Naruto : Chapter 3

Naruto woke up again when the class's top Uchiha fangirls, Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka had their daily loud entry. 

Really, all that effort for an emo whose only ambition in life was to kill Itachi. And the bastard wasn't even that strong. 

Sure, for an academy student he was strong, but with all the help he had been offered by several ninja in the village he should already be chunin by now. He could have graduated two years ago if he had chosen so, but he didn't. 

Naruto knew that Sasuke wasn't as good a ninja as his older brother had been and would never be. Itachi was a rare genius. 

Smart and powerful. It didn't happen often that those two traits came together in somebody as young as Itachi had been when he graduated. Genin with seven, Chunin with ten, Jonin with twelve and ANBU captain with thirteen. That was an impressive record.

Sasuke was too obsessed with revenge to reach his full potential; his hatred of Itachi was holding him back. While he trained a lot, he focused on the things his clan had taught him before they were all killed. 

Which meant, he had a solid understanding of the Uchiha taijutsu style, which depended on the sharingan, which Sasuke didn't have activated yet. 

He also knew a C-rank fire jutsu, the great fireball jutsu which Naruto knew the Uchihas had really liked using, when they could get away with it also on him, Sasuke was top in his academics, the basic three ninjutsu taught at the academy and with his thrown weapons. 

But the whole talking about beating Itachi one day lacked his skills in anything outside that knowledge and skill.

He didn't know genjutsu, which even Naruto after thousands of collective hours of chakra control training (that had become so much easier with shadow clones) had been able to learn, didn't have a weapon besides the standard kunai and shuriken he had learned to use in combat.

Naruto had chosen to follow the Sandaime's example and learn to use a bo staff and also knew how to use a tanto as a back-up weapon, he knew nothing about seals, a skill Naruto in the ambition to follow in his parents' footsteps had mastered by now, and his usage of other tools was lacking massively.

No, while Sasuke was skilled for a normal ninja of his age he was far from a genius. That title was given away way too easy nowadays. The Hyuga genius Neji of last year, Sasuke of this year, and probably the other years had also had a genius in them. Naruto hadn't really cared about it.

Now the two cat-fighting girls tried to solve the matter who would be allowed to sit next to their crush. What else was new? If they would have looked they would have noticed that there were two seats next to the bastard. And said emo didn't even give them any attention. He just brooded as always.

Finally Iruka arrived and sent both girls to seats away from Sasuke and started with repetition for the exams. Naruto would do what was necessary to pass the test, but not much more. 

He wanted to score low to be put on the same team as Sasuke, the only one that would be guaranteed to be passed. 

There was simply no way that the precious Uchiha would be allowed to fail his true genin exam. And to keep him happy he would be assigned a strong jonin that could teach him a lot. Well, with Naruto's perfected espionage skills he would get the same advantages once he got the team to pass. 

He knew a bit about the jonins that normally took on teams. To pass a test he would only have to know which one he got as a sensei and act accordingly. He even knew what Kakashi Hatake, the strange jonin he had copied the shadow clone jutsu from, wanted from his teams. 

The man was a great believer in teamwork. Not that hard to achieve, if he got the emo to cooperate to pass.

The jutsu they were repeating today was the transformation. Well, Naruto had his own version which he used to embarrass Iruka. The Sexy jutsu. A real transformation contrary to the normal illusion. Not that anybody knew about this difference. 

Naruto had created that jutsu to distract pursuers and knock them out. He swore the village was made of over ninety-five percent perverts. Iruka was blown back by a giant nosebleed. 

Naruto then took the safe option and fled the classroom where nearly all the girls wanted to castrate him for using such a jutsu in their presence. 

He went to Ichiraku's and ordered seven bowls of ramen. While it was part of his mask, Naruto really liked the ramen at Ichiraku's. He disliked the packed ramen that the stores sold. He just had had too much of it when he was younger. It was the only food he could afford and cook with his limited skills. 

The ramen at Ichiraku's were better and healthier. He got some of the meat, fish and vegetables his body needed from here. While there was a lot of salt in the broth, with the Kyubi's chakra helping keeping him healthy, there was not much to fear.

He had started hunting and fishing two months after finding the secret room, which gave the fox more nutrients to work with. His vegetable field then added to his diet once his efforts to grow vegetables bore fruit. 

Naruto learned how to live of the land. With the mild climate in Fire Country he didn't have to fear about massively cold weather that would make it impossible to grow things. He also collected nuts and fruits from the trees and bushes in the forest to add to his diet. It showed in him finally having a growth spurt. 

When he had started at the academy he had been one of the smallest children in class. Once he turned nine he was one of the tallest. Understandable when he saw the pictures of his father. Minato Namikaze had been tall.

While getting fresh milk and eggs had been a bit of a problem in the beginning, once he had mastered the transformation jutsu that problem had been solved. He went to buy the things he needed and couldn't hunt or grow in disguise and got them without a problem. 

He didn't buy everything he needed because he didn't want to give the people that hated him his money. He could do better things with them, like waiting for the merchant caravan that came to Konoha twice a year and buy the things he wanted from them. 

He had bought his new outfit, one that he would use once he became a ninja, during their last visit. In one week and two days, the day when the teams were assigned he would present it the first time.

Finally it was the day of the graduation exams. Naruto answered just enough questions correctly to pass this part and not get in trouble if he didn't do too well on the ninjutsu part. 

He didn't know how the teachers would take his clone jutsu. 

Weapon throwing and taijutsu he did average in, it was okay for him to beat a student from a civilian family with his street brawler style. He wouldn't reveal that he was proficient in both the Uzumaki and the Namikaze taijutsu styles. 

That would wait until he was sure nobody could screw him over anymore. Then it was time for the last part. Iruka announced that they would have to show the clone jutsu. Naruto sighed. 

This was definitely another attempt of the council to screw him over. It was well-known that he was lousy at this jutsu. But with all his control training he would be able to deceive them.

He went into the room where Iruka and Mizuki were waiting to test him on the jutsu. Naruto, who wanted to graduate, concentrated hard to reduce the amount of chakra he used to the least possible amount he could manage.

"Clone jutsu." He shouted and a cloud of smoke appeared.

When the smoke cleared, there were twenty Naruto's that could just be called proper clones. The coloration was a little bit too weak, but they were workable clones. Naruto breathed out in relief. Iruka would accept this, even if it wasn't perfect.

"Well, that's a surprise Naruto. There was no need to make so many clones." Iruka said surprised that Naruto had managed to do the jutsu. He had never got it down before.

"Well, Iruka sensei. I trained really hard for this jutsu and somehow this is the least possible amount of clones I can make and it is still really hard." Naruto said rubbing his head embarrassedly.

'Damn that demon brat. This is an acceptable result. Iruka will pass him now and I can forget my plan to use him to steal the scroll. I was sure he would fail.' Mizuki mentally ranted.

"Hm, you definitely improved a lot. You pass, Naruto, even if you should still continue to work on this jutsu until you can make your clones perfect. They need a little bit more colour." Iruka commented and held out a headband.

"Will do, Iruka sensei, thanks." Naruto said, not even faking his happiness for graduating.