20

Chapter 19:To Toil in the Mud or Play in the Clouds

Jiraiya looked over Naruto's handiwork from the last few hours and 'hmmed' thoughtfully before balling up the paper he was looking at just moments before, "Nope. It's total crap gaki. Do it again."

Naruto grumbled at the toad summoner as he pulled out more paper and began copying down the practice strokes, kanji, and symbols that Jiraiya had given him to improve his calligraphy. The important physical things that Naruto needed to be a decent sealing artist were great speed with his strokes and flawless writing ability. It had been a month since Naruto had spoken to Sai and he and Jiraiya were still out in the wilderness of Tsuki no Kuni by the waterfall. His clones were starting to make some headway with splitting the waterfall. It was amazing to Jiraiya how fast he was getting the exercise with the help of the clones, he figured that he would have it down by the time they needed to return to Konoha.

During the day he would have Naruto make his clones to work on the waterfall splitting while he had Naruto study the theories of fuuinjutsu. After lunch he would make Naruto spar with him before setting him to work on his brush skills, which was Naruto's least favorite practice of the day, but it needed to be done. Fuuinjutsu was seemingly tethered to every major event in Naruto's life thus far. When one thought about it, it literally made him who he was, for better or for worse, therefore for him to know nothing about it would have been a travesty, he had been planning on delving into it even before he made his promise to Anko. However learning it was a pain in the ass.

It was hard to re-teach yourself how to write after doing it a certain way for as long as you could remember, but that was basically what he was being forced to do. Every little mark needed to be perfect for fuuinjutsu to be effective, or else terrible things could happen. Naruto was never so thankful for his quick healing, or else his hands and wrists would have been shot beyond use by now.

Naruto was simply taking it slow this time, making sure that his movements on the parchment were perfect enough to avoid mistakes. Naruto noticed the light begin to fade and as he looked over at Jiraiya he could see that the man did too. Jiraiya headed off towards the waterfall, yelling over his shoulder, "I'm going to go tell your clones to dispel. You can stop for the day, we're done here."

Naruto nodded and sighed as he started picking up all of the discarded papers with the efforts of his daily labor on them and put them away. He finally had time to think over all of the things that had happened to him lately. He found out that his dad was the Yondaime Hokage, strangely enough when he started piecing things together it wasn't that hard to see. He was blonde and blue-eyed, hell some people called him the Yondaime's spitting image. He was also a jinchuuriki, most jinchuuriki are children of high ranking shinobi so that they have some sort of loyalty to their village, and he had Kakashi Hatake as his sensei, he still needed to find and grill Kakashi over a myriad of things once he returned to Konoha. Needless to say, he wasn't as shocked as he should have been after he got over the initial surprise from when he figured it out.

This made the second thing that had recently happened even more absurd to him. He had been asked, no, ordered, to become Hokage or die trying. Danzo had sent one of his men, a boy Naruto's age dubbed 'Sai' for the mission to inform Naruto that Danzo had to break basically all informative ties with him, that he had to bury everything about himself and Root. Naruto wasn't sure how he felt about that. On one hand, he knew the score with him and Danzo. He knew that to Danzo he was a tool to be used to protect and serve Konoha and that he was somewhat expendable, he had come to terms with that fact years ago. On the other hand, he had spent the earlier years of his life following Danzo's lead, going off of Danzo's example, doing the things that Danzo told him to do. To say that that man no longer had any sway over his life was something he had to get used to. He was to avoid any inclination that the two had any connection. Sure, Jiraiya and Tsunade were the only people alive that knew of his past relationship, but for all intents and purposes, since the invasion Naruto had been his own person. Naruto had played that up to the hilt, all the while he had been waiting for some word, either from an assassin or someone to give him his orders, he knew he wouldn't have been left out the way it seemed he had been.

'One hell of a final mission huh Danzo-jiji? I wonder if you knew who I really was all along? That I was the son of Minato Namikaze?' Naruto thought to himself as he continued to pack away his things. Was this why Danzo figured that Naruto had a better chance than him of ever being Hokage? Danzo wasn't really trusted in most circles despite having the Sandaime Hokage's old teammates on his side, when the truth about Naruto's heritage inevitably came out it would flip public opinion of him on its head and open up a whole new can of worms that he hadn't even considered yet. It did somewhat make sense though when Naruto thought about it.

Naruto cringed and held his head as he fell to the ground, memories of what had transpired amongst his Kage Bunshin swelling his brain. Jiraiya walked back over and saw Naruto on the ground, "Gaki are you okay?"

Naruto picked himself up off of the ground slowly while gingerly holding his head, "Yeah ero-sennin, I'm fine. My clones just dispelled all at once when you told them to stop. It gives me a nasty little backlash when too many of them do it at the same time."

Jiraiya grinned at him, "I don't know how many times I'll say it gaki, that's one impressive little training trick."

Naruto shrugged his shoulders, "Eh, you take what you get. The Uchiha had their Sharingan, the Hyuuga have their Byakugan. I just so happen to have a giant fox roaming my mind, and I work with it."

Jiraiya scratched his hair, "So why don't you use Kage Bunshin to help with your handwriting the way you use it with your nature manipulation training?"

Naruto stood up straight and cracked his back, "Well since handwriting is muscle memory that would be physical instead of mental wouldn't it?"

Jiraiya palmed his forehead, "You know, sometimes I forget that you're a kid and kids aren't that smart." Naruto was about to verbally lay into the white-haired man until he raised a hand for him to stop, "Muscle memory is mental gaki. You can use Kage Bunshin to get your handwriting to be better." Naruto just stared blankly at Jiraiya who eventually got bored and walked away, leaving Naruto standing in place.

XxX

(Konohagakure – Hokage Tower)

"You wanted to see me Hokage-sama?" A masked man with white spiky hair asked as he demurely entered Tsunade's office behind Shizune.

Tsunade had a slight twitch in her eye as she locked her eyes onto her jounin, "Yes Kakashi… Four hours ago. Where were you?"

Kakashi eye-smiled while rubbing the back of his head, "Well you see Hokage-sama I was on my way here when-."

Tsunade sighed loudly and waved him off, "Enough Kakashi. You're lucky I need you for the swell of S-ranked missions. I didn't call you here to issue you one though. I called you here because of another reason."

Kakashi visibly deflated, 'I had a good one all set up to use too…' Getting himself together he got to business, "So Hokage-sama. What is it that you need of me?"

She got herself back into an informative mode, "Kakashi, I need your help. You'll be getting a reprieve from the S-ranked missions for the time being but you'll still have to go on other missions."

Ever since Team 7 had dissolved Kakashi had been taking the highest ranked missions available that the village could muster. The fact that he was one of the strongest ninja in the entire village pretty much led to him doing so. Kakashi looked at Tsunade, "Tsunade-sama, what do you need me to do?"

Shizune dropped two files on Tsunade's desk who then motioned for Kakashi to look at them. Upon opening them he found the first page of each to be a picture of Naruto, one that was the picture that went on his ninja ID, the other a picture that Tsunade had him take after he returned from Kumo."

Tsunade let Kakashi look them over for a moment, "Notice any differences between the two?"

Kakashi nodded, "Yes. The first one is obviously Naruto's personnel file. I read it last year when he was assigned to my team and I was the one that added on to it." Pointing to the other one he continued, "I have no clue what that one is for, but my guess would be you want me to begin filling out his updated file."

A nod and a small smile were his answers, "Yes Kakashi. When Naruto returns I want you to be his leader when he goes out on missions. You will be giving me progress reports on his progress and how he operates on missions. I was tempted to promote him straight to jounin after his promotion test all those months ago but thought that some more seasoning in the field was required first beforehand. The second thing I want you to do is to help me configure a more permanent team for him."

Kakashi's eyes widened, "Is there any way I could get Sakura for that team? I still want them as my squad."

Tsunade looked at him strangely, "I was thinking more along the lines of a team that clicked with their combined skills. Sakura isn't ready for a team like what Naruto's would probably end up being. She still needs far more training, and Naruto isn't a genin any longer, you're his squad leader for this period of time until I find him ready for a promotion. I don't think it will take long for him to get it either."

Kakashi nodded, "All he needs is the field experience and I would be hard pressed to say anything to hold him back from jounin rank. So you basically want me to keep tabs on him and keep you informed on what he does and how good he's getting."

Tsunade shrugged, "Pretty much. Until further notice you'll be keeping an eye on him, he should get stronger very quickly now that he knows that Akatsuki will be coming for him in two more years, just make sure he gets that far to worry about them."

XxX

(Tsuki no Kuni – One Week Later)

So now instead of the usual one hundred Kage Bunshin that Naruto had dedicated to training he had five hundred. Due to him being utterly bored and sick and tired of waking up to the sound of loud crashing water every morning he increased the intensity of his workout. Two hundred and fifty on the waterfall training, two hundred and fifty working on his handwriting, the pain in the ass that it was, and hearing one hundred clones gripe to one another about the boring-ass monotonous practice was getting old. Still, Jiraiya figured that his handwriting was good enough for him to begin actively practicing. While his clones were now working on increasing the speed of their strokes, Naruto himself was learning firsthand from Jiraiya about making seals.

The first thing he learned from Jiraiya was how to make his own storage seals. Naruto figured that it was all a part of the learning experience, but he didn't see any use for having a ton of sealing scrolls, maybe he could sell them, but otherwise he was just going through what Jiraiya told him to do.

The next step was making his own ink. Jiraiya instructed Naruto to drain a bit of his own blood into the ink and channel chakra into the mix for a responsive seal. Naruto wanted to know how to make explosive notes, but Jiraiya wasn't sure to trust Naruto with the knowledge of how to make his own high explosives. Simply put, when he started teaching Naruto things like that the boy could easily then go out and get his own things to make them.

He still had money left over all the way back to the mission to Nami no Kuni a year ago, he was now taking higher ranked missions and Jiraiya had seen his home, it wasn't a very lavish place, therefore now that Naruto had something to blow all of his stacked back money on besides ramen, namely ink and the material for seals, in addition to having a nigh inexhaustible supply of Kage Bunshin manpower to make the seals, and the normal male desire to make things go boom, as well as something akin to a blood feud with the abnormally large spiders in the Forest of Death (Jiraiya had learned this when he found Naruto talking in his sleep about 'the eight-legged bastards'), and you can see how Jiraiya may have had reservations about getting the kid into making explosive notes.

Jiraiya now had Naruto sitting down so that he could hope to find out what Naruto wanted to do with fuuinjutsu, "So gaki, what's your reason for wanting to know about fuuinjutsu? What are you hoping to get out of it, it's a kind of obscure art."

Naruto was currently multitasking as he was testing out his seal making speed with regular ink, "Well… I'm a jinchuuriki. It would be pretty stupid if I didn't know anything about fuuinjutsu. Hell, I'm a walking example of fuuinjutsu aren't I?"

"More than you'll ever know ningen, more than you'll ever know." Were the rumblings from the fox within Naruto. Cryptic? Oh yes. Was he going to go and deal with it? Not now, he was having a conversation.

Naruto cleared the Kyuubi's words from his mind and focused on the old man in front of him, "I made a promise too. I promised Anko that I would get the cursed seal off of her. When I was in Otogakure all of those years ago I memorized Orochi-teme's notes on it. Some of that stuff I wish I could forget… But I have an idea of what to do to get it off of her, I just need some things first before I can do anything about it, one of those things is knowing exactly what the hell I'm dealing with, hence why I'm doing this."

Jiraiya nodded, "And none of this is stemming from you wanting to get the seal off of Sasuke Uchiha? He was your teammate like Orochimaru was mine. I know when Orochimaru left Konoha I was like that, I wanted to save him."

Naruto snorted and placed his materials aside, "Ero-sennin the only way that I even care about removing Uchiha-teme's seal is when I sever his head from his neck. There's no saving there, he had an entire village that was willing to 'save him', he had a girl that was willing to give herself to him at the cost of her own career and probably her life to 'save him'. Fuck that, he went to a traitor for power that he could have easily gotten here. I'll save him alright, I'll save him from becoming Orochimaru's next body by ending him the next time we meet, but I don't care about him, I care about Orochimaru getting the Sharingan and coming to eradicate our collective asses."

Jiraiya let a smile come to his face, "Thank goodness I don't have to beat that 'save him' stuff out of you gaki. You're smarter than I was when it happened to me."

Naruto shrugged, "You can't save someone that doesn't want to be saved ero-sennin, every Hokage knows that. I wonder how pissed off he would get if I beat Itachi before he could get to him himself? That idiot… All he had to do was stay near me until Itachi came after me again and he could have had his shot." Naruto laughed to himself at that thought, "He might come after me then."

Jiraiya chuckled alongside him, "Yeah, seeing as how Itachi is one of the two slated to come after you I guess you'll get a better shot at him than Sasuke will." He then noticed that Naruto had said something quite interesting, "Hokage? What are you saying gaki?"

Naruto smirked and rubbed his nose, "Well I was thinking, I spent four years of my life dreaming about being a Hokage, it would be a shame to throw it away now that I have a realistic chance of getting there wouldn't it?"

Jiraiya's eyes widened as a smile started forming on his face, "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Naruto nodded, "So ero-sennin, you trained the Yondaime Hokage… how do you feel about training the Rokudaime?"

Jiraiya simply burst out in laughter, 'That kid is confusing as all hell, but at least he's never too boring.'

XxX

(Naruto's Mindscape)

Naruto took the time of his slumber to finally reach out to the Kyuubi. It had been over one month since Naruto's seal had been tampered with by Jiraiya and he had yet to try and communicate with the creature. Earlier in the day when the fox spoke it had been the first peep that Naruto had heard from it in forever. He had heeded Jiraiya's warning, he had waited the Kyuubi's temperament out, now it was time to see just what Jiraiya had screwed up with the seal, and the only real way to check it with his novice skill at fuuinjutsu was to go inside of his head and check it out firsthand.

When he first entered he was relieved to see that it still looked like Konoha. That was a good sign to him that not much had changed from his original setup. Wandering around he was curious as to where the Kyuubi would be. Usually he could find it in his house, out in the field beside his house, near the ravine that Jiraiya threw him into, or right in the middle of an utterly eradicated town.

All of these areas came up with nothing. No Kyuubi in sight. Naruto eventually went to the top of his mindscape's Hokage Monument in an effort to wait the Kyuubi out, in his thoughts it had to come out to do something eventually right? After sitting on top of the monument looking out at the village that wasn't doing anything, no noise, no movement, nothing for seemingly hours, he finally growled to himself and let out a yell, "Damn it Kyuubi, where the hell are you!"

"Closer than you know kit."

Naruto heard the voice from all around him as he stood up to look. Scanning the area around him intently he found nothing, "Kyuubi? Where are you? I need to talk to you about the seal."

"*sigh* I'm well aware of that kit. Your idiot godfather loosened the seal in an effort to allow you to draw on my power more readily without knowing what he was actually doing. I'm an entity of anger and hatred, this spilled over into you, which was why you and I were so arbitrarily aggressive towards one another and why you were so quick to anger."

Naruto stopped looking for the Kyuubi as it was getting him nowhere and listened to it speak, "So you're saying that ero-sennin pretty much fucked something up and forced too much of your chakra into my system as opposed to normal. So now what?"

Kyuubi finally emerged from nothingness in front of Naruto, the size of a normal fox, only with nine tails, "Well he was kind of successful in his endeavor. You can now access extra tails quicker than you could before, but now it's going to be harder to control."

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the diminutive figure of the fox, "What do you mean Kyuubi?"

Kyuubi sat down on its haunches and gave a look that could be construed as serious if foxes could look serious, "Now instead of having to take ten to fifteen minutes to build up the necessary chakra needed for a two tailed cloak you can activate it almost instantaneously. However, without even thinking about it you can slip further and further into using more of my power subconsciously. Your anger in battle even from the tiniest things, such as someone surviving one of your lethal attacks, could force your temper to the point of you going past your limit of control. You will lose yourself to bloodlust if your battles drag on for too long."

Naruto shrugged, "So I'll feel a greater need to kill my enemy in a fight, big deal. If I was using your chakra to fight then I was probably going to kill them anyway so I don't think that matters too much to me." Kyuubi growled and snapped Naruto in the ankle, forcing the boy to yelp in surprise/pain, "Kyuubi, what the fuck?"

Continuing to growl, the Kyuubi licked the blood from the bite off of its muzzle, "As happy as I am that you don't mind killing your opponents, I would be remiss if I didn't explain to your thickheaded self exactly what I mean by bloodlust. You will try to kill everything. Oh your focus will be on your enemy that you were fighting that drove you to the point of no control, but that's all you'll be concerned with. You will fight like a berserker, you will have a one-track mind, you will take every attack that your enemy launches at you and you will walk right through it."

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "Yeah, I've got to tell you, none of what you just said really qualifies as a bad thing to me." Holding his hands up quickly in a placating fashion when he saw the Kyuubi narrow its eyes at him he stepped back a few inches.

Kyuubi snorted and began pacing, "How to put this so that you will understand… Okay, Say that you kill your opponent while you are in this state. You won't just stop there, you will immediately find the nearest living thing, run to it, and kill it, friend, foe, or completely indifferent, you won't stop until someone stops you. Do you get the point now? You will be a mindless killer."

Naruto gritted his teeth and punched the ground, "Goddamn it! All of that work just to get this far and now you're saying that your power is too dangerous for me to use? If I use it in a fight against someone that can kick my ass I'll lose myself and become a killing machine? Fuck!" Naruto continued to punch the ground, "All of these years! I thought I was finally getting somewhere! I'm the worst fucking jinchuuriki in the Elemental Nations! If the other villages knew how much I sucked then Konoha would be a laughingstock."

Kyuubi sweatdropped at Naruto's breakdown, "Well technically they would have to know that you were the jinchuuriki of Konoha before anything could be the laughingstock of anything."

Naruto looked away from beating the ground of his mindscape to glare at the Kyuubi, "You shut up. You should be happy, you shouldn't have told me that. You could influence me easier and escape that way right?"

Kyuubi blinked blankly at Naruto, "You would have to draw on all nine tails of my power and be feeble minded enough to remove the seal from me yourself. If you lost your shit in the middle of a fight I wouldn't benefit from it. You need to learn how to fix it or else you really will be at a disadvantage. You are decent without me, but against someone like the Hachibi host you would be destroyed."

Naruto frowned at the fox and wiped his hands off, "That's great… Two steps forward, three steps back. *sigh* Alright, I think I've got the bitch out of me… I'll just have to avoid using your chakra until I know enough to fix the seal, easy right?"

Kyuubi took a moment to look away, "Uh, yeah… Sure, let's go with that."

Naruto grinned at Kyuubi, "Great! Later Kyuubi!" Naruto then phased out of the mindscape.

Upon seeing its host exit, Kyuubi went to the edge of the cliff and looked out over Konoha, "It's not going to be as easy as you think kit. But I guess I'll let you find that out yourself. I'm not your damn answer key." Kyuubi yawned and donned an evil grin as it transformed to its regular size and fired off an Imari to begin the destruction of fake Konoha, "Ahh, that's great. There's only one thing that could make this better right now."

A flash of yellow appeared in front of the Kyuubi as the sounds of destruction came from below, "I have to stop you from destroying Konoha, even at the cost of my life. For I am the Yondaime Hokage!"

An orange swirl revealed a man in an orange swirl mask with one eye-hole, "Ahh, my pet. You've jumpstarted my plans for me! Carry out my will and destroy Konoha!"

Kyuubi's grin grew even wider, "Kami, I love my jinchuuriki!" Kyuubi's tails were swishing wildly, "Not the real thing, but I'll be damned if I care! Line 'em up, It's party night!"

XxX

(Three Days Later)

Jiraiya stood behind Naruto on the bridge in front of the waterfall. No clones this time, just Naruto by himself, "Are you sure you've got this gaki? It's only been a month and a half."

Naruto cracked his neck to the side, "Oh yeah. Just multiply that by the hundreds of clones I've been making every day." Naruto rubbed his hands together before placing them in the water, "Okay let's split this bitch!"

Naruto channeled wind chakra to his hands as he focused on the task at hand, 'Come on… Sharper, thinner, let's go!' Naruto yelled loudly as he lifted his hands up through the force of the water, channeling enough power to slice through the waterfall.

As both Naruto and Jiraiya were showered by water from Naruto's display, the boy turned to Jiraiya with a shit-eating grin on his face, "Hell yeah, I can cut a waterfall. What do you think about that ero-sennin?"

Jiraiya put his hand on Naruto's head, "I think… It's time to go home."

Naruto face-fell off of the bridge in response.

XxX

(Mainland of the Elemental Nations – Somewhere in Hi no Kuni)

Naruto gave Jiraiya a deadpan look, "So you're telling me that you have no clue how to tighten the seal back up?"

Jiraiya gave Naruto a sheepish look, "Uh no. It was only meant to turn one way, in order to give you full control over the chakra one day. You can't put it back, you have to open it and gain full control at one time."

Naruto's eye was twitching as he took in the information, "So how do I do that? Is loosening it all I have to do? Let's do it then."

Jiraiya moved a few steps out of Naruto's range, "Well, there are a few things you need to have accomplished before you can. For one you need to defeat your inner self."

Naruto's brow was twitching even faster, how the hell was he supposed to fight and beat himself? He doubted that using Kage Bunshin would help, if it did then he had already beaten himself a shitload of times already, "And what else?"

Jiraiya chuckled nervously, "Well you kind of need to… beatthekyuubiincombat." He finished hurriedly.

Naruto stopped walking and looked at Jiraiya with a deer in the headlights look, "You mind repeating that one more time? I think I just heard the stupidest thing that I've ever heard in my entire life. Did you just say I have to beat the Kyuubi? The Kyuubi? We are talking about the thing that was shoved into my gut because it was eradicating every last person in the village by its lonesome, right?"

Jiraiya answered tentatively, "Yeah. The same."

Naruto palmed his face and continued to walk on, "Yeah whatever… I'm guessing it would be too much to ask if the Kyuubi would consider throwing the fight when the time comes."

"You've got that right ningen."

"Beautiful… Okay fine. Just makes me feel so much better about being me. Baa-chan better have some good old fashioned mind numbing missions for me or I'm going to pop." 'Seriously, life just knows how to pile it on doesn't it? The man that trained me wants me to become Hokage since he thinks he's too old to go for it anymore. I can't use my biju or I might end up killing everyone within seeing distance of me, which is pretty fucking far all things considered. I have to fight said biju and beat it or else I'll never master using my demonic chakra. Well, baby steps. Right now let's just worry about getting back to Konoha, maybe go vent on some spiders in the Forest of Death… yeah, that sounds good.'

Jiraiya watched Naruto's face roll through a gambit of emotions; overwhelmed, irritated, somewhat frightened, calm, and then strangely lucid. Jiraiya kept an eye on the boy as the look of lucidity stayed, 'One. Weird. Kid.'

XxX

(Konohagakure no Sato – Two Days Later)

"So brat, how was the mission?" Tsunade said through her crossed fingers, trying and failing miserably to hide the smirk on her face.

Naruto gave her a dry look, "Oh yeah, it was a real tough 'mission'. Baa-chan the next time you want to swerve me into doing something, just stop and think, would coming out and telling me what you want me to actually go and do really be so bad?"

Tsunade moved her hands and made no attempt to hide her smirk, "It wouldn't have been as fun as it was imagining the look on your face when you met the pervert so yes, yes it would have."

Naruto rolled his eyes, "Yeah because I would have been such a bastard about taking the mission. What would I have done, turned it down?" Naruto scoffed, "Since when do I turn down anything?"

Tsunade got the conversation back on track, "Alright. Now seriously, how was it?"

Naruto grinned at her, "I can split a waterfall with my bare hands. Does that answer your question?"

Tsunade looked over at Jiraiya who was smiling in approval, "In a month Tsunade-hime. It took him a bit over one month to learn how to do that. Those Kage Bunshin are something else I swear. He could have stayed the way he was before the invasion and as long as he knew how to train with those things he still could have been a force."

Both looked at Naruto who was standing in front of Tsunade's desk with a combination of being at attention and at ease. Tsunade nodded, satisfied that something had been accomplished while they were gone, "Anything else I need to know about?"

Naruto raised a hand, "Actually yes. My seal, after ero-sennin tried to let more of Kyuubi's chakra leak out he made it so that me using its chakra was more dangerous, I need to learn how to control it almost all over again or else I might just up and kill my entire team while I'm using it. I could go too far by accident. I'm just now getting a few people to think I'm not a demon, it would certainly suck if a lapse of control on my part threw all of that work away."

Jiraiya looked at Tsunade questioningly as he let Naruto's words sink in to her, "So do you think I need to take him away again until he has it down?"

Naruto visibly frowned but kept his mouth shut. He really didn't want to traverse to the ass end of nowhere again only a few hours after getting back to the village, but if it was an order from Tsunade there wasn't any amount of griping that he could do about it. The most he could do was just take it and hope that it wasn't for too long.

Tsunade looked as though she was seriously considering letting him go to deal with it, "No. We need Naruto back for now. We're getting more missions now that the time for the genin exam is coming up in a week and we need him to help with the influx. He can work on his control in the Forest of Death the way he has been, he just has to let me know what he's doing before he goes to do so."

Naruto let a small smile grace his face, "Thanks baa-chan."

Tsunade gave him a smile in return, "You're welcome brat. But still, I'm trusting you. I'm counting on you not going overboard with the Kyuubi's power, especially after you yourself had to tell me just how dangerous it was for you to use it right now."

Jiraiya patted Naruto on the shoulder, "Maybe I should teach you how to prepare chakra suppressing seals so that you can have your team prepared in case you lose it on a mission."

Thinking about losing his cool on a mission made Naruto bristle. Keeping his cool during moments like that was one of the things he prided himself on, but he knew that from the Kyuubi's description of exactly what he would become if he did go out of control it was the best idea, "If you say so ero-sennin. I'm heading out now, if you guys need me I'm sure you know how to find me." Naruto walked over to the open window and jumped out, not getting any dispute from Tsunade on his chosen method of exit.

Tsunade looked away from the window with a sigh, "So how is he?"

Jiraiya scratched the side of his face, "He just started breaking through with me when he told me he knew about his father. I really thought the kid was going to start opening up, and then this happens. He'll probably try shutting himself off again if I had to guess, out of fear of hurting someone he shouldn't."

"Should I schedule something with Inoichi? Maybe whatever is affecting the seal is mental." Tsunade didn't want Naruto to become reclusive. He was a good kid. It was kind of unnerving how efficient he was, but he was a good kid nonetheless.

Jiraiya couldn't give her an answer, "I'm not sure. He's not holding back any anger or anything. To make the kid mad you have to really grate on him. It's just when he does get mad the chances of him drawing too much of the Kyuubi's chakra is magnified, that's my fault though, I underestimated the complexity of Minato's seal. There was more to it then I could have figured before I messed with it. I need to head to Mt. Myoboku for a while."

Tsunade laced her fingers and set her chin down, "Go and do what you need to in order to figure this out. Just keep in contact, send a toad with letters or something."

Jiraiya got a grin on his face, "But of course. You going to send me some revealing pictures back hime? It might get lonely out there by myself."

XxX

(With Naruto)

Naruto's attention was drawn upwards as a white blur flew from the direction of the Hokage Tower. Shaking his head, Naruto continued on his way, "I knew it was a good idea to leave that window open, ero-sennin is seriously a glutton for punishment, I swear."

Finding himself at his destination, Naruto's stomach growled in anticipation as he threw aside the curtain keeping him from the stools of the Ichiraku Ramen Bar. Taking his seat he smirked to himself, "Hey! I'm back and I've been deprived for far too long!"

Teuchi came from the back, grinning as he realized it was Naruto making all the racket, "Well look who came back from the dead. Where have you been Naruto? We've been wondering where our primary patron was."

Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "Yeah, I was away for a while. I'm going to start getting more back to back missions too. You know, with the village recovery and all, we need every shinobi we can get out there."

Teuchi nodded and pulled out a pad, "So what will you have kid?"

Naruto thought on it for a moment, "Give me three bowls of Miso back to back, four beefs, and what the hell, two vegetable ramen. Variety right?"

Teuchi laughed to himself, "Yeah, variety… right. It'll be right out Naruto."

Naruto tried to hide it, but the subtle tapping of the underside of the counter, along with the kicking motions his legs would sometimes make let it be known that he was actually anticipating his meal. Before he ended up getting his food he ended up getting a tap on the shoulder from a familiar face.

Turning to face the person who had tried getting his attention, Naruto came face to face with the eye-smile of Kakashi Hatake, "How are you doing Naruto? Long time no see."

Naruto let a ghost of a smile come onto his features as he faced his genin cell leader, "Hey Kakashi. What brings you here?"

Kakashi took a seat next to Naruto, "Well, I heard you were back in town and I thought, why not go see my old genin? So how have you been?"

Naruto shrugged, "I can't complain really. I'm definitely kept busy that's for sure. I can only imagine what baa-chan has you doing 'Sharingan no Kakashi', she overloading you with A and S-ranked missions or what?"

Kakashi laughed lightly as Teuchi brought Naruto his first bowl. The boy dug in after a small utterance of 'Itadakimasu'. Kakashi ordered a small bowl of chicken ramen, "Yeah pretty much, though she has given me something else to do these days."

Naruto paused from his utter decimation of the hapless bowl of ramen to turn a curious eye to the masked jounin, "Really? What's she got you doing now? I bet it's something irksome."

Kakashi's eye-smile never faded, "You shouldn't talk about yourself like that Naruto. You may be a handful at times, but calling yourself irksome is just self-deprecating."

Naruto looked up at Kakashi with the last remnants of his bowl of noodles hanging from his mouth, "Huh?" He mumbled out through the bits of food.

Kakashi pointed at the hot, fresh bowl that Teuchi had set in front of Naruto to return his attention to his food for the most part, "Tsunade-sama has informed me that in your forthcoming missions I will be your commanding jounin."

Naruto started choking on his food out of surprise. After much effort with him beating himself in the stomach and Kakashi patting his back he finally got the food down the right pipe, "You're going to be leading me and whatever team I get on my missions?"

"Yep!" Kakashi chirped happily. Standing up the man placed his money on the counter, "Well this has been nice talking to you for a bit Naruto. Hopefully we can do it more when we're working together. It'll be just like old times. Hard to believe it's only been a little over a year."

Naruto snickered to himself, "Yeah just like old times, except instead of picking up dog crap we'll be babysitting merchants and wiping nobles' asses." Something came to Naruto's attention, "Hey Kakashi, aren't you going to eat?" As he turned he saw that Kakashi had left the stand. Looking at Kakashi's empty bowl a smile came to his face as he returned to his meal, "I've got to learn how he does that…"

XxX

'Go home, go to sleep, find someone to bother all day tomorrow. Yep, that's a good plan.' Naruto thought to himself as he again made his way through the streets of Konoha. As he drew closer to his apartment he began to realize how good of a view he had from his apartment. He chuckled to himself as he remembered what his goal had been when he had his seals and the task given to him by Danzo, "Ha, I never had a chance did I? Of course I was going to want to be Hokage. If four big gigantic faces were staring you in the face every morning when you left the house wouldn't you get somewhat curious about it?"

'Meh, no need to worry about that now. I've got more pressing issues to worry about these days. I'm ten years off before I need to think about Hokage.' Breaking himself from his thoughts he noticed the looks he was getting from the people around him. As usual the older people were glaring and wishing death on him with their eyes, but he didn't care. They didn't have the power or the balls to try anything against him these days.

More importantly he saw that people closer to his own age weren't malicious in their looks at all. The combined rumors of what he had done during the invasion, with the defeat of Gaara, and the routing of a few squads of Oto ninja, coupled with his feats since then had trickled down to those of his own age group, as evident by the comments he could hear from a few of them.

"That's the kid that made the crater a few miles from the border."

"I'd sure hate to have to fight that guy."

"I heard he lives in the Forest of Death. No joke, he keeps the spiders that live there like his pets or something."

"Those whisker marks make him look kind of cute."

The second to last comment made him sweatdrop, 'Pets my ass... Who comes up with this crap?' The last comment made him face-fault. Picking himself up off of the ground with a sheepish smile as he heard giggles from the girls that had said it.

Walking it off, he heard a familiar yell, "Naruto-niisan!"

Naruto turned and rolled his eyes, 'What, did someone send out a press release saying that I came back today?' Despite that thought, Naruto had a smile on his face as Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon came running over to him, "Hey guys. What's up, don't you have school today?"

Konohamaru grinned up at the scarred blonde, "Boss it's the weekend, we don't have class today!"

Naruto looked at the trio and let out a laugh, "Yeah, well I guess time flies when you don't care what day it is. Remember guys, at some point you'll stop caring what day of the week it is, and when that happens then you can say that you've reached my level of apathy toward the things around you."

The kids sweatdropped, not knowing whether or not he was serious and followed along as he turned to head home. Konohamaru ran up to his side, "So boss, where have you been? I haven't seen you in forever."

Naruto kept his gaze forward, "I was learning how to cut a waterfall with my chakra."

Konohamaru tripped over nothing upon hearing what Naruto had been doing while he was gone. Looking back at Udon and Moegi they both shrugged as all three ran to catch up with Naruto who had not stopped for them. Konohamaru elbowed Naruto lightly in the thigh and chuckled, "That was a good one boss. What were you really doing while you were gone?"

Naruto looked at the kids with a smile, "Believe what you want to. Now is there something you guys want?"

All three darted in front of him and spoke at once, "Play ninja with us!"

Naruto sweatdropped, "Fine, but it's you all against me. Understood?"

"Yes boss!" Was the simultaneous cry from the youngsters.

Naruto shunshined just out of their sight, "Start counting!" As they obeyed his command, Naruto made a Kage Bunshin, "Play ninja with them, don't lose, but don't be too hard on them. Give them some hope that they could have won."

The clone nodded with a smirk and went off in the direction they had just came from while the original. Naruto shook his head in amusement as he heard the sounds of the kids beginning their chase, 'Let's see. It's still daylight out. It's too early to sleep without being called a lazy ass.'

Naruto made his way towards the main gate to go and mess with Kotetsu and Izumo who would probably appreciate the distraction from the monotony of their usual job. Landing on top of the booth that both were seated in he started stomping on the roof to get their attention.

"What the hell?" Kotetsu walked outside and looked on top of the booth to find Naruto smiling and waving at him, "Oh hey kid, how are you doing?"

Naruto hopped down to let Izumo see him, "I'm doing just fine, how's gate duty?"

Kotetsu shook his head with a smirk, "As boring and monotonous as ever. Want to take my spot?"

Naruto waved him off, "I'll pass on that. I just got back into town anyway, I couldn't stop to talk because Tsunade-baachan wanted a report first thing after me and ero-sennin got back."

Izumo looked around nervously, "Naruto, are you crazy? Tsunade-sama will kill you if she catches wind of you talking about her like that."

Naruto grinned smugly at Izumo, "She tried to already and she couldn't get it done, so now she just lives with it. I call 'em like I see 'em. Tsunade-baachan is fifty years old, therefore she's a grandma. Jiraiya is a pervert and does nothing to hide it, hence the name, ero-sennin. You guys are lucky I haven't named you anything yet." Naruto walked inside the booth and took a seat.

Izumo gave Naruto an amused look before turning towards the path outside the gate, "All right, time to go to work."

The Kurenai led Team 8 made their way towards the gate, "Kurenai Yuuhi, reporting back from a C-ranked escort mission." As she looked behind the booth and saw the uncommon sight of blonde spiky hair she raised an eyebrow, "Naruto?"

Naruto waved to her and the rest of her team, "Hi guys."

Kiba grinned and bumped knuckles with him, "Hey, what are you doing in there? I thought you were out of the village."

Naruto shrugged as he passed the sign in ledger to Kiba for him and his team to sign, "I was, as you can see I'm back. And I'm in here because I'm bored, and it's too early for me to go to sleep. What did you guys just get through doing?"

Kiba passed the clipboard off to his other teammates, "Just some escort for some guy. We didn't even get to fight anyone, it was completely boring."

Shino finished signing himself in and passed it on, "Kiba you can't get a fight on every mission. Combat isn't ideal, times when you don't have to fight should be valued."

Naruto nodded, "That's deep Shino. So how have you guys all been. I've only seen Kiba recently. He looked up at Kurenai who was looking him over sternly, "Oh come on, you can't still be pissed off at me for beating your team! It was a fight, I fought."

Kurenai's lips quirked slightly, "They were your comrades. You sent Kiba to the hospital."

Naruto pointed at the boy in question, "Look at him, he's just fine. I sent him to the hospital once before that, only the first time I did it I got my ass kicked worse than he did. Kiba are you mad about how I won?"

Kiba shook his head, "No, I'm mad that you won, not how you did it. I'm getting my wins back one of these days Uzumaki."

Naruto grinned at him, "Feel free to try whenever you like. If you can find me in the Forest of Death then you can fight me." He looked at Shino, "Are you mad that I beat you?"

Shino pushed his glasses further up on his face, "No, it would be illogical for me to be upset with your victory when it occurred months ago. However much like Kiba I will be getting even with you one of these days."

Naruto smirked, "Same thing applies to you that I told Kiba." He turned to the one that had yet to speak, "Hinata. How are you doing? Come on, how are things?"

Kiba grabbed the girl and pulled her forward, "Hinata-chan's really strong. She came up with a new jutsu that kicks ass! It's awesome."

Naruto smiled, "I need to see that jutsu. Whenever you guys want to find me and I'm not at home just leave a message or something… unless you actually feel like skulking through the Forest of Death to find me."

The entire team paled at hearing that as Hinata of all people spoke up, "Ano, Naruto-kun, do you actually live in the Forest of Death like the rumors say?"

Naruto sweatdropped, "Whoever started that stupid rumor is going to get their ass kicked. No I don't I just go in there all the time to train, it's a better workout than any other training field that's for sure."

Kurenai decided it was time to break up the rabble while there was still daylight, "Alright, come on guys, we have to report on our mission. You can find Naruto and talk to him later. It would be nice if you could spar with the team one of these days Naruto."

Naruto grinned at her, "So you're not going to try and genjutsu me into a coma?"

Kurenai let a small smirk come on her face, "I thought about it, and nope, I'm not."

Naruto nodded, "Good, because it wouldn't have worked anyway. I keep my mental mind extra secure, nothing gets in."

The team started to walk towards the Hokage Tower, but Kiba got one more shot in before they got too far, "Oh, so that's why you were dead-last in the Academy?"

Naruto jumped out of the booth and flipped him off, "Dead-last that Kiba. I'll be happy to show you how dead-last I am again if twice wasn't enough to get the point across."

After a moment of silence Naruto nodded, satisfied that his threat came across loud and clear before he turned to leave. However he was stopped in his tracks before he could even take a step, "Fuck you Naruto!"

Naruto whipped around to only see them as dots in the distance. He left grumbling to himself as Kotetsu and Izumo were seated in the booth snickering.

XxX

"Welcome home shithead." Tayuya chirped from her place on Naruto's couch.

Naruto had a dry look on his face as he walked inside his apartment, "You know when I asked you to watch my place I didn't really think you would be over here when I got back."

Tayuya shrugged, "You have a TV. Therefore, I consider your place better than mine. Hence the reason that I'm here. Where did you go anyway?"

Naruto looked through his refrigerator before giving up on finding something and heading over to the chairs, "Tsuki no Kuni. Fun fact, I can now split a waterfall into two with my chakra alone."

"Killer." Naruto grunted and plopped down next to her on the couch, garnering a confused look from her, "There are two other places to sit you know?"

Naruto gave her a tired look, "This is the best chair. This is also my house, you're lucky I didn't just flop face first on the couch like I usually do. You're sitting where my face would traditionally go by the way."

Tayuya blushed at Naruto's implication and was about to call him on it until his next move, "Ugh…" Naruto fell to the side and landed with his head in Tayuya's lap. Which ended up with the girl's cheeks becoming dangerously overcolored.

"Shithead what are you doing?" She squeaked out.

Naruto smirked up at her, "Huh, well I told you that you're sitting where I place my head on this couch, or would you like me to go full on traditional with how I lay on this chair and turn face down?"

Tayuya stammered before narrowing her eyes, still blushing, "You don't have the balls."

Naruto's smirk became a mischievous grin, "Oh really? You've obviously forgotten who you're talking to. Allow me to refresh your memory."

XxX

Team 10, alongside Sakura, were sitting in a park. Chouji and Shikamaru were laying on a hill watching clouds, while Ino and Sakura were sitting next to a lake, "So forehead, how's training with Tsunade-sama."

Sakura looked over at her rival and smiled, "It's definitely the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but I'm glad it's happening. I really owe Naruto one for setting the whole thing up." Sakura noticed Ino's discomfort at hearing Naruto's name, "You're not still sore at him for winning during that test he had to take are you?"

Ino shook her head, "It's not that. I just don't think everything is right with Naruto. I know I told you already, the things I saw in his head weren't normal. It's scary how different he became in almost no time at all."

Sakura rubbed the back of her neck, "Well honestly it was kind of unnerving at first, but he's still Naruto, just a faster, stronger, more powerful Naruto."

"SHITHEAD!"

"I REGRET NOTHING!"

"GET BACK HERE SO I CAN RIP YOU APART!"

"YOU KNOW YOU LIKED IT TAYUYA-CHAN! WHY ELSE DID YOU LET ME STAY LIKE THAT FOR FIFTEEN SECONDS, I WAS COUNTING!"

"DIE YOU BASTARD!"

Sakura and Ino blinked as the clear-cut voice of the person the conversation was about rang out across a distance, followed closely by another irate female voice. Sakura palmed her face, "You see, same old knucklehead…"

XxX

Somewhere in Konoha where a large white-haired man picked himself out of a body sized hole a tear fell from his eye, "Way to go gaki. I knew I'd get you on my side eventually."