Chapter 15

Now, however, Sakura found this Naruto unnerving and completely alien to her. It didn't help that he would never look at her with that usual adorational look he had throughout the academy. Sakura found herself even not asking Sasuke for dates anymore because, without Naruto's immediate attempt to ask her on a date after his rejection of her, she felt unwanted and ugly. Sakura had always been insecure about her forehead, and she knew she wasn't the best looking girl in the class, but Naruto's constant pursuit of her had boosted her confidence. With that boost gone, she no longer felt comfortable going after the 'best looking guy in their generation' anymore. Despite this, her crush was still going strong, albeit in a softer more quiet way.

Naruto himself was oblivious to his teammate's distress concerning his new attitude. Oh, he knew that it had affected them and that they had changed as a result, but he no longer spent the time with them outside of missions he had initially tried to acquire. Before, he had stayed as late as possible with the team and would constantly try to start a conversation with his teammates so as to learn anything about them. He would make up excuses to walk with Sasuke or Sakura back to their houses, yes, even Sasuke as he did feel a sort of kinship with the last Uchiha, and, even though the two had never spoken a word whenever Naruto would walk them home, Naruto was happy to be in their presence even a minute longer than was necessary. He would even show up early on some mornings so as to sit with his teammates for as long as possible before Kakashi would show up. All in all, Naruto had been like an annoying pest and it felt like they had finally squished him when they noticed that they missed his usual presence.

Now, Naruto left right after Kakashi dismissed them. Most of the time, he would arrive late in the mornings and, often he would join them on the bridge only minutes before Kakashi so Sasuke and Sakura could never get time to talk to Naruto.

This, however, was never reflected on their teamwork. It was near flawless at this point. They held nearly all of the records for the Damnadable D-rank missions. The main reason for this was that there was no more bickering between the team. Since Naruto no longer questioned each and every order, the missions went much smoother. On top of this, when one of his teammates would make orders in the field, Naruto was usually the first to respond and, if ever any were directed straight at him, the blonde boy had no hesitation upon carrying out their orders. Kakashi himself had praised their teamwork, though he still had yet to teach the team anything beyond teamwork exercises.

In Naruto's mind, he replayed those missions and grimaced. Sure, he listened to their orders, even if they sounded completely horrible, because he knew that cooperating with them was his best chance at a workable team. He swallowed his pride and his questions, while simultaneously carrying out their orders to avoid their berating him. Should they try... they would only have themselves to blame. This was Naruto's mindset while working with his teammates, simply follow orders and work as a unit with your team so as to complete your mission. Really, this was infuluenced by the Ninja Rules book Shikamaru had given him and he had adapted it to suit his purposes. Naruto had to occasionally squash his loud side with a firm lock of willpower but otherwise the team was the epitome of what a genin team from Konoha should look like on paper. In their own personal lives, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

(Scene Break)

About 2 hours later, Naruto was sitting with the leaf on his head and concentrating so hard on his chakra that the world seemed to almost be a blur around him. Naruto closed his eyes and breathed in deeply before sending his chakra out, "Okay, I tried slowly letting the leaf fall but that doesn't work. It leaves it too open to the or other stuff." Naruto thought to himself, "So, how do I get it to move while staying attached to me?" he asked himself.

Still with his eyes closed, Naruto's mind wandered around throwing random thoughts and ideas into his head and each being summarily thrown back out as Naruto's creative mind overused its figurative juices. Without noticing, Naruto's concentration on the leaf wavered and Naruto's mind was suddenly assualted with an influx of information that caused Naruto to open his eyes and start to pant as he clutched at his head.

Sakura looked up at Naruto as he acted as if he had a straining headache. She was still hesitant to approach him but he was her teammate right? So, she stepped closer, unaware that Sasuke was watching and asked quietly, "You okay Naruto?"

Naruto's blue eyes snapped to hers. He had not expected her to show kindness to him. As his mind reeled with the information he had just gained and from the unexpected turn of events his face twisted into his overused smile as a very small spark of warmth shone in his eyes before they squinted as he replied, "I'm fine Sakura. Thank you."

Sakura looked at him worriedly for another moment before nodding and scampering off towards Sasuke again. Sasuke himself had noticed Naruto's change again and wondered why it was he had answered her normally instead of how he had been recently.

Naruto closed his eyes again and he thought to himself, "What the FUCK was that!" Living in the slums and not having parents led to Naruto having quite the vocabulary if he were so inclined. Today was one of those days, "What the hell happened? I was concentrating on the leaf when I suddenly felt?... saw?... other people around me without my eyes... no! I SENSED them!" Naruto's eyes almost snapped open but the smile that lit up Naruto's face was the first true one since Kurenai had recieved one. "I'm a sensor!" he thought with pride as he felt himself slipping into his receptive state again.

Naruto could feel the chakras around him. "There's Sakura and Sasuke. Both of them seem kinda confused... wait what?" he thought to himself, how could he tell they were confused? He felt their chakra pulsed and he chalked it up to his sensing the disruption in their chakra. "Let's see, the next closest is..." he trailed off as he expanded his search attempting to train his bloodline to reach more than a few feet. He knew he would need some serious training and meditation to use this in combat but, for now, he was going to bask in knowing he had two of the three types of the Uzumaki bloodline.

Naruto's eyes snapped open as he looked over the bridge's edge, drawing looks of confusion from his teammates before Naruto called out, "Kakashi-sensei! Come out here." His team's eyes widened as Naruto's senses rang true and Kakashi appeared on the bridge behind Naruto. Naruto almost thought that he had mistaken a chakra signature from another person with Kakashi since he was not under the bridge like he had sensed him. However, when Naruto closed his eyes, he could sense that the signature under the bridge had disappeared. He grinned foxily as he opened his eyes again and looked at his sensei's narrowed eye.

Kakashi was impressed with the blonde. Kakashi was a master of stealth almost as good as Jiraiya himself. For Naruto to have sensed him, especially since he had never shown any signs of having that bloodline until today, was absolutely astonishing. Granted, Kakashi had not been using his full ability as he was in friendly territory and he was only trying to hide from chuunin level opponents, that still meant Naruto could, given time and concentration, sense people with chuunin level ability in stealth. Kakashi would have to ask the Sandaime for some of Kushina's old scrolls. She had never been a sensor but she did have copies of most of the Uzumaki scrolls. Unfortunately, Kakashi was unable to tell Naruto that his ability was a bloodline and he couldn't reveal his heritage, so he would have to pass the lectures off as private training made special for jinchuuriki or something along those lines to get Naruto to fall for it.

Kakashi's narrowed eye suddenly lost its edge as he eye smiled at Naruto, "Good job Naruto. How did you know I was there?" he asked curiously, trying to figure out how Naruto knew to sense people's chakra signatures, a rare ability even before the last war and even more so in the present. It was possible to train for such a thing but that training paled in comparison with the actual ability. Where one trained in this ability might be able to find a jounin with some difficulty and chuunin with some hard work, genin or civilians were out of their reach as their chakra pool was too small, as a result, any ninja capable of hiding their chakra signature would be able to, rather easily, evade someone trained in chakra detection.

Naruto's ability, on the other hand, was pure and raw talent. He could sense even the rodents in the ground with enough work put into training him. Kakashi himself was trained in chakra detection and he had always envied others who had the ability to sense chakra on the scale Naruto would be able to. That didn't mean he was going to hinder Naruto. Actually, he was excited to have a sensor on his team, it would make Naruto much more deadly, especially with his stealth. A shiver went up Kakashi's spine as he imagined Naruto in an assassin uniform.

Naruto just smiled foxily as he said, "I was just sitting here when I felt you, Sasuke's, and Sakura's chakra." he explained, "I didn't know what it was at first, since it was so weird, almost like seeing in a whole 'nother color. Like everything was gray with dots of blue for chakra."

Kakashi nodded, that sounded right, his 'sensor world' would define itself as he trained it. Kakashi suspected that Naruto had just come across his bloodline, as opposed to seeking help from someone else to train him without his knowledge or somehow having training that he had missed, and decided he would simply congratulate Naruto on his discovery. "Congratulations Naruto, it seems you are a chakra sensor, a rare aspect these days." he said with his traditional eye-smile.

Sasuke's eyes widened as Sakura's jaw dropped and she looked between her sensei and Naruto with an expression resembling a fish. "The dobe is a sensor?" Sasuke ground out, jealous of such a potentially powerful weapon. The Uchiha clan scrolls had mentioned sensor's many times and they all came with the same warning, 'Do not attempt to fight unless assured victory, should the opponent be skilled with their sensor ability, it would be easy for any sensor to track the Sharingan with their ability.' Though this was not one of the most dangerous threats Sasuke had come across, it was the most consistent one. Every time a sensor was mentioned the warning was present, that alone put Sasuke on edge around his already unpredictable teammate.

Sakura, ever the bookworm, knew exactly what a sensor entailed. As a result, she was just as shocked as Sasuke, while not for the same reason. She knew that having a sensor on their team would catapult their abilities, especially Naruto's. A sensor was very rare and she could honestly say that this development was not unwanted. She, surprisingly, liked the idea of having a sensor on the team, even if it wasn't Sasuke. So, she simply settled for looking at Naruto in slight amazement as Naruto rubbed his head sheepishly like he used to.

Naruto was slightly abashed as Kakashi actually complimented him. He grinned foxily as he rubbed his head in embarrassment. As a result of all of this, the only person who heard Sasuke was Kakashi. Kakashi's eye narrowed slightly but he simply decided he would have to pay a little closer attention to the Uchiha. After all, Obito's legacy couldn't be allowed to be left behind of his sensei's.

Kakashi clapped his hands and brought the attention back to himself. "Okay then my cute little genin." he said drawing a glare from Sasuke and a slight one from Sakura, "We should go get our mission for the day." he turned around and whipped his little orange book out as he headed to the Hokage Tower with two disgruntled genin and a slightly happy one.

(Scene Break)

Naruto was walking with a slight grin as he followed his sensei, basking in the glow of his accomplishment on top of Kakashi's slight praise. As a result of all of his elation, he paid no heed to the glares directed at him. Naruto was still grinning goofily when he thought it might be a good time to ask Kakashi for help. Naruto turned to Kakashi and sped up to draw next to him.

Just as Naruto opened his mouth though, Sasuke spoke from Kakashi's other side, alerting Naruto to the fact that Sasuke had somehow managed to come up here with him and they had left Sakura behind them. He glanced back to see that Sakura didn't seem too happy about being left behind. He quashed the urge to go offer his apology as he turned back to Kakashi and Sasuke's conversation.

"Kakashi." Sasuke started only to be stopped by a raised hand from the silver-haired man.

"I know what your going to ask already Sasuke-kun and it is not possible to become a sensor, one must be born with it." Kakashi stated as his nose was still buried in his book while simultaneously sidestepping a person who was about to knock into him.

Sasuke scowled, "I wasn't going to ask that." he said like a petulant child, which Naruto noticed he almost looked like, he had to stifle a chuckle at the thought, "I knew there wasn't another way to become a sensor. The Uchiha scrolls mention sensors abundantly." he stated arrogantly.

Kakashi's eyebrow raised, he suspected he already knew what Sasuke was going to ask. "I was going to ask is there another way to sense chakra without having the sensor ability." he stated drawing a surprised look from Naruto and a sigh from Kakashi.

"Yes it is possible." he stated drawing another surprised look from Naruto and a hungry gleam to appear in Sasuke's eyes. "However, it is nowhere near as powerful as Naruto's capability." he said causing Sasuke's spark to dim a bit, "It is called chakra detection and it takes intense training to be able to utilize it in any form during combat. Like I said before, it is nowhere near as strong as Naruto's but it is still useful, I use it all the time." he claimed. Sasuke's eyes were full of an eagerness to learn this technique as Naruto felt a bit let down that his ability was able to be copied, even if only on a scale that was like him compared to Kakashi.

However, it did occur to Naruto that, if Kakashi could do this chakra detection thing, then he would be able to help him train his sensor, again he opened his mouth to voice his question when Kakashi spoke, "I could teach it to you Sasuke." he offered. Sasuke's answer was his usual grunt as he turned away from Kakashi and dropped back a few steps.

Naruto's happiness evaporated almost as fast as it had appeared and he looked straight ahead as he spoke to his sensei in a normal voice, "What about me Kakashi-sensei?" he asked.

Kakashi looked down at his other student and almost did a double-take as he sensed Naruto was not too happy, but he responded truthfully, "I'm sorry Naruto, but seeing as I am not a sensor, I can't really help you too well. I would just say follow your instincts and keep working on the basics, it'll come to you naturally just like it did on the bridge." he offered an eyesmile but when Naruto didn't even turn to answer him he let out a low sigh, "Strike Two Kakashi." he thought to himself.

Naruto's eyes returned to their ice blue. He had allowed his mask to drop for the last time. "Why do I keep letting them hurt me?" he asked himself. A dark voice whispered in the back of his mind, seemingly too quiet for Naruto to make out what it was saying, and Naruto looked around hesitantly before shrugging it off as a figment of his imagination. He resolved that, no matter what happened, they would see nothing but 'ninja' Naruto from now on.