokes had to be fresh, and freshness had been rather lacking in his life up until lately with that whole 'punch through to the extra month' thing.

"And, as family, you would spend more time with me?" Gaara whispered softly, although the whole room could still hear.

"Uh huh! That's the deal! Marry your sister, stuck with you for life!" Naruto shook his head in pretend grief.

A giant hand of sand formed out of the ground and plucked Naruto up, holding him fast, but without crushing pressure. Temari shrieked when the same thing happened to her, and Kankuro almost reflexively began to pray for her poor soul. They'd always feared someday this would happen. Gaara had gone nuts and was... carrying the two out the door?

"Hey!" Kankuro looked over the railing to peer down. "Where are you going?"

"To find a priest," Gaara answered insistently. "Naruto must become my brother at once. There can be no delays."

"WHAT?" Temari called out in shocked surprise, only to quiet down as Gaara shot a glare toward her. As her own eyes sought out Naruto, she gulped, yet resigned herself to it. This wasn't too bad, at least she got to live, and she'd liked what she'd seen of this kid from Konoha. They'd gotten along great together during the week they'd known each other.

There were worse fates for a kunoichi than to have her husband chosen for her. I mean, that's what happened to the girls in infiltration all of the time!

And those were the lucky ones!

The unlucky ones... well, prostitutes heard way too much information from way too many sources not to have a few kunoichi inserted into those ranks, but that was pretty much the worst fate any aspiring ninja could ask for. Not only was the job horrible, degrading and disgusting, but between the diseases and risks of discovery, they tended not to live for very long.

Compared to that, a ninja on an insertion mission was GLAD to marry a total stranger! Not only was she far more liable to live longer, but the duties were more pleasant and there were plenty of cases of her learning to love the guy.

Considered in that light, the wind mistress counted herself lucky, as this was a guy she already knew and tentatively liked. He seemed decent, and with the way Gaara was going on, she'd not even have to leave her home town to do it! One of the big stresses of long term insertion missions was leaving the environment you grew up in, most often for life, never to see any of your friends or family again.

She shot a wan smile to her psychotic brother. "Okay. It's a little sudden, that's all. I was just hoping for more warning, but he seems like a great guy!"

Folding his arms to rest comfortably atop the fist of sand that held him aloft, Naruto pointed out before they'd left the door, "So long as we're doing this, you'll want to get the others too. Hinata is the kindest person you'll ever meet. You'll like her. And Tenten can be really fun to hang around."

Temari developed a twitch in her left eye.

Gaara paused on the threshold. "If they marry you, and you are my brother, then they become my sisters too?"

"Yup! It works that way!"

Hands of sand grabbed the other two girls too.

"Oy! Just so you know," Naruto said, kicking back comfortably in the fist of sand. "Some of our priests might object to marrying me off to Hinata and Tenten, too!"

"Then I shall kill the ones who refuse until we find one who does not." Gaara stated flatly, once again heading for the door.