Naruto : Chapter 43

The next morning a Naruto clone in his Dark Phoenix disguise brought the first quarter of the chakra storage seals the Hokage had ordered. These seals were tricky to make and it took a lot of energy from Naruto, which meant he couldn't mass produce them like easier ones.

Meaning he didn't have the reserves to use thousand shadow clones like normally. With these seals he could have two hundred and fifty clones do one seal each per night.

While he didn't power up the seals except the very basic level that was needed to store the chakra in the seal, it was still tiring him out. Therefore once a clone had drawn and powered up a seal, it dispelled from being out of chakra.

He handed the stack of seals over to the Hokage who wrote down the amount of money that would be transferred to Naruto's account.

Thankfully the bank was under the control of the Hokage and the accounts were only kept with numbers to anybody not having the clearance. Meaning only the director of the bank, the Hokage and the respective account holder would be able to connect a number to a name.

Therefore nobody would wonder how a genin was earning that much money regularly. Because selling so many new seals to the village earned Naruto a good amount of cash.

He had easily paid for his new cloak which he was working on to prepare for being used for flying. Soon after the formalities had been taken care of, the clone dispelled, informing Naruto of the successful transaction.

...

During the week team seven was kept in the village mostly for training and some D-rank missions, which was due to Kakashi having to find all the seals that the Uchiha clan had hidden in the village.

All members of team seven noticed that Naruto was colder towards his team-mates than even before, but he still kept everything professional. But Sakura obviously didn't learn how to read the mood of her team-mate.

"Naruto, why are you behaving like that?" She accused him.

"Like what?" He asked not interrupting his workout exercise of doing pull-ups on a branch.

"Like you are better than us and not even worth talking to you." She answered glaring at him.

"That might be because that's exactly how I see it. I could do much worse than that, but that would disrupt the functionality of this team." Naruto said still not stopping.

"WHAT? How dare you say that? Sasuke was the Rookie of the Year, you were the dead last; you could never measure up to him!" She yelled.

"Didn't the last one and a half months show you that the academy rating was rubbish? If I had wanted to, I could have been Rookie of the Year, but what would that get me? Acknowledgement and respect?

The village is so screwed up in their minds that they would deny anything I did even if there was no doubt about it. They have placed Sasuke on a pedestal, not even caring that he isn't anything special in his clan.

And what good did it do him? Inflating his ego so much that he lost sense of reality. It hinderd his growth instead of furthering it. And you? Don't even let me start about your failures.

You were physically one of the weakest members in our class; the only thing you really learned at the academy was theory, nothing remarkably useful in the field.

Your taijutsu, while the forms are consistent, is too weak because you lack the power in any kick or punch and you tire way too early.

"You didn't train anymore than what the instructors had us do during the practical lessons at the academy. The other time you spent stalking emo over there and fantasising about how to rape him.

So what if we meet a missing nin on a mission that separates our team? Talk him down with the knowledge about the elemental nations and show him how to do a nice flower bouquet? Those are supplementary skills for a ninja.

We earn our money as thieves, killers and soldiers. There is nothing romantic in our profession.

Once we are out of the learning phase under our jonin senseis, we are facing other ninjas that won't hesitate to kill us if their mission commands it. You either are good enough to survive or you die. Nothing more." Naruto said, never stopping doing his exercise.

Kakashi hated how the mood in his team was, but he couldn't really do anything about it before he managed to break Sakura out of her fangirl mentality and got Sasuke knocked down from his pedestal of believing he was better than everybody else.

At least the raven haired boy had finally realized that Naruto was stronger than him. It was obvious in every single team training session.

And as Naruto managed to keep his calm with Sakura and Sasuke and didn't let himself be tempted to just physically knock them down a bit, he didn't see a reason to interfere.

He was doing his own exercises. He was busy improving his raikiri. If he was to become Hokage, he needed to have some additional firepower in his arsenal.

So far he had increased the range of the attack. Seeing Naruto improve by leaps and bounds had also motivated him to get better. He had to admit he had relied too much on Obito's present. The sharingan had a lure to make people lazy. It was easy to learn new jutsus.

So there wasn't as much work involved as it normally would have been. But he hadn't been called a prodigy for nothing. He had made genin with just five years of age and chunin with six.

That was even faster than Itachi Uchiha. With thirteen he had become jonin. He was the son of the famous White Fang. He was the Copy Ninja, the man who had copied over a thousand jutsus. It was time he backed up his reputation again.

Whenever he didn't have to train his team or observe missions, he was working on mastering all the jutsus he had copied and he was writing them down for the Hokage library through a shadow clone.

With the chakra seals Naruto had created, he could keep a clone running for eight hours without using the sharingan. That was more than enough time to write down his knowledge. Once the seals in the village would be found, he would use the shadow clones to train like Naruto did.

While he could only do it on a smaller scale, the seals enabled him to get a good effect. After all, he only needed to master jutsus he already knew.

He saw Sakura being gob smacked over the lecture Naruto had given her and furious that neither her sensei nor Sasuke were defending her.

"Sakura, get back to your own exercises." Kakashi reminded her.

Sakura looked ready to explode, but didn't dare ignore a direct order of her sensei. She started with running across the training filed as fast as she could.

...

Team seven stood in the Hokage's office ready for a new mission. Kakashi had finished mapping the locations of the seals and while he was away with his team, Jiraiya and the ANBU would try to disable the seals in the most problematic locations like the Hokage Tower, the Ninja Academy, the ANBU Headquarters and the guard area of the shinobi prison.

"Team seven ready for a C-rank mission." Kakashi said, shocking Iruka who was doing duty in the mission office today.

"A C-rank already? Aren't they a bit inexperienced for that?" Iruka asked.

"That's not our first one, Iruka. We already did one and only because I had another important mission that kept me inside the village we didn't do another yet." Kakashi said.

Iruka was surprised. He wouldn't have thought that team seven would already be doing C-ranks. Normally a team was kept doing D-ranks for at least four to six months before a sensei decided they were ready for higher ranking missions.

But if the rumours he had heard were true, Naruto was a lot better than he had shown at the academy and Kakashi was putting his team through harsh training.

"Okay, Kakashi. I think I have something fitting for you. We have a simple escort and protection mission to Wave Country. The client is a bridge builder called Tazuna who wants you to escort him back and protect him from bandits and the like until he finishes his bridge." The Hokage said.

"Mission accepted, Hokage Sama." Kakashi said.

"Very well. Send Tazuna in." The Hokage said loudly.

An old man with a straw hat, holding a bottle which obviously held alcohol was standing in the door.

"Those kids are the protection I get? I paid for real ninjas to protect me, not those squirts." He protested.

Naruto was in front of him before Tazuna even noticed he had left his position.

"Funny you say that. I know for sure that this squirt could cut your jugular vein before you even noticed me." He said grinning evilly, making Tazuna gulp in fear.

"Mah, mah, Naruto. No scaring the client." Kakashi said.

"You're no fun, Kakashi sensei." Naruto mock pouted and instantly returned to his former position again without Tazuna being able to see anything.

"You don't have to fear anything, Tazuna. I'm a jonin and those three are some of the best upcoming ninjas we have in the village. We are more than enough to deal with a few bandits." Kakashi assured Tazuna.

Naruto saw a slight tensing in Tazuna when Kakashi mentioned the bandits. Was there more going on? He probably needed to make a small visit to the ROOT base if he had the time before leaving.

"When are we leaving?" He asked therefore.

"Tomorrow morning at seven at the main gate." Kakashi answered.

Naruto nodded and left the room in a body flicker. Tazuna looked at the spot where the blond had been just a moment before. He really should have expected something like that from a ninja. After all, people told the most incredible things about them.

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