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Chapter 2: Naruto vs Bureaucracy: Shadow Clones, Secrets, and Seal Requests
The Hokage Tower stood as the heart of Konoha—a towering monument of administration, vigilance, and countless paper-pushing shinobi. To most, it was a center of power and order.
To Naruto Uzumaki, it was the final boss in his campaign to kickstart his training arc.
He didn't knock.
The grand doors slammed open with enough force to shake the scroll racks. Several Chuunin flinched. One spilled ink.
Naruto marched in with arms crossed, chin held high, goggles reflecting the morning light as if he were about to challenge the Hokage to a ramen-eating duel.
"Old man!" he shouted with enough volume to startle the ANBU behind the walls. "I need a full-access training scroll, shadow clone permission, and a whole bunch of top-secret fuinjutsu documents!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi didn't even blink. At this point in his Hokage career, Naruto-level chaos was routine.
"Naruto," the elderly shinobi said calmly, placing his pipe on the desk. "Most genin don't even get access to advanced scrolls until after graduation. Why exactly do you think you deserve all that?"
Naruto grinned and dropped a heavy notebook onto the desk. It hit with a solid thunk. Handwritten, ink-stained, the pages crammed with chakra formulas, battle simulations, elemental breakdowns, and seal arrays that looked too precise for a prank-loving academy student.
Hiruzen raised a single brow.
Naruto rubbed the back of his head and chuckled. "I've been studying... a lot. Look, old man, I get it. I'm the class clown. But I promise this isn't a joke. I want to train, seriously. If not for me... then for the village. I want to protect it."
He paused, then added under his breath, "And because really bad stuff is coming. Stuff we aren't ready for."
Sarutobi leaned back and exhaled smoke. "You've changed, Naruto."
Naruto grinned again, wider this time. "Nah. Still me. Still loud, still awesome. Just... upgraded."
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Scene: Bureaucratic Hurdles
Convincing the Hokage was only the beginning. Even with Hiruzen's nod, the path to early access wasn't paved with chakra-enhanced stones. It was paved with forms, procedures, and very skeptical Chuunin.
Naruto found himself at the shinobi registrar office, facing a woman whose round glasses glinted like a censor's seal. Her clipboard was more terrifying than most jonin.
"Let me get this straight," she said, tapping her pen. "You're requesting access to the D-Rank and C-Rank tactical scrolls, fuinjutsu vault entries, and shadow clone training permits—all before graduation."
"Yep!" Naruto said cheerfully.
"And the reason?"
"I'm going to be Hokage," he said with full sincerity, fist clenched.
The Chuunin blinked slowly. Then: "Denied."
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Scene: Shadow Clone Shenanigans
A loud puff of smoke filled the hallway.
Five Narutos grinned simultaneously. "Plan B, boys. Operation Bureaucracy Smash!"
Each clone sprinted off to a different administrative office: one for forms, one for scroll authorizations, one to fetch emergency tea for Hiruzen (that helped), one to file a training certification under 'special case orphan clause,' and one to charm the guards with a ramen coupon.
Hours passed. A stack of approvals landed on Hiruzen's desk, all legally obtained. Technically.
"You hijacked my entire admin staff," Hiruzen muttered, sipping his fourth cup of tea that day.
Naruto saluted. "With style."
"Fine," Hiruzen sighed. "You may begin your training. But under strict observation. No summoning. No open fire chakra without a jonin present. No more clone riots in the record hall."
Naruto's grin stretched. "Deal!"
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Scene: The True Beginning of Training
Training Ground Seven transformed. Gone was the quiet field. In its place were a hundred Narutos, each working a separate training regimen.
But the original? He was in pain.
His body strained under the resistance weights he'd made out of logs and rocks. Every rep of his push-ups left his arms burning. His legs trembled after uphill sprints. His lungs screamed as he ran chakra-infused breathing exercises.
Because only the real Naruto could build strength. That was the unbreakable law of the Shadow Clone technique. Clones gave back experience and mental muscle memory—but not actual muscle.
And Naruto needed muscle.
Inside his seal, Kurama huffed. "You're overdoing it. You'll collapse."
"I'll rest when I can punch through a boulder without breaking my arm," Naruto wheezed.
Kurama grumbled. "Stupid brat... but at least you're not half-assing it."
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Scene: Future Knowledge - The Gift of Seals
When Naruto first awakened after the memory transfer, two things had burned into his soul—the looming threat of the Otsutsuki... and the golden formula for survival.
In a mental corner of the seal-space, beneath layers of chakra encryption, Naruto had discovered sealed blueprints from his future self. Complex constructs that glowed faintly in his subconscious.
The Chimera Technique—a grotesque, forbidden method for merging bloodlines and enhancing one's own.
The Body-Reinforcement Seal—a fuinjutsu matrix that stored chakra in a regenerative loop.
And most importantly, the Diamond Core Healing Matrix—a variation of Tsunade's seal modified to automatically channel regenerative chakra with no conscious focus.
Naruto didn't learn these from any scroll. No library contained their knowledge. These were future Naruto's final gift: a legacy of sacrifice, designed to prepare this younger self.
The library? That was just a cover.
He spent hours reading scrolls he already knew, letting the world believe he was just a nerdy prankster suddenly interested in books.
Only he knew that while the clones made noise with basic leaf balancing and transformation training, the real Naruto worked silently in the corners of his room, refining seals drawn from his very soul.
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Scene: First Success - The Chakra Reserve Wells
He sat on the wooden floor of his cramped apartment, a complex seal array spread out like a snowflake around him. Sweat rolled down his temple as he pressed his fingers to the final line.
Chakra flowed.
The seal shimmered—and pulsed.
It worked.
Two tiny storage wells spun in his chakra network like moons orbiting a star. They would constantly absorb a fraction of his chakra and keep it circulating, growing.
His stamina would only improve. And when the time came, those reserves would keep him standing when others fell.
He laughed in joy—just before a clone exploded in the kitchen.
"NOT THE RAMEN PAN!"
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Scene: Still a Prankster
Despite everything, Naruto didn't change who he was.
He still put wasabi in Sasuke's onigiri. He replaced the Academy's chalk with exploding dye. He turned Mizuki's sandals into frogs.
Iruka nearly had a breakdown.
But beneath the noise, his body was becoming honed steel, his mind sharpened through seal matrices, and his clones now drilled in everything from basic genjutsu resistance to elemental nature tests.
No one noticed the change. Yet.
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Scene: Night on the Monument
Naruto sat atop the Fourth's head, legs swinging lazily. He stared into the night sky, eyes clear.
He didn't have answers. The memories only showed him ruin. Pain. The faces of those who had fallen.
He didn't even know the names of the enemies—only their strength. Only their intent to erase everything.
But he didn't need specifics.
He just needed to be ready.
"I'll get strong. Strong enough to protect everyone—even if I don't know what's coming."
Kurama stirred. "That path isn't easy. You might lose yourself."
Naruto smiled. "Not gonna happen. I'm Naruto Uzumaki. Loud, proud, and gonna be Hokage."
The stars twinkled.
The world remained unaware.
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End of Chapter 2