A Few Steps Ahead

Two days later, Hiroki was saying his goodbyes to the eagles in Himitsu no Kiri no Yama.

"Hiroki-kun, it's a shame that you can't stay longer with us. We hope that you can come back whenever you wish, alright." Shirawashi said.

"Hn. I'll be sure to come back. It was good seeing everyone again. It's good to know that I have a part of my world here with you guys." Hiroki said with a smile.

"Hey, kid. Whenever you're in trouble, call me. I'll destroy anyone who dares to bother you." Kurowashi said.

"Haha. Thank you, Kuro-san. There aren't many that can trouble me, but I'll still have you summoned at times. I like your company." Hiroki replied.

"Anyways, I'll be going back now. I'll see you guys later. It was very good being back here." Hiroki said as he materialized his wings and flew up. Not long after, he flew out of the mountain and headed towards Konoha.

Twenty minutes later, Hiroki was ten miles out of the village gates and chose to land since he didn't want to fly inside the village. He didn't wish to give explanations to the higher ups, specially since he didn't have the freedom he used to have in the previous timeline. After he landed, he started running towards the gates. He wasn't in a hurry and neither slow. If he maintained that speed, he would arrive in ten minutes or less.

He continued running towards the village gates and was two minutes away from it. He then noticed two familiar presences that were near by. Once he got paste them, they started following Hiroki back and increased their speed, trying to catch up with him.

'These guys are persistent, but it doesn't matter. They'll eat my dust.' Hiroki thought as he increased his speed and left the two behind.

"Damn it. How fast is that kid? Could it be that he found out that we were close by?" One of the two said.

"But we suppressed our presence fully." The other replied.

"There's only one answer to it then. He's a sensor. But that doesn't explain his speed. There aren't many in Konoha who have the same speed as he does, specially at that age. We better report this to Danzo-sama." The first one said as they shunshined towards Konoha.

———

"Hey, who's coming fast like that?" Kotetsu asked Izumo as he saw someone coming with great running speed.

"How the hell would I know? I'm not a Hyuga who can see kilometers away." Izumo said.

"Sheesh. What a temper." Kotetsu grumbled.

Ten seconds later, the person that the two chunin doing guard duty were wondering who it was, arrived.

"Damn, kid. You have quite the speed huh? What kind of training do you do?" Kotetsu asked on the side.

"Hey, guys. It's just basic body strengthening training. You should try it. It's very good." Hiroki said as he passed by them without any hurries anymore.

'Those two will probably take at least seven minutes to get here. I'll just head back to the apartment. If they try something while they are inside the village, that wouldn't surprise me. Danzo is quite unscrupulous with his methods and so are his men. But whatever. There's nothing here that could harm me.' Hiroki said with a smirk full of confidence as he went to his apartment, walking leisurely.

"Hiroki, you're back." Naruto yelled out from his window as he saw Hiroki going up the stairs.

"Hey, Naruto. I just got here. Any news?" Hiroki asked.

"Not much. Kakashi-sensei said that we're going for a mission tomorrow so we should rest." Naruto said.

"I see. We'll probably be doing some menial tasks around the village." Hiroki said.

"I hope not. I want to go on a super cool mission again."

"It'll probably take some time before we can do a mission like that again. There's an event coming up so all genin will probably not be going out of the village for some time."

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked.

"You'll understands in a few days. It's better if Kakashi explains it to you. Anyways, I'm going to prepare some to eat before resting. I'll see you tomorrow, Naruto." Hiroki said as he unlocked his door and walked inside his apartment.

Before taking a step inside, Hiroki already noticed that there were traces of people going inside his apartment. He spread out his senses and found out that there were a few seals under his furniture.

'Huhuhu. This is amusing. I put down my seals just wondering if you'd do something. You did take the bait though, but it's too bad because this is useless.' Hiroki thought as he closed the door and then ran to the Hokage tower while jumping over the roof of the building on the way.

"Hokage-sama." Hiroki said as he arrived at Hiruzen's office. He saw that Hiruzen was not alone as three anbu kept themselves hidden.

"Ah, Hiroki-kun. You're already back. How were things in the past two days?"

"Everything was alright. I returned a couple of minutes ago and was entering my home, but I found something unpleasant when I got inside."

"What was it?"

"Someone or some people, entered my home and placed some seals under some of my furnitures."

"What kind of seals were they, Hiroki-kun?" Hiruzen asked as he now sat up and asked with a serious face.

"They were hearing seals. I know that there's another power in Konoha that is not directly under your command so I don't know if it was something you did or the other organization did. I'm pretty sure that you don't have anymore doubts about me and it doesn't seem to be something you would have done, so I'm almost sure that it is done by the power under Shimira Danzo." Hiroki said seriously as he looked at Hiruzen straight in the eye.

"Hiroki-kun, that is a grave accusation."

"Yes, it is. I know that. But if it isn't done by you, then it must have been done by someone else. Or is it that another shinobi under you took the liberty of doing so without your order?" Hiroki asked, questioning Hiruzen's control over his subordinates.

"That's impossible. My men aren't unruly to do something like this." Hiruzen said.

"I believe in you, Hokage-sama, but I'd like you or one of your anbu men here to come with me to check it out for yourselves." Hiroki said as he gestured to the position the anbu were hidden in. Hiruzen saw that and was extremely surprised. He showed surprise for a short second, but controlled it.

"Ahem. Tori, please follow Hiroki back to his hoje and investigate the scene. Bring three other men to check out the perimeter as well." Hiruzen said and an anbu with bird mask appeared next to him.

"Yes, Hokage-sama. Hiroki, please bring us to your home." Tori said as he looked at Hiroki.

"Follow me." Hiroki said as he shunshined out of the Hokage office and went towards his home.

'He already knows how to shunshin? His talent is very good. And from what Kakashi said on his report, his parents taught him a few things. He is even more advanced than his peers. I can't wait to see what the future holds for him.' Hiruzen thought as he saw Hiroki use the technique that wasn't for beginners. Even chunin had trouble learning the technique, not even being able of perfecting it to Hiroki's level.

'Danzo, my old friend. If it's really you, what were you thinking of doing?' Hiruzen thought to himself as his look became serious.

Hiroki and Tori were dashing while jumping on roofs as a smile suddenly appeared on Hiroki's face once they got 300 meters close to his apartment. He felt that there were people inside and those people were not Hiruzen's anbu. Tori saw the smile on the boy's face and he was wondering why the boy was smiling. When they arrived in front of the apartment, the door was unlocked, but closed because Hiroki had left it that way on purpose.

"The answer to your questions are inside here." Hiroki said as he opened the door. There were a total of four men wearing blank anbu mask inside the house and the four of them were stuck in place and couldn't move a single muscle. What actually happened was that before leaving to the Hokage tower, Hiroki had made some changes to the seals that Danzo's men had put under his furniture. The seal was still a hearing seal that would transmit the sound to a specific seal (which was of course in Danzo's possession), but Hiroki made it become a paralysis seal once someone other than him tried removing them. He also made sure to leave the door open because it was part of his plan to make the anbu catch Danzo's men with their hands inside the jar. He knew that there were infiltrated men in Hiruzen's anbu and once he told that he found the seals, the infiltrated anbu would warn the others and have them go remove the seals before the boy arrived with help. Little did they know that Hiroki had already seen through all of it and planned ahead.

"I guess you guys will take care of the rest of the investigation right, Mr. Tori?" Hiroki asked as he took out the seals from under his furniture and handed it to the bird masked anbu.

"Ah, yes. Leave it to us. My team will take them for questioning and I'll report this to Hokage-sama." Tori said as he took the seals from Hiroki. He then nodded to his team and shunshined back to the Hokage building and his team started taking Danzo's men out of his apartment for questioning.

'You are many steps behind me you piece of scum.' Hiroki thought as he loathed Danzo.

On the other end, Tori was finishing hsinreport, telling Hiruzen what happened inside Hiroki's apartment.

"Let me see the seals?" Hiruzen asked.

Tori handed the seals over to Hiruzen and the old Hokage studied it for some time.

'This is indeed a hearing seal. There are traces of another seal overlapping this one, but it was wiped off. This is intriguing. Hiroki is a genius above geniuses. Such young age and such capabilities.' Hiruzen thought as he inhaled some smoke from his pipe.

*sigh*

"Tori, have Danzo come here immediately." Hiruzen said as he blew out the smoke.

"Hai, Hokage-sama." Tori said as he disappeared from the office.

'Danzo, Danzo. There's no way I'm going to let you go near such young shinobi with so much potential and prosperous future.' Hiruzen said to himself in his thoughts.

Ten minutes later, Danzo arrived inside Hiruzen's office.

"Hiruzen, what is so urgent?" Danzo asked as he didn't pay any respect to the Hokage.

"Tell me what these are, Danzo. And what were they doing inside the house of one of my subordinates and why this were planted there by your root members?" Hiruzen asked away as he placed the seals on his desk.

Danzo only looked at the seals, but didn't go near them.

"I don't know what you are talking about." Was Danzo's reply.

"Oh, is that so? Well then, I guess the root members you are so proud of aren't really under your command as you say they are. You can't have insubordinate members in your root then, can you? Could it be that I should disband root to prevent something bad to happen in the future?" Hiruzen asked as he stared at Danzo.

On the other hand, Danzo's expression didn't change one bit as he didn't say anything for some time, but suddenly opened his mouth and started talking.

"These were indeed planted by my root members under my order."

"And why did you do that?"

"The kid is an Uchiha that we didn't know existed not even a year ago. Who could say that he wasn't raised by another hidden village and sent to us as a spy? I did it for the best interests for Konoha."

"Danzo, Danzo. Sigh. Hiroki has been under investigation for his background and his story matched. There were really Uchiha members that left the village. Specially those that couldn't awaken their sharingan. Unfortunately, there wasn't any name registry since everything was burned and destroyed after the massacre. Hiroki had been under investigation and had been watched ever since he came to Konoha and after finding nothing suspicious on the boy, we dropped it. Kakashi was also set as his Jounin sensei so he could keep a closer watch on him. But you know all of this. So, I'm going to ask again. What was the purpose of you doing this?" Hiruzen asked more seriously this time.

"I wanted to know if he would be a good candidate for root."

"You can forget about that. You know what happened those years ago and now you want to have an Uchiha in your root? Uchiha Hiroki is completely off limits just like Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto. You can leave now." Hiruzen said as he waved his hand towards the door of the office.

Danzo clicked his tongue before turning around and leaving the office.

'One way or another, I'll have control of the jinchuuriki and both Uchiha and I'll take their eyes when they mature.' Danzo thought as he left the office.

———

On the next day, team seven went to the training ground early and met up. Kakashi wasn't late this time because Hiroki and Naruto had already dragged him out of his house. Kakashi was surprised when he woke up with Naruto and Hiroki in front of him in his bedroom. He had a tired look on his face and yawned as he sat up. He then laid back down and tried sleeping again, but Hiroki and Naruto threw a bucket of cold water on him, making him get up one way or another. And now he was grumpy about what his genin did to him.

"Ahem. Since I woke up earlier than I wanted to, we are going to do some training exercises and then we'll pass the day doing some missions around the village. Let's warm up with some laps around the field first." Kakashi said.

His team then started running around the training field as told and only stopped after the twentieth lap. They then had some spars against one another and Kakashi had them show their progress on the jutsu he had given to them to learn when they were in Nami no Kuni.

Naruto wasn't really given a jutsu, but a technique, teaching him how to use wind chakra on shuriken, kunai and blades alike to increase the cutting power of the tools. He enveloped a kunai with wind chakra and threw it dead center on a tree. The kunai went through it and stopped a hundred meters after. It didn't just go through the first tree. It went through everything that was in it's way.

"Very good, Naruto. You've made very good progress. You already completed the technique. It will only now depend on your wind chakra to make it stronger." Kakashi said.

The next one was Sakura. Kakashi had given her a scroll of the "Tsuchi Tou Tou (Swift Earth Jutsu)." It's a jutsu that allows the user to move the earth rapidly in an area that they place their hands on the ground. The size, speed and range of the area depends on how on the shinobi's increase in the skill and also how much chakra level and control they have. It is a low ranked jutsu that could go up in rank.

She performed the jutsu in an area that wasn't big and neither small.

"That is very good, Sakura. Keep up the good work." Kakashi said as he gave Sakura a thumbs up.

"Now then, Sasuke. Show me your progress." Kakashi said.

Kakashi had given Sasuke a D-ranked jutsu. It was called "Dengan no Jutsu (Stungun Technique)." It would discharge shocking currents from the user's body in a five meters radius and stun them for a few seconds. It's effects worked much like a tazer gun's.

Sasuke performed the jutsu and the radius was quite large as well. It was around eight meters, larger than the jutsu's normal range.

"Very good, Sasuke. The jutsu's normal range has increased. I can see that you have put in a lot of work into your training. Anyways, since the three of you have shown your progress, it is only fair to have Hiroki here show us a jutsu as well. Care to show us a demonstration, Hiroki." Kakashi said as he looked at Hiroki.

'What is he thinking? I'm not the show off type.' Hiroki thought as his eyes rolled.

"Alright, alright. Stand back a bit." Hiroki said as he made a few hand seals (not needed) and slammed both hands on the ground. Kakashi and the others felt the ground tremble and then, in a distance from them, a large water geyser came out from the ground and exploded out with great pressure.

"That is very good, Hiroki. I didn't think you'd have water affinity along with lightning. Those two are quite opposite." Kakashi said.

"Doesn't the Hokage have affinity with all five basic elements? And don't you have it too? Why is it surprising?" Hiroki asked.

"Well, we have our affinities with our main elements, but we had to work hard to be able to use the other elements until we created an affinity with them." Kakashi said.

"The I guess you don't have to be surprised about me." Hiroki said.

"You brought up another element other than the one you first had an affinity with?" Kakashi asked.

"Well, yes."

"What other elements can you use?"

"That's for you to ask and for me to decide to tell you or not." Hiroki said as he smiled at Kakashi, hinting him that he wouldn't tell.

*sigh*

'What a good, but difficult genin I got.' Kakashi thought.

"Since that's over, let's head to the mission department. We are going to do a few for the next two weeks." Kakashi said.

Ten minutes later, team seven was inside the building and in front of Iruka.

"Iruka-sensei, Iruka-sensei." Naruto yelled as he saw his academy sensei.

"Can you give us a mission? It can be any mission that isn't boring." Naruto said.

"Naruto, I have to assign you missions according to your shinobi ranks. You guys a genin, so you'll do some missions that are for genin shinobi. For today, I have one here perfect for you guys." Iruka said as he handed the mission scroll to Kakashi.

Kakashi read the scroll and then looked at his genin.

"Everyone, listen. Our mission today is to clean a river that belongs to a farmer. He grows crops in his farm and he is one of the biggest food suppliers to Konoha. If his river isn't cleaned, he can grow crops and can't supply us food. This may look easy, but it is of large importance to our village. The farm is at the outskirts of the village so we should be able to get there in no time at all." Kakashi said.

Ten minutes later, team seven was already cleaning the river belonging to the farmer. The river ran across good part of the farm and it took them almost the rest of the day to clean it. It had all kinds of litter floating above it. If they didn't know how to walk on water, it would certainly take them a couple of days to clean it.

"Alright everyone, good job. That is all for today. Remember to get your payment at the shinobi bank for this mission and the past mission as well. And you'll also get a bonus for capturing the demon brothers of the mist since their bounties will be split between us. Let's meet up tomorrow at the same time at the training ground. We will be doing missions to work on your teamwork and skills as well. You're dismissed." Kakashi said as he was the first one to leave.

Hiroki saw that Sasuke and Sakura were about to leave as well and he called them.

"Sasuke, Sakura, I don't know if you guys have anything to do, but I'd like you two to stay and talk a bit." Hiroki said. The two faced him and stayed.

"You guys might know this already, but twice a year a Hidden village stages the chunin exams and the next one is going to be hosted by Konoha." Hiroki explained.

"Chunin exams. I remember Iruka sensei talking about that, but he didn't cover the subject thoroughly." Sakura said.

"Well, normally our Jounin sensei are supposed to tell us about that, but we have a guy that doesn't really explains things very much. What we should know is that the exams are to see the new generation of shinobi of each hidden village and compare them to see which village has stronger military power. This is specially since we are living now in a time of peace. Those who pass the chunin exams are given the rank of chunin and they can start leading missions by themselves or with others. All in all, if one of us becomes a chunin, there's a chance that that said person will not always be together in our team. The chunin rank also comes with higher ranked missions and more pay as well." Hiroki finished explaining.

"And why are you talking about this now?" Sasuke asked.

"Because the chunin exams are just two weeks away from us. We should get prepared to face other teams in battles and the only way to do it is to work our teamwork out. The better our teamwork is, the better chance we will have to raise our shinobi ranks, meaning more high ranked missions and more freedom. Anyways, that is all o have to say to you guys. I hope you all can think about it. As a means to better ourselves, I've prepared a special seal." Hiroki said as he took out a few bracelets.

"These will weigh your limbs down and make you build more strength. You can control the weight level with chakra and you can also unseal it, making it as if you are not wearing anything. It might be hard in the beginning, but it'll pay off in the future." Hiroki said as he handed four to each of them.

"We took all of them. How about you? Won't you wear them?" Naruto asked as he put the bracelets on his four limbs.

"I already have them on me. I actually always had them on me since I was a child." Hiroki explained.

"I'll activate them now. You'll find it a little uncomfortable at the start, but you'll get used to it." Hiroki said. He then went to each one and activated the seals on their limbs. Always keep them activated even when eating, sleeping and showering. I guarantee that it'll be worth it."

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura had their limbs weighed down and had a little difficulty of moving around, but they could move normally after some minutes. The four of them then went each their own way after that.