16

Chapter 15: Kumo Chunin vs. Konoha Root

"…Give me your best shot." Naruto stood in a reactive stance, awaiting any kind of action from the team of Kumo chunin. The looks on their faces ranged from deep thought, to rage and offense, to… no visible reaction. Naruto sighed, "If you don't come to me I'll come to you, and trust me, that's the last thing any of you want."

Karui growled at him, "Who do you think you are? What makes you think you're so goddamned better than us? That 'Konoha is the strongest hidden village' stuff is bullshit!"

Naruto blinked in confusion, "That's not it at all. I don't think I'm better than you, I just want a serious challenge."

Samui kept her impassive eyes on Naruto, "What do you mean? One-on-one is enough of a battle for you isn't it?"

Naruto chuckled, "I'm sick of one-on-one fights. I haven't had a good fight where the odds were against me in years, and you all look like a fantastic team. This is a perfect time to see whether or not I still have the stuff that I used to be made of back in the day, but that's another story for another time."

Omoi's eyes widened, "What do you mean, 'what you used to be made of'? You're just a chunin, and you're younger than us. How many situations could you have been in that pitted you against multiple opponents by yourself?"

Naruto shook his head, "There are some things that are better off left locked away. You don't need to know that and hopefully you'll never find out. But put it this way, I have a minimum of 9 S-ranked shinobi planning on coming for my ass and they travel in pairs. I need to get used to fighting a bunch of people at once and this is the best place to start so bring it on already!"

After a moment they still didn't attack. Shaking his head Naruto reached into his pack, putting them all on guard. Before he acted a smirk adorned his features, "You're all going to make this way too easy." He quickly threw a smoke bomb to the ground, enshrouding himself and masking his movements.

A mass of shuriken flew from the smoke, forcing all of Team Samui to dodge accordingly. In the middle of their evasive actions three Naruto's flew from the smoke and began engaging each of the team members separately.

Omoi drew his katana and began clashing blades with one of the Narutos, 'He can make solid bunshin? Which one is the real him?' Omoi then took a hit to the face when Naruto freed one of his hands from the blade and shifted to one side. As Omoi jumped back and rubbed his face he looked at a smirking Naruto, 'I really hope this is the real one because if this is one of his clones…'

Karui attacked instead of defended once she engaged her Naruto in kenjutsu. She was amazed at how fast he was. He was only using his sword to defend and was simply hitting her when she was open. She couldn't get a mark on him so far, it was making her angry, and that was what made her easy to defend against as far as Naruto was concerned, "Omoi! How are you doing against yours?"

Omoi looked to her and ended up eating a boot to his stomach for his troubles. After rolling back on the ground from the force of the kick he spit on the soil and spared her a momentary glance before refocusing, "Just great can't you tell? I'm just letting him beat my ass all over the valley."

Karui dodged one of her Naruto's punches and forced him to back off with a wild slash, intending to cleave his arm off, "Samui, what about you?"

Samui didn't answer as she was currently engaged in a deadly dance with the Naruto she was currently fighting. Samui's sword was so short that her Naruto wanted equal sport, and instead of drawing his ninjato drew dual kunai and fought her like that.

Samui was amazed at just how strong the boy was. He was absurdly stronger than her. It took almost all of her own strength to keep just from sliding backwards when she blocked one of his strikes, and she wanted nothing more than to visibly wince and cringe whenever she blocked one of his attacks that used both of his arms. His size truly belied his actual physical presence, he was shorter than her, and his muscles hadn't looked like they had much power, until he actually used them, and then every single muscle fiber, every facet of his definition came out for her to see when he tensed up to block or attack.

She let out a short gasp as Naruto kicked her in the ribs and sent her flying back. Her trajectory ended up sending her right into her fellow female teammate, hard enough to throw her to the ground as well. Omoi broke off from fighting his version of Naruto and jumped to the side of his teammates while they picked themselves up and cleared the cobwebs.

Karui coughed up a little blood as she stood up, "Okay… So this guy really can fight all of us at the same time and do pretty well. He can use solid clones, and I can't tell which one is the real one. We can't even hit one of them to find out."

Samui dusted herself off, "Until we can destroy one we're at a disadvantage. One of us should try to keep the attention of two while the rest of us double team the other. After we defeat one of them we can rush to help the remaining member and turn this into a three-on-two fight."

Karui set her katana in a battojutsu stance, "Right then. I'll be the distraction, you two just hurry up and finish your target quick before these guys kick my ass." With that she ran at the three Narutos with a battle cry. She separated them with one swing, sending two in one direction and sending the last one off in another direction.

As the last clone landed from his dodge he had to do so again when Samui called out her jutsu, "Raiton: Hagane no Tsubasa (Lightning Release: Wings of Steel)!" Samui swung her sword and sent out a wave of electric energy at one of the many nearby peaks. Her jutsu caused a rockslide intent of crushing Naruto. The blonde was forced to jump off of the platform and evade on top of the water as chunks of rock smashed all around him.

However dodging the absurd amount of rocks allowed Omoi to get close enough to cut into Naruto while he was focused on dodging. As he cut into Naruto and watched his pupils shimmer Naruto burst into smoke. Omoi popped a sucker into his mouth and made his way back to Samui, "That was a clone, the real one is with Karui, we need to get over there."

Samui nodded and the two rushed back across the landmass to assist their red-haired teammate. As they arrived they saw that she had gotten rid of one clone and was fighting the one remaining Naruto, but was taking a beating. He had long since sheathed his blade after Karui had somehow lost hers, it was sticking out of the ground a good distance away. Karui was trying in vain to match blows with Naruto but was taking a somewhat lopsided beating.

Naruto was no longer simply dodging and countering, he was coming right at her, and with the speed advantage he had over her he was taking sniping shots at her, pushing right through any guard she could put up. No mercy just because she was a girl, he knew that a woman could flatten him just as fast as any male could.

Hurrying to the scene of the fight, Samui went to retrieve her sword while Omoi went in to bail her out of trouble directly.

Naruto backed away after a slash from Omoi got him to leave Karui alone. Omoi helped her steady herself, all the while keeping his eyes dialed on Naruto, "Karui are you alright?"

Karui gave him a weak smile, "I killed one of the bastards, but I think that just pissed him off." Samui arrived alongside them and handed Karui her katana back, "I needed this."

She righted herself and stood on her own power, "This guy isn't even using his demon's chakra and he's been beating the crap out of us. He wouldn't go that far in a spar right?"

Samui held out her short blade, "He shouldn't, but it shouldn't matter. Kirabi-sensei has used the Hachibi's chakra against us and he is far more powerful than Uzumaki."

Naruto must have heard this and taken offense to it because he immediately came rushing in, ninjato drawn back for an attack. Samui took the brunt of the attack as she stepped out and defended for her team while Karui and Omoi flanked him and attempted to cut into him. Naruto let one hand off of his sword and drew a kunai to block the two other Kumo nin's blades.

Currently stuck in a deadlock, it amazed all of Team Samui how this boy was able to hold all three of them off all by himself at the same time. As the sliding of metal was the prevalent noise in the valley a low hissing noise could be heard. Omoi immediately knew what the sound was, but he couldn't believe it, "No… No way… No one's that insane…"

Naruto grinned maniacally as on the front of his shirt there was an explosive note, burned almost all the way through. His grinning face mouthed the word 'boom' as Omoi and Karui stopped their attack on Naruto and rushed to relieve Samui from Naruto's attack, pulling her away and sprinting swiftly from him as a massive explosion rang out, engulfing Naruto and shocking his opponents.

Karui's eyes widened as the flames died down, leaving a small scorch mark on the ground, "He, he blew himself up."

Omoi, had bitten down on his sucker and spat out the stick, "This guy is crazy… Even if that was some kind of trick, that explosion was real, he could have blown himself up."

Samui kept her eyes peeled for anything, not believing the fight was over just like that. There was no way it was that easy. Who blows themselves up in a spar anyway? No, he was still around, but where?

Chuckles were projected throughout the valley as all three members were looking frantically for Naruto, "Congratulations. You beat my team of Kage Bunshin."

Panting came from the team as they craned their necks about, trying to identify where Naruto was. They had just been beaten down by mere Kage Bunshin, not even with the real one mixed within. He hadn't even shown himself since the fight started. They all went back to back in order to search more effectively, but still could find nothing. Karui yelled out, hoping to get him to expose himself, "Come out and fight us you coward!"

After a second his voice was heard again, "Now why would I want to do a thing like that? It's three-on-one. Who attacks head on when it's three-on-one? Besides, it's a ninja's job to fight from the shadows. While I myself enjoy a good fight every now and then, I love it when my opponents never see me coming just as much. It means I'm actually doing my job the right way."

The valley went silent once more as a subtle amount of killing intent washed over them from Naruto. Not enough for them to choke on, but enough to make them believe that if they couldn't find him they would pay dearly for it, in other words, just enough to make them panic.

"Doton: Shinjuu Zanshu no Jutsu (Earth Release: Inner Decapitation Skill)"

Naruto's hands burst from the ground between all of them and latched on to Karui and Omoi's legs while Samui got away, he only had two hands after all. He swiftly dragged them underground up to their heads. When Samui saw her teammates both temporarily taken out of commission she ran over to free them until Naruto burst from the ground right by them.

Omoi wriggled, trying to get free, "When did you place yourself underground?"

Naruto frowned at them, "People are pretty predictable in fights. Whenever there's a definite center of the fighting area people love taking the center of it. I set the jutsu up the moment I made clones in the smokescreen, all I had to do was wait for you to beat them all because I knew you'd take the center of our platform while you looked for me afterwards."

He kneeled down and patted Karui on the head, pulling his hand back before she bit him, "I should pat myself on the back. I've never even been here before and I was still able to use the terrain to my advantage in order to manipulate the battle."

Karui smirked at him, "We're not done… Raiton: Enryuu Jiseitai (Lightning Release: Body of Electric Flow)!" The ground around herself and Omoi loosened up as they burst from their place and attacked Naruto, not even bothering to use their swords.

Omoi went low with a sliding kick while Karui ran at Naruto high, "Lariat!" She lashed out at Naruto with her entire arm, attempting to take out his head with her bicep. Naruto took a chance and ducked low, launching himself at Omoi leading with the crown of his head, crashing into the boy's face as he slid towards him. The two rolled forward with Omoi landing on his feet and Naruto ending up on his back, holding onto one of Omoi's arms. While he held a grip on the white-haired boy, pulling him in as he shot an upkick at his face, nailing him right under the chin.

Omoi stumbled back but Naruto kipped up off of his back high into the air to deliver a falling haymaker to Omoi's face before he could recover. Naruto knew that he had hit Omoi perfectly on that shot as he felt the boy go limp the second he made contact, 'One down.'

Karui went back to where they had burst from the ground and tried to retrieve her sword until a sharp kick to her back sent her flying on her face. Naruto was simply standing guard by the hole with the swords in them until Samui re-entered the fight. Her short sword cut him on his arm, forcing him to curse himself for not being more attentive to his surroundings, he was fighting multiple opponents after all.

Samui wasn't allowing him to reach for his kunai to fight back like he did before so it was a strictly dodging game for the boy. He grimaced sharply as shuriken embedded themselves in his back, and that painful distraction led to him taking a cut across his chest before he could back away.

Naruto got some space and got the two girls in his sights, sighing as he dabbed at the slash on his chest, "I liked this shirt… Why do my shirts always get cut to ribbons when I fight people with swords and sharp things?" Shrugging to himself when he didn't receive a response he saw Karui moving for her katana again. Seeing Samui move to watch her back while she went for it, a little misdirection was called for in this circumstance.

Naruto made seven kage bunshin and handed off kunai from his own pouch to them all. Three of the Kage Bunshin chucked the weapons at Samui, forcing her to dodge aside while the other four threw them at Karui, who took refuge in the hole with her sword in it. She smirked as she re-emerged, but the smirk died when she saw the sadistic one gracing Naruto's face.

Both girls saw him attempting a string of hand-signs. When Samui went to intercept him his clones cut her off at the pass and forced her to defend herself instead of her red-haired teammate. Meanwhile Naruto finished his hand-signs, "Raiton: Denkai (Lightning Release: Electric Field)! You're stuck!"

Karui tried to escape the electric prison and yelped as volts of electricity flew through her body when she touched the edge of the barrier. She looked over and saw Naruto's clones, who honestly couldn't engage Samui for long in direct combat, keeping her on her toes and preventing her from stopping Naruto, who had to remain stationary while holding the final hand-sign.

Naruto whistled sharply to Karui to get her attention away for attempts to escape, "I can make this jutsu much nastier with five more hand-signs. You should give up now before I decide to just use the branch techniques I have from here, this is checkmate for you."

Karui reluctantly conceded defeat and Naruto dropped the jutsu to allow her to go to the unconscious Omoi so they could leave the immediate area and allow Naruto to fight Samui alone. Naruto got back in his taijutsu stance and watched Samui do the same, "I could ask you to surrender now, but I won't. You know by now not to hold back on me, so I'll skip that part. Let's get right to the fighting shall we?"

"Raiton: Raikyu (Lightning Release: Lightning Ball)!" Samui quickly gathered lighting chakra in her hands and launched an electric orb at Naruto.

The defending blonde quickly made hand signs, held the last seal, and stomped his foot on the ground, "Fuuton: Fuugekitai Kabe (Wind Release: Wind Repel Wall)!" A spherical wave of wind came from Naruto's body in all directions, forcing Samui's jutsu to dissipate. Naruto came rushing in head on to attack her.

Samui drew her short blade once again, ready to test herself against the real Naruto this time. His rush was so basic she timed her first swing in conjuncture with the speed he was running at, timing it for just when he got into her range.

With a smirk on his face, Naruto pushed wind chakra from the front of his body to immediately halt himself just outside of the range of her longest swing. Stopping on a dime the way he did, it was too late for her as she had put everything into the one clean shot she thought she was going to get. This left her dangerously over-exposed and off balance, allowing her to disarm her and flip her to the ground.

She tried to start another jutsu but Naruto jumped over her prone body while in the air and linked his fists together before thrusting them out, "We're done! Fuuton: Fuujin Seiken (Wind Release: Divine Fist of the Wind God)!"

Samui uncharacteristically screamed in pain as she felt a crushing pressure push down on her form from above, locking her in place and forming a shallow crater the shape of Naruto's linked fists and the size of two human bodies. As the force subsided she coughed up blood and stayed in place as she found a knee situated on her belly and a kunai to her throat.

As she looked up at Naruto with cold blue eyes she found him looking down at her with the same. Sighing, she finally spoke, "I yield… You win."

Naruto's eyes lit up as he smiled and helped her to her feet. By now Karui and Omoi were able to get up and had made their way over to the other two. Karui rubbed her arm and looked away sheepishly, "Damn, we barely even scratched the real you. How did you beat us like that?"

Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "When I was little I was trained to be an assassination specialist in addition to heavy combat, which was my main focus, this is the kind of thing that I'm good at. I didn't even use many of my higher profile ninjutsu because they're really dangerous and are intended to scar and kill."

Omoi gave Naruto a goofy grin, "I couldn't even come up with a strategy to use against you fast enough. You were too good at disguising your movements so I couldn't come up with a real idea that could flush you out. When you were out in the open you were all over us."

Samui walked close to Naruto, putting him somewhat on guard; hey, no one likes it when people suddenly walk up on you. After a moment she gave him a small smile, "We really need to work don't we? You beat us so easily you didn't leave any doubt about the outcome didn't you?"

Naruto sighed, "If it was a real fight instead of a spar you would have all attacked me when the fight started instead of underestimating me and that would have made the bout more interesting and closer. I'm not saying you would have won, but this still helped me out. From experience, S-rank ninja are somewhat arrogant, even to other S-ranked ninja, and they probably would have done the same thing that you did."

"Whoa! Mr. 9 I have to say, that battle of yours sure made my day!"

Naruto involuntarily twitched as a familiar voice from yesterday rang out from the peaks surrounding their ring. Naruto turned to Samui with a slightly perturbed look, "Ugh… I knew he was watching this the entire time, I could feel him. Why is he here?"

Samui raised an eyebrow at the actions of the one who had just defeated her entire team, "Omoi already told you. Kirabi-sensei lives here. It's not that hard to believe that he saw the fight. His home is right there." Samui pointed up at the house that was seemingly dangling from one of the peaks.

Kirabi shunshined next to all of the younger ninja and clapped Naruto on the shoulder, "I had to pinch myself like some kind of dream, I thought there was no way that you'd beat my team!"

Naruto's twitch became more pronounced, "Please stop rhyming…"

Kirabi ignored him, grinning the entire time, "No can do Mr. 9! The Killa' Bee can't fight the rhyme!" He turned to his team, "Now that you all saw how this kid came to play, what did we all learn today?"

They all took this as a normal occurrence, while Naruto wanted to bash his head in with something blunt, 'Don't start a war, don't start a war, don't start a war.'

Omoi looked at his sensei, "Don't judge a book by its cover. We all thought that because he was younger than us we were stronger. We didn't even care that he was a jinchuuriki like we found out yesterday, just that he was a kid."

Naruto grumbled, "I'm not strong because I'm a jinchuuriki you know. It helps, but I'm strong because I damn near killed myself, almost literally, for years to get this good. I'm not even that good at using my biju's chakra. That was all me just now. The Kyuubi always said he wouldn't tolerate a weak container."

Naruto looked up at Kirabi, "The Kyuubi also said to stay the hell away from you in a fight, because you would completely smash me the second I turned it into a biju pissing contest… You have unrivaled control over yours, I can only handle three tails worth of Kyuubi's without going insane. *sigh* Why did I say that out loud?"

Kirabi's grin widened when Naruto admitted that, "To admit that kid, your balls area made of brass. Acknowledging that I can kick your ass."

Naruto frowned at him, "You're older than me by like twenty years. You have at least thirty years of experience with yours. You may have unrivaled control over the Hachibi, but I make up for that in my own way." He clinched his fists at his side, "I try to do as much fighting as I can without relying on anything from Kyuubi. I only bring any of my skills that it provides out into the open when I truly have no other choice. Most of the other jinchuuriki on record just use their demons to flat out annihilate anyone in their way without developing their own skills too much, Suna's jinchuuriki is like that, I beat him in his fully transformed state without even really tapping into Kyuubi's chakra, and I had other disadvantages too that I'm not going to get into."

Karui looked at Naruto strangely. Beating a jinchuuriki is no joke, even for another jinchuuriki. This kid did it without even using his demon to match power. They all knew how Suna's jinchuuriki was repelled during the invasion of Konoha, but information on how it happened was scarce, and now, looking at the kid that was claiming to be the one that stopped him singlehandedly, she realized just how far out of their league they really were when they challenged him, "How are you still a chunin? With power like that you should be a jounin like Kirabi-sensei or Yugito."

Naruto shrugged, "That's what I've been saying for months, but Tsunade-baachan seems to think I need to stop and smell the flowers so to speak because she didn't fast track me after I beat all of best genin into the dirt without taking a shot. Hopefully I can get some serious missions to convince her to promote me."

Samui bowed to Naruto, making the boy sweat-drop in discomfort, "Thank you for sparring with our team Uzumaki-san, you've showed us how much further we need to go."

Naruto rubbed the back of his head as he looked away from the bowing girl, as the urge to stare down her shirt was nagging at the back of his mind… or was that the Kyuubi? "You don't need to bow to me Samui. And please just call me Naruto, honorifics kind of piss me off."

Samui rose back up, "Whatever you want Naruto-san."

His sweat-drop got more pronounced, "It's a start I guess…" Naruto looked at all of the Kumo ninja, "So are we going back to Kumo now? Because my squad leader Genma is going to be pissed when he can't find me. I can already smell the reprimands that I'll be getting when this mission is over. Nothing like getting your butt chewed out to make you feel like a kid."

Naruto looked around in order to get his bearings and took off in the direction that he figured was Kumo. Omoi walked up to his sensei as they all watched the blonde boy leave the vicinity, "Kirabi-sensei, why didn't you ask to fight Naruto? I thought you would have been all over that."

Kirabi looked at his student and ruffled his hair, "There was no need little Omoi. I already knew I could beat that boy. He said it himself, with my experience and power, he'd have been in the hospital in half an hour."

Karui held her ribs, "Man that guy hits hard. Are you sure sensei? The only person that I remember ever hitting me any harder than him was you, and this was a spar between foreign ninja. I'd say he would have pasted my organs if we were fighting for real."

Samui and Omoi moved to help her walk out of the valley while the blonde girl chipped in with her own input, "Naruto-san stated it himself, he couldn't beat Kirabi-sensei in a real fight. Sensei has way more experience and raw power at his disposal. It was big of him to actually admit it. Though I am still confused as to why you didn't fight him Kirabi-sensei. You were never one to turn down a potential challenge."

"It's because even your sensei isn't crazy enough to go against Raikage-sama, brother or not."

Yugito appeared from behind one of the peaks to meet up with her fellow Kumo nin, "A fight between the jinchuuriki of different countries is not something that should be done outside of the battlefield, even this small fight that you all had is somewhat pushing it. Jinchuuriki are not only weapons, they are political tools, and with the Konoha delegate in town a fight between either of us and Naruto could end badly for the relations of our villages regardless of the outcome."

Kirabi acknowledged his fellow jinchuuriki, "Yugito-chan, watching Mr. 9's fight too? You do know that he could see you?"

Yugito blew off the large man, "He could see you too. I was never hiding, I just wanted to see him fight. I'd been following since the others picked him up in town." A smirk came to her lips, "He's very good. I do think he would have still had the energy to go a few rounds with one of us if he had stuck around or was allowed to fight. He fought a very conservative style. All things considered he really didn't use that much chakra as far as jinchuuriki are concerned."

Kirabi grinned, "Looks like you've taken a shine to Mr. 9! If that look on your face is any sign."

Yugito narrowed her eyes at Kirabi, "I just said he was strong. He's younger than me, I could never be into a kid like that."

"I don't know kitten. Five years isn't that much of an age difference is it?" Yugito blinked at the voice in her mind.

'Nibi shut up! He's just a kid! A kid that could kill three-fifths of the people standing here yes, but still just a kid!' All Yugito got was a chuckle from the back of her mind.

"Whatever you say kitten… Acting like his fight didn't turn you on just a bit." Yugito blushed and walked away before anyone could see it. Samui however, caught it before she could get away and narrowed her eyes.

XxX

(In Konoha)

Sakura stood with her hands hovering over a fish and glowing green. The focus on her face was intense as she attempted to bring it back to life through use of Shosen Jutsu (Mystical Palm Technique), taught to her due to her training under Tsunade.

Sakura had been confused at first after Team 7 had been for all intents and purposes disbanded following Naruto's promotion and downright distraught following Sasuke's defection to Orochimaru so it gave her somewhat of a pickup when she was told that she was to be the first selected to train in the new medic-nin program set up by Tsunade. This meant that she was trained and overseen directly by the legendary slug sannin herself.

A small smile came to her face as she recalled asking why she had been chosen, let alone the first chosen, to be in the program. She remembered the smirking face of her master telling her to credit it to Naruto.

"Hey pinky!"

Sakura broke her concentration to look over at the Oto kunoichi that was captured by Naruto during the retrieval mission, Tayuya she was told her name was, "What do you want?" Sakura stated in a cold tone. She knew that the girl was under direct protection of Tsunade due to the copious amounts of information she handed out after being caught during the retrieval mission, and also that Tsunade told her that any attempts to cause physical harm to the girl would end with Naruto breaking his foot off in her ass, she had finally come to terms with the fact that Naruto was one-hundred percent willing and sure as hell able to go through with such a thing on his 'Sakura-chan'. Not that he had even called her that since after the invasion.

However she also somewhat blamed her for getting Sasuke out of the country and into Orochimaru's hands. It was a useless grudge right then anyway; even if Naruto wasn't around to beat her ass for harming Tayuya she wasn't too sure she could pull it off herself anyway. Instead she treated the girl with cold indifference, which suited Tayuya just fine anyway, if you didn't like her she wasn't going to fall all over herself to change your mind.

Tayuya shrugged off her tone, "Tsunade sent me to tell you to rest for now. It's time for you to knock off for the day."

Sakura frowned and nodded, "Why do you call me pinky and yet call Tsunade-shishou by her name."

Tayuya smirked, "I may be pretty vulgar and everything, but I know well enough to not piss off people that can kill me, and that Tsunade lady sure as hell can. The only reason I don't call shithead by his real name is because he let me call him shithead and get away with it."

Sakura sweat-dropped as she heard Tayuya's name for Naruto, although calling him a baka as if it were his given name for roughly four years and trying to wail on him didn't really seem better. Kami, why didn't he ever kill her with his bare hands again?

XxX

Elsewhere in Konoha, Team Gai was still hard at work training their skills, even during the waning light of sundown. Tenten and Neji were seated off to the side as the brown-eyed kunoichi was starting to lose her patience, "Lee! Gai-sensei! Can we please go home now? Maybe you two can train until you can't even see your nose in front of your face, but both me and Neji have things to do back home!"

Gai halted the ongoing spar between him and his clone-like pupil, "My dear student Tenten, our flames of youth will light the darkness of the night! I am simply instructing Lee on how to defeat his eternal rival, a struggle that I myself can understand and respect!"

Neji rolled his pupil-less eyes, "Yes, I understand he wants to beat me, but do I really have to be here to witness him training to do so?"

Lee, who was stuck in his stance waiting on Gai, blinked blankly and stood straight up, "I am sorry Neji-kun, but despite my desire to overcome you in battle you are no longer my rival."

Neji almost dropped his jaw in shock ,but his Hyuuga stoicism kept him for breaking into joyous dance and jinxing himself, "Really? Who is your rival now then? Do I know him?"

Lee's eyes burned with literal fiery intensity, "Naruto-kun! The way he simply defeated you all effortlessly, and dispatched an opponent that I myself was being overwhelmed by when he interfered! He even made defeating Sasuke-kun look easy even while he was under the cursed seal's influence… He is truly the measuring stick of which I will need to compare my flames if I ever want to achieve my goal of being a splendid taijutsu using ninja!"

Neji nodded outwardly while on the inside he had already started making plans to build a small shrine to the blonde destroyer of men, 'Naruto Uzumaki you have already freed me from one burden, one that I was sure would follow me even beyond death unlike my seal. I now have no doubts about your ability to change the Hyuuga Clan in time.'

Tenten sweat-dropped and then began worrying for her blonde friend's future sanity, "Lee… Just don't bug him too much. I don't want Naruto-kun to kill you to get the voices out of his head." Neji smirked at hearing Tenten call Naruto '-kun' and was about to call her on it before Lee broke into a 'youthful' rant.

However it was too late. Lee had gone off on a tangent, "Yosh! I will challenge Naruto-kun to a challenge of his choice upon his return to Konoha just to prove that I can defeat him! And if I cannot win I will carry each of my teammates up and down the Hokage Monument one-hundred times each, and if I cannont do that I will-."

While Gai stood alongside him crying tears of pride, Tenten and Neji simply walked off towards their homes… This could continue on for hours and it was already getting dark.

XxX

(Back in Kumogakure – Nightfall)

Genma stood over Naruto, who was seated on his bed with a firm gaze affixed on his displeased superior. Rolling his senbon in his mouth he sighed heavily, "Kid you seriously need to let us know when you're going to go somewhere and you don't think you'll beat us back to the hotel. We almost had a mini freak-out about where you were until you came ambling back in."

Naruto knew he deserved this. In his defense he didn't know he was actually leaving the village altogether when he decided to take up Team Samui on their invitation to spar, but still, that was no excuse.

Naruto sat through Genma's half-hearted tirade. Honeslty he knew it really wasn't Naruto's fault… fully, but he still had to get it into the kid's head that things like this couldn't happen on missions. What if there were people actively trying to kill them?

Naruto took the lecture with a grain of salt. He wasn't mad at Genma, he was the leader of the mission, and what do leaders do when easily preventable mistakes are made? You chew someone's butt out. Naruto could now see why he wasn't ready to be a jounin, he was still working like was flying solo. Sure he spoke to his team, and was on good terms with them all. He listened to them, seeing as how they were his seniors and wouldn't go against orders from them, but he was still used to being left to his own devices, doing things at his own pace and in his own way, things like that.

When it came to actual team situations not even his dobe self had much experience. When Team 7 had missions things ended up with them usually doing their own thing, and doing their own thing usually ended up with Naruto being by himself, very little teamwork utilized. Oh well, he had plenty of time to fix that now that he was in a situation where he could learn about it.

Genma sat down on his bed and sighed, "Kid you are just a massive headache. This whole thing was supposed to be like a giant vacation, and now I'm playing den mother to your twisted ass."

Naruto rolled his eyes, "Sorry for being different Genma. I suppose you'd rather I be a cookie-cutter design ninja, a.k.a cannon fodder, or a loud punk with more mouth than skill."

The tokubetsu jounin smirked at Naruto, "I don't know kid, you seem to have a lot of mouth to me."

In return, Naruto grinned at him, "I never said I didn't. But the comparison was more mouth than skill, I'm pretty sure that if I talk about something I can back it up."

XxX

Omoi, Karui, and Samui, following the spar with Naruto, were escorted by Yugito to the hospital for the beating that they took from Naruto. Omoi ended up with a mild concussion a cracked jaw, and a nasty shiner. Karui had bruised ribs, a few marks on her face that would take a few days to fully fade, and an injured wrist. Samui had light internal injuries and a mark on her torso in the shape of a thirteen year old boy's fist.

Karui was limping lightly as they all walked with one another towards each of their respective homes for the night, "That guy beat the crap out of us… I haven't been beaten like that by anyone our age ever."

Omoi mumbled a response, "He did tell us to take him seriously, it's not like he didn't warn us."

Karui glared at him, but couldn't physically do anything because they were both pretty hurt, "I know that dumbass. Hindsight is 20/20 isn't it? I still can't believe Naruto is a jinchuuriki. He doesn't fight anything like Kirabi-sensei or Yugito."

Samui nodded, "Kirabi-sensei is more of an overwhelming force of nature in battle. Naruto-san is something more akin to a skill fighter, he only engaged us directly when he had determined exactly how much effort was required to defeat us all with minimum damage. According to the people at the hospital he never showed up there, that means a few shallow cuts in his body that weren't even worth healing were all we inflicted on him."

Karui let out an incredulous noise, "That's so cool though. He's our age and he's just like Kirabi-sensei, without the lame-ass rapping."

Omoi mumbled through his jaw, "He's still not stronger than Kirabi-sensei though. Do you think he could put up a fight against Yugito?"

Samui smiled lightly, "I don't know. He's pretty cool though."

Karui's jaw went slack at her female teammate's statement, "S-Samui he's two years younger than us! And he's not even from this country, he's from Konoha! How can you think anything like that about him?"

She shrugged and rolled her shoulders, "I can think what I want about him. Who cares how old he is? That kind of thinking is what got us beaten so thoroughly in the first place, remember?" As they arrived at her house she started to walk towards her front door, "I wonder if he's any good at giving massages…"

Karui stared at Samui as she went inside, "She's not serious right? She's joking isn't she?"

Omoi shook his head and patted her on the shoulder to get her to move along.

Nearby however, a middle age man with black hair wearing a Kumo hitae-ate stopped and looked at the young ninja, having eavesdropped on their conversations, and clinched his fists in anger.

XxX

(Several Hours Later)

Due to a lull in the meetings, Homura instructed his guards that they were free to do as they wished until he called for them, be it in a few hours or a few days. Well Kotetsu and Izumo were banking on a few days seeing as how they bragged loudly to Genma, who decided to join them, and Naruto about how they were going to go get loaded and laid later that night.

Naruto simply gave them a simple glance and stated in a deadpan voice that if they had to brag to a 13 year old kid about possibly getting some then there was something wrong with them. The two chunin slinked out of the room with a proverbial raincloud over their heads, amid much laughter from their squad leader. This however did not prevent them from heading out and making an attempt, but Naruto had to make one more crack.

"Going shopping for the gift that keeps on giving are we? Well just remember, soak your balls in rubbing alcohol at the end of the night. It kills stuff like that. And stay the hell away from me for a week, if I catch something out of simply being in your presence I'll kill you both."

Genma waited for the two to leave before raising a questioning eyebrow to Naruto, "Will that shit really work?"

Naruto snorted in amusement, "Fuck no, but I guarantee that their drunk asses will try it later, and we'll know when they do, trust me."

But I digress. Naruto had long since retired for the night, without imbibing in the alcoholic influences of nighttime living the way his teammates were out and about in an attempt to do. After fighting an entire team, no matter how little damage you take, the adrenaline from the fight will end up making you somewhat tired after the fight and thus the young blonde had no qualms about heading straight to sleep after being left alone for the evening.

XxX

Kenta Marechiyo had to watch as Kumo backed down from war with Konoha during the Hyuuga Incident eight years ago. While a lot of Kumo's higher ups were upset that the plan failed, and most of the general population were pissed off at the higher ups for almost forcing another war. However this held different water when it came to Kenta, as it was his older brother that had been sent over to go through with the plan.

Kenta had accompanied him and had been promised that it would be a cakewalk, as he didn't have to actually bring down a full grown Hyuuga, all he had to do was kidnap one of the little girls to bring back and, for lack of a better term, breed. Too bad for him the little girl he took was the daughter of the clan head… and the clan head came looking for him… and he kicked his ass and killed him.

So when Kumo pushed for Hiashi Hyuuga's death and his body to be sent over to Kumo he felt his brother had actually died for something, until he realized that Kumo had been gypped and that they were sent a Branch Hyuuga, Hiashi's brother, instead. Kenta was enraged that Konoha had fleeced the village that way. He held his grudge long after anyone else from Kumo dropped theirs, and when he learned from those kids that Konoha's jinchuuriki was here he had to take this chance to cripple the village that held his hatred.

It was excruciatingly easy to find out which hotel housed the Konoha group, everyone knew that they were there by now so there was no real secrecy about their presence. Hell, even finding their hotel rooms were simple, the only one he couldn't get access to or info on was the VIP room which was okay with him, he wanted the jinchuuriki.

Picking the lock was child's play and upon entering the room he grinned as he realized that there was only one person there. In the moonlight he saw a small blonde boy, but upon seeing the whisker marks on his face he brandished his kunai and stalked forward. Time to take a shot at Konoha.

As he moved the kunai towards the boy's neck the boy's hand shot out and held his hand in an iron like grip.

"Yeah… Don't do that." Naruto's eyes slowly focused on the man standing over him, "Hello assassin. Not what you were expecting am I?"

The man couldn't draw his eyes away from the stone cold blue eyes that seemed to bore into his brain. Trying to pull his kunai away from the deceivingly strong boy he tried to stall, "How did you know I was here?"

Naruto huffed through his nose and broke the man's wrist, forcing him to drop the kunai, "You tripped my wire." He motioned his eyes to a wire wrapped around his finger, set up in front of the doorway and by the window, "Now let's kill you and be done with it shall we?"

The man hissed in pain and cocked his other fist back to slug the brat in the face before he ended up catching a bare foot to the face that sent him flying back into the door of the room. Naruto stood up in a crouch on his bed and smirked at the man, "You're so fucked, I'm telling!" Naruto said in a childish way before fleeing through the open window.

The man growled and gave chase. If that little bastard actually made it to the Raikage's office he was dead. It wouldn't matter that his brother was so highly ranked before his death, as the current Raikage was against the entire plan altogether back in the day. It was common knowledge around the ninja population that the man was almost fanatical when it came to his hatred of Konoha, so it could be easily stated that he tried to kill their jinchuuriki.

As he ran across the rooftops the Kenta panicked. He gave Naruto at least ten good seconds to disappear before he gave chase. Whether he knew it or not, ten seconds was seven seconds too long to give Naruto when you wanted to directly capture him. Cursing at himself for his own stupidity to allow the boy time to get away he attempted to head straight to the tower to cut the boy off at the pass.

When he reached near the tower some odd five minutes later he grinned to himself, the boy hadn't arrived or else the alarm would have been sounded, and a chuckle almost came from his throat as he saw the boy land nearby on the same rooftop, "Looks like you're not too fast boy."

Naruto grinned sheepishly at the man, "I guess not huh? Oh well, it's not important how fast I go anyway."

Kenta gripped a kunai in his unbroken hand, "Oh really? So I'm guessing with talk like that, you don't mind if I kill you."

Naruto shook his head, grin still in place, "Well I don't know what you want with me but I don't care if you kill me." He saw the man coil to attack, "Because I'm just a motherfucking decoy. Say cheese!" Naruto pointed off to the side where another Naruto smiled and burst into smoke.

XxX

(Meanwhile)

Elsewhere, Naruto had found the mansion of the Yotsuki clan and was already inside, having been invited inside by A quickly after being surrounded by ninja, and was currently seated in his study, "Hmm, well he definitely had intent to end my life."

A shook his head at the boy in front of him, "And how do you know this? As a matter of fact Uzumaki-san, why didn't you just kill him flat out?"

Narutot grinned cheekily, "Well my original plan actually was to just kill him and then tell you what happened, but I have a feeling that wouldn't have worked out too well for my Konoha contingent. Are your ninja on him yet?"

A nodded, "I sent them out right when you told me about this assassin. Kumo has no involvement in this man's actions, I hope you don't hold this against us, trust me, he will be punished for this. His hatred for Konoha has gone on for too long, this could have been seen as an act of war if he had succeeded. He'll be executed. Good riddance, the last remnants of an outdated era."

Naruto waved it off, "I get it. It's no big deal Raikage-sama, if people in Konoha try to kill me I guess I should expect it elsewhere too huh? Hey, could I handle his punishment?"

A nodded and sweatdropped as an evil smirk came to Naruto's face, 'Man, this kid is weird, and not the weird that I'm used to. Now if he burst out into rhyme, that would be familiar…'

XxX

(The Next Morning)

"AHHHHH!"

As a loud pair of screams ripped through the hotel, Naruto awoke from his slumber with a smile on his face and looked over at Genma who was looking out the window with a cup of coffee in his hand, "Good morning Genma! Have a good night last night?"

Genma looked over at Naruto and frowned somewhat, "I'm nursing a bit of a hangover kid. So what did you do when we left last night?"

Naruto sat up and rubbed his eyes, "Oh not much; meditated for a bit, I went to bed, got attacked by an assassin, and went back to bed. Yeah, it was pretty boring."

Genma looked over in surprise but simply ended up shaking his head, "I swear to Kami kid, the shit that you get into just by being around… I can't even reprimand you because you don't do anything."

Naruto scratched his head as he walked to the bathroom, "Tell me about it." Naruto poked his head out back through the door with a grin, "Oh, and clear your schedule for today, I've got something for you guys to see."