The next several weeks saw a remarkable improvement in Team Seven's most unpredictable member, as he showed up every day ready to work his ass off and did just that. Luckily, Naruto had taken Kakashi's reluctance to ever talk seriously about why he was always late to everything, as permission to do his own thing most of the day. He would usually show up at Training Ground 7 around 10:30 or so, since Kakashi had yet to arrive before 11 am yet, and was always moving and doing something physical to increase his training. They would practice until lunchtime, usually separate to get a small bite to eat, and then head to the Mission Desk to pick a D-Rank 'chore' for that afternoon, then rinse and repeat.
The other really great thing Kakashi did that first week as his sensei, was introduce him to his fellow jounin and self-proclaimed 'Eternal Rival' the ninja Might Guy in order to find and develop a Taijutsu style that worked for him. Guy was beyond eccentric with a ridiculous green spandex monstrosity he wore as a ninja outfit, a somewhat childish looking bowl cut, and a pair of the bushiest eyebrows anybody has ever seen. He also came complete with a mini-clone in the person of Rock Lee, a fellow genin to Naruto who specialized in taijutsu as well, and as a mini-clone of his own sensei, looked equally ridiculous and who was quick to label Naruto his own 'Eternal Rival.'
Regardless of their eccentricities though, the pair reallyknew their stuff, and within days had Naruto competing against Lee almost constantly, despite being on very different weight training levels. Likewise, he was constantly being pushed in one of his weakest areas, so that over the course of that first week, he had improved to a level that had even Sasuke look at Naruto in a new light at times when they were working on team training. He had also exhausted the starter weight training set, but was fortunate that Guy knew of a better set of training weights he used for himself and Lee, and now Naruto who was quickly trying to catch up.
Because of his massive clone training so many things for long periods of time that others just couldn't match, it gave the real Naruto so much time to work on his growing taijutsu as much as possible at the beginning without neglecting other areas of growth. He was truly getting better at an astounding rate, and by the end of the third week, could probably battle Sasuke to a draw more times than not, and still increasing with every day and every clone. His penmanship had quickly advanced to and then passed the required level for Fuinjutsu, which he was just now starting to experiment on and make his own beginning seals.
One of the biggest other areas of growth though, was in his chakra control which he had continually spawned clones every day just to continue to work on. It was a never ending cycle though, as every time he trained and used his chakra, it grew back a little stronger and denser and therefore in need of more fine tuned control, and then simply rinse and repeat. He had progressed to the water walking exercise, and had it mastered within days and continued use and training in it, had allowed him to reach a milestone he never expected to reach ...he created perfect basic 'illusion' bunshins (useless though they were) and brought a proud smile to his whiskered face.
On the mission side, he was still bored senseless over all the 'chores' disguised as D-Rank missions they had to do, especially since Kakashi wouldn't let him spawn clones to do all the work when his whole team was there working on their teamwork. His sensei did however, allow him to take his own D-Rank missions with his clones any time he wanted as they provided a good service to the village, bringing in money to Konoha and himself which was a real help. His Fuinjutsu supplies were starting to really add up, and he was finding himself in need of more money almost constantly to get the things he wanted to experiment with and continue training on.
His schedule had kept him so busy, that he didn't even realize that it had been weeks since graduation and the last time he was actually able to talk to either Iruka or the Third Hokage, and decided he needed to remedy that soon and pick the two men's brains. Iruka had promised to teach him the body flicker jutsu, and he also wanted to ask the Hokage about any fuinjutsu teachers he could direct him to as the art of seals was very difficult to trudge through on your own. With that thought in mind, he returned to the Mission Desk his team left an hour ago, having finished painting Maiko-san's fence, to find the two people he was thinking about still there handing out missions.
"Hokage-sama," bowed Naruto respectfully, getting several raised eyebrows from those nearby not used to seeing the formal side of the blond, "Iruka-sensei."
"Hi Naruto," greeted Hiruzen Sarutobi happily, as he looked over one of his favorite people, and couldn't help but be impressed at how much the young blond had grown in such a short amount of time. "What can I help you with today?"
"Well," came Naruto's somewhat embarrassed reply as he ducked his head a bit before glancing over to his former Chunin teacher, "I was hoping Iruka-sensei would help me with my training tonight ...he promised to show me a new jutsu and maybe spar."
"I did?" questioned Iruka, as he thought back to the last time he met with Naruto, right before his bell test with Kakashi before it suddenly came to him just as Naruto replied exasperatedly.
"Yes," came Naruto's reply. "I'm ready to learn the Body Flicker jutsu."
"The shunshin? Really?" asked a now curious Hokage as he looked between the pair, wondering how far Naruto had come in such a short time as a genin.
"Dattebayo Hokage-jiji," came Naruto's exuberant exclamation, and had the old Hokage smile warmly at the personal moniker only Naruto would ever use to speak with him, and which always made him happy. "One step closer to taking that hat from you jiji."
"Is that so?" asked an amused Hokage, who could always count on Naruto to lift his spirits, and who also saw some truth to the young genin's claim after having watched him train to levels that would kill most men and barely slowed him down at all.
"Dattebayo," responded a determined Naruto as he locked eyes with the old leader of the village, trying to show him how serious he was about that goal and not wavering a bit.
"Fair enough," replied Hiruzen seriously, knowing that while usually a prankster of the highest order, this was one thing Naruto didn't joke about anymore, now knowing what it took to be a ninja of Konoha, and eventually to become the Hokage. "Iruka, thanks for your help today ...but it looks like you have a prior engagement I wouldn't dream of keeping you from."
"Thanks Jiji," came the honest and heartfelt reply of Naruto, who then turned to the scarred Chunin with a large grin on his face, "Ready Iruka-sensei?"
"Ugh, I guess," came the lazy drawl of the older Academy instructor, as he got up and made his way out of the mission office trailing behind a bouncing and excited Naruto, who was already talking about everything else he had been working on since the two last met up.
Iruka knew Naruto was not a fan of theory, so only touched on the basics of the shunshin, how you had to flood your body with chakra and then aim it at your desired target. It was really just chakra enhanced speed in a very fast and short application that had been refined into a technique over the years, instead of simply building up one's speed naturally. After several side-along trips and self-attempts at it, Naruto was able to perform his first shunshin ...directly into a tree.
"Oww!" exclaimed a bruised Naruto, in both body and ego as he fell to his backside after crashing face first into the large and unmoving tree.
"Haha," laughed Iruka a little, "that's usually what happens to first timers Naruto ...the same thing happened to me too."
"Really?" asked a curious Naruto, who despite getting to know the older chunin better in the last year of Academy classes and even more since the Mizuki incident, didn't really know much about one of his few friends and wondered what that said about him as a friend to others. "Could you tell me about your first genin team?" he continued curiously, figuring he may as well start learning about his precious people sooner, so he could better get to know them, and knowing he owed them his attention as most of their past interactions were always about him and his problems.
"Sure Naruto, but let's save that discussion for Ichiraku's afterwards," answered the older chunin, ignoring the happily cheering Naruto as he learned about their next stop and couldn't wait already.
Over dinner that night, Iruka explained all about his first genin team under the jounin Kaena Uchiha and his first teammates, both of whom were no longer with us. Rookie of the Year, Kaeda Uchiha his sensei's own son and Reyna Hyuuga, a branch member of the Hyuuga clan, and also the Kunoichi of the Year. He went on to explain that he too was a prankster and the 'Dead Last' and got paired with the top two ninjas in class, and was constantly being ignored and overlooked in favor of his two more well known and more promising students.
The thing that saved him was the small friendship he created with Sarutobi Hiruzen after the death of his parents in the Kyuubi attack, and the little help and hints the older Hokage would slip into his things over time. He also taught him about the Will of Fire, and how important that was to Konoha, and was one of the main reasons Iruka was an Academy instructor now. Anyways, shortly after they started doing more regular C-Rank missions they encountered one that just went wrong.
They were given bad mission information, and were ambushed by a team of Iwa nins out near the border of Kusagakure, and would have all died if not for their sensei. The Iwa jounin successfully engaged Kaena from the very beginning of the ambush, as the team of Iwa chunin quickly ganged up on the less experienced Konoha genin team, focusing first on eliminating the Uchiha they felt was the biggest threat. Within moments of the fighting starting, his teammate and rival was dead and the only female member of the group tied up, knocked out, and being carried like a sack of potatoes by the largest of the Iwa nins.
The two remaining Iwa chunin continued to taunt and play with Iruka, sensing absolutely no threat and also with him not part of a clan, was completely expendable and they were simply playing with their food while slowly wearing him down. But then, Kaena saw his son's severed head and simply lost it, exploding with chakra before his eyes changed into something Iruka would never forget, the tomoe of the Sharingan evolved into a pinwheel pattern then everything changed. A large chakra construct grew out of his sensei, the size of a boss summons, that tore through everything in its path including the Iwa nins and their Hyuuga hostage.
Kaena was never the same after they came back to Konoha with the dead bodies of both of Iruka's more powerful teammates, and it definitely changed things for him as well. Kaena committed Seppuku shortly after returning to the village, not able to handle the loss of his only son and the destruction of his first and only genin team. After that, Iruka became a Reserve Genin and had to wait a while until a team lost a member to promotion until he was brought on so they could enter the chunin exams, but broke up afterwards when all three passed and became Chunin of the Leaf, each going into different fields from there.
Naruto was a little shocked that his teacher had so much trauma to deal with from such a young age, and also how similar their team assignments were, and even how they were seen within their teams as the 'Dead Last'. He was also fascinated by the tales of the Sharingan dojutsu of the Uchiha clan, having heard Sasuke mention it enough times to know it was a very big deal, and wanted to know more about it from what Iruka experienced and its history in Konoha. Iruka told him most of that information he sought would not be available to the main population, and the only true history of the Uchiha would be in their Clan Library, with the Chunin section of the Shinobi Library with just a basic primer that told of the known stories related to the founding of Konoha with Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha.
By this point it was starting to get relatively late, and Naruto asked Iruka if he had time for the spar he promised him weeks ago ...wanting to test himself against a superior opponent, and still much too energized to sleep this early in the evening. The pair ended up heading to the Academy training grounds, as they were the nearest and most familiar to them both to get in some training. Once there, they set up quick ground rules as this was a friendly spar, and both went through a quick stretch to loosen up before they were both ready to go.
"Are you ready, Iruka-sensei?" asked an excited Naruto, who Iruka was surprised to see enter an unfamiliar taijutsu stance and look pretty comfortable as he bounced on the balls of his feet as he waited to begin.
"Hajime," answered Iruka, as he exploded into motion charging at the younger blond hoping to throw him off and end the fight relatively quickly, but was surprised when Naruto's grin just grew as he neared him ready to deliver a basic Academy knife strike.
"Ha ...you'll have to do better than that sensei," laughed Naruto as he redirected the knife strike lazily, and landed a quick two punch combo just under the extended arm of his former teacher that had him cringe and realize that this wasn't the same Naruto 'dobe' he was used to dealing with, and made him re-evaluate the young blond even closer.
For the next twenty minutes, the two friends traded blows back and forth, both taking turns seemingly leading the fight as they attacked while the other defended until a counter switched up their roles. Iruka couldn't believe it, as he was pushed to his admittedly rusty limits by a genin who had only graduated less than a month ago, and was showing real skill in the area of taijutsu. At the next small pause, the Academy instructor created some actual space before he started making hand seals and was soon throwing around a few low level earth jutsus to hopefully break the taijutsu stalemate and take control of this spar.
That however, was met with his young blond opponent also deciding to switch to ninjutsu, and made his favorite cross hand seal before spawning only a dozen clones, and then instantly switching out with the one furthest away from the incoming earth attacks. Iruka quickly realized that fighting Naruto with ninjutsu would be a huge disadvantage to him, as the shadow clones of Naruto were too numerous (or could be if the blond wanted) and skilled to simply overpower them all without going all out, and maybe even then. So, he quickly abandoned his next ninjutsu attack, and switched it up to genjutsu, something he expected Naruto had not yet overcome and may be his only chance to win this spar and save face from being defeated by his probably worst ever Academy student.
"Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique," spoke Iruka, after a quick set of hand seals, that had his young opponent in front of him come to an instant and complete stop along with all of his nearby clones.
Only a single pair of clones managed to avoid the genjutsu initially, but with the remaining clones almost immediately freaking out from the genjutsu they were now under, it wasn't long before clones started dispelling. With them dispelling, their memory of the genjutsu was then transmitted to all the others, so very quickly Naruto felt as if he was hit with two dozen horrifying ways to die all created by his own subconscious viewing of the genjutsu, which only seemed to add merit to the illusion. It definitely made for two confused clones, who after watching the many imaginative ways they could die, both simply dispelled themselves by tackling the original Naruto to the ground in an effort to also see if they could shake the blond awake in the process.
Luckily, the dual tackle / dispelling did in fact shock Naruto out of the genjutsu he had still been stuck under, but unfortunately it did nothing as Iruka had the match well won by this point, as a grumbling Naruto complained about stupid genjutsu. Iruka ran him through the normal ways people dispel genjutsu, and Naruto had no problem upsetting his internal chakra system to dispel the illusion, but still struggled with having the illusion placed. If he was aware of the genjutsu, he could disrupt his chakra easily enough to dispel the illusion, but he most struggled with simply knowing when he was under a genjutsu.
Much later that night while brainstorming ideas, he came up with a possible idea he would try to implement the next day in order to better combat the problem he had with genjutsu in general. He would create a Shadow Clone Genjutsu dispelling team, three very hearty clones continually cycling through the process of dispelling and respawning clones away from any action. This would have the added benefit of keeping all of his clones and the original with the newest set of memories, and with the continual internal chakra disruption, that would make dispelling genjutsu a continuous thing that he wouldn't even need to worry about anymore.
For now though, he thanked Iruka for all his help and for the spar to give him an idea of how far he had come and still has to go, and headed back towards his apartment before his training continued. Despite the time getting to when he usually turns in for the night, Naruto this evening has a bit more energy still to burn when he returns to his apartment and decides he can always send out more clones. With the thought to research other clones and ways to make them stronger or more durable, Naruto spawns close to the now customary 1000 clones and tells them to get to work finding the solution.
Over the next few days, Naruto's clone research and later experimentation really started to pay off as he discovered the many different elemental clones available even if they were currently beyond him, and found ways to increase both the chakra capacity and the density of his favorite shadow clones. He also seemingly stumbled upon a shadow clone explosion technique that allowed him to use his shadow clones as kamikaze bombers, which really increased his offensive output and made his opponents' standing still and taking on his clones a suicidal prospect. The real gem of the research though, was a blood clone which was very durable and could act as an independent clone spawning station if Naruto took the time required to set them up.
The process was relatively difficult, but not impossible by any means, and required a beginner's knowledge of Fuinjutsu, which Naruto had slowly been acquiring over the last three weeks since becoming a genin and almost a kage's worth of chakra. He started with his ultra dense shadow clone, pouring copious amounts of chakra into the clone before moving on to the next step. Using his own blood, he wrote Fuinjutsu seals all over the clones body in the pattern discovered from the old scroll he "found" behind the rack of old scrolls in the Chunin section of the Shinobi Library, and watched after activating it, as the seals lit up as the blood was absorbed into the glowing body of his clone until he looked exactly like the original.
The whole process took over an hour, and left Naruto on the verge of exhaustion, but after a large meal and a little rest, he was ready to try again for blood clone #2 knowing how valuable they would become for him. That night, the original Naruto went to bed immediately after creating blood clone number two from his exhaustion, but left his two new blood clones with instructions to continue spawning more clones until they were out of chakra, then wait a while and do it again. Naruto was awoken several hours later to more noise than he was accustomed to in the morning, as he could see over two dozen Naruto clones all throughout his apartment fixing things, cleaning, studying, preparing breakfast, you name it, and there was probably a Naruto clone currently working on it somewhere in the cramped space of his apartment.
Taking a moment to process several hundred new memories from the night, which all came from newly spawned clones while he slept, he realized that he was running out of room and really needed to expand his operations to keep up with his clones' demands. With that thought, he sent out word to start developing clones for civilian jobs to start bringing in more money, sent teams of clones to clean out the training grounds of scrap metal and weapons for resale, teams for hunting and foraging in the forests around Konoha, and even sent out a search party to scout and look for a large enough space to occupy. He marvelled a bit at how much he had grown in just a short month of real 'clone' training, how much further he still had to go as a ninja, and how his clones were going to lead the way to his continued growth and development.
He then went to his early morning workout / training with the Green Beasts for several exhausting hours until the sun was actually up, and he could take a break for a late breakfast until he had to meet his own team. Realizing that he better head towards Training Ground Seven for his team meeting before he too was considered late, he left his blood clones in charge of his apartment and the expansion project. He contemplated other ways of increasing his funds, and promised to remind Kakashi about his deal to let him perform D-Ranks with his clones separately from the team as long as he was still working with said team as well. He also wondered if his growing Fuinjutsu skills had reached a level where he could start making money selling his sealing scrolls and explosive tags, which would be a huge boost to his financial resources.
"Hey guys," came Naruto's greeting after arriving at Training Ground Seven to find both Sasuke and Sakura already waiting in their now customary spots by the little bridge.
"Hn," grunted Sasuke in his standard non-verbal reply, before going back to brooding as he leaned against the bridge.
"Hi Naruto," came Sakura's pleasant response, having considerably warmed up to Naruto now that she knows how strong he is as a ninja, and since he stopped pestering her for dates almost completely and was even trying to help her train, she found him a rather easy going teammate. "What's our plan today?"
"I was going to keep working on chakra control while I wait," answered Naruto easily to the pink haired girl who he had been trying to help some for the past week, "want to join in again?"
"Sure," came her immediate reply, "can you show me the Tree Climbing exercise one more time, I think I've almost got it."
"No problem," said Naruto as he led the way towards the tree line, and before even arriving made the familiar seal and brought forth over 1000 shadow clones that he then sent out to practice before turning to his female teammate and walking her through the steps of the basic chakra control exercise.
Sakura had no problems picking up the Tree Climbing exercise very easily due to her immaculate chakra control, and Naruto then simply had her continue to go up and down the tree as much as she could to continue pushing herself and increasing her chakra reserves. The real Naruto, switched out with a clone early into the practice so he too could continue training his body physically as he killed time until Kakashi decided to show up and get the day's team training started. Sakura was pretty exhausted once Kakashi did finally arrive a little after a half an hour, but was still able to go through the team building exercises and formations practice relatively easily before being dismissed for lunch.
That afternoon's D-Rank mission, was the fourth Tora retrieval mission completed by Team Seven in the last two weeks, and again left every member with claw and scratch marks and a strong desire to see that cat suffer. Naruto was able to corner his sensei for a brief bit to confirm he had permission to run unfinished D-Rank missions with his clones, and quickly picked up all remaining D-Rank missions not assigned and sent a batch of clones off to complete them all before the end of the day. He also learned from his sensei, that there was a small exhibition match in two days that Kakashi arranged for Naruto to show off his skills against a real opponent who would really test his improved growth, and didn't mention anything about the side bet he had on it.
Naruto didn't think much of it either, other than showing excitement at getting to fight against another strong opponent to test himself and see how far he was coming along. He didn't really care about who it was, probably another genin team to practice, and dismissed it as unimportant compared to his continued training. That night after creating another blood clone, and when he was finally getting ready for bed, the work of his clones brought a large grin to his whiskered face, as he reviewed all the money they made him from missions, the promise of money from his many new civilian jobs, and from all the metal they found and sold.
That night, with three blood clones continually spawning clones, Naruto again woke up with many hundreds of sets of memories to go through over the night, and couldn't believe how quickly things were starting to happen. His "horde" of clones had already secured enough funds to make a legitimate offer on the current apartment complex he lived at, which would provide a great starting point to his expanding empire. They also discovered some underground tunnel systems that had a point of entry very nearby his apartment, that he made plans to explore and expand into as a way of moving around the village undetected. Doing a massive clone spawning of his own, he added almost 1200 clones to those created by the blood clones through the night, and had them push forward with his plans as he headed off to start his training with the Green Beasts of Taijutsu for a few hours until he was supposed to meet his own teammates for their team training.
"Hi guys," greeted Naruto as he arrived at Training Ground Seven to again find his teammates in their customary spots.
"Hn," came the Uchiha's usual grunt.
"Hey Naruto," responded Sakura, who got up without even being asked this time, and headed towards the tree line to continue where they left off yesterday in her training.
When Kakashi arrived and witnessed Sakura working on building her chakra reserves by working on her Tree Climbing with Naruto, he was pleasantly surprised that they had already learned that skill, and wondered if they had started on Water Walking, and why Sasuke wasn't joining them. He soon learned that Naruto offered to show them both the Tree Climbing exercise a few days ago, but only Sakura took up the offer since Sasuke didn't think Naruto knew anything worth learning. Liking the initiative it showed, Kakashi rewarded Naruto with one new jutsu he would teach him after learning he already was capable of Water Walking, and felt he deserved something extra.
Kakashi then had Sakura and Naruto move towards the small pond in the Training Ground to practice Water Walking, while he went and got Sasuke set up on the Tree Climbing exercise. After a half an hour, Kakashi was watching Sakura struggle to maintain her footing on the water for more than a few seconds at a time and encouraged her to keep at it, as her chakra reserves were growing exponentially. After watching Naruto run through a taijutsu spar against two dozen clones on the surface of the water without a single misstep, Kakashi smiled at the younger blond who looked so much like his own sensei, Minato Namikaze.
He really was impressed with how quickly Naruto was progressing, showing an initiative and drive that reminded him of his parents and his own upbringing and hoped the young blond didn't burn himself out working so hard. Thinking about what else to show the hyperactive young jinkurichi, he decided it was probably time to give him the start to elemental chakra, as his clones just gave him such an edge on learning that he could literally take years of training and condense it into one day with the amount of clones he could get working on something. Unless Naruto had something specific he was looking for, he made up his mind to get his hands on some chakra paper for tomorrow, but first was going to run a little experiment with his favorite little blond genin.
"Hey Naruto," called Kakashi once he saw the young man about to start another taijutsu clone battle on top of the water, "come with me over here ...I promised you a technique."
"Is it a super cool one?" asked a Naruto that appeared before his sensei in a flash, that almost had Kakashi wonder if he inherited more than just his dad's looks, and had his customary eye smile twinkle happily as he gazed at the excited young Uzumaki.
"I'll make you a deal," started Kakashi getting Naruto's attention instantly with his serious and somewhat uncharacteristic tone. "You follow my instructions and let me run a little clone test with you right now, which will eventually lead to several new avenues of research for you and your clone army, and maybe be the catalyst to make you great one day ...or I give you a generic B-rank bomb jutsu in thanks for helping Sakura start training."
"Um ...I think with how you phrased that choice, I am going to pick the first option and let you run your clone test," replied Naruto after a few moments of careful thought, and realizing that with his newly discovered shadow clone kamikaze bombs, that generic B-rank bomb jutsu wouldn't be too helpful anyway and was also very curious about what his sensei thought could be that significant to his growth.
"Good choice Naruto ...see, I knew you weren't a dobe," came the eye-smiling reply from Kakashi, even as he insulted his student and tried to get a rise out of him to see what he would do.
"I'm not a dobe," came the grumbled retort from Naruto, who simply glared at his sensei in challenge as he waited for what the silver haired jonin had in mind for this experiment, but didn't react any other way.
"Good," answered Kakashi with a small nod of approval, "now tomorrow I am going to bring some chakra paper to help determine your elemental chakra affinity, but before that I was hoping to run a clone experiment to see if we can't determine your elemental affinity through hard work."
"I'm not sure I understand sensei?" came the questioning voice of the younger ninja as he tried to recall everything he knew about elemental chakra, which wasn't much.
"Each of the five main elements has an elemental exercise for beginners to start getting a feel for the elemental chakra within them, they usually start with their primary affinity, mine is Lightning. We can determine yours with the chakra paper I will bring tomorrow, but we may also be able to determine your affinity through trial and error," continued the silver haired jonin to the now wide eyed younger ninja who was starting to understand what his sensei was aiming at. "Because of your clones and massive chakra reserves, you can practice these five beginner exercises simultaneously and separately, and we can use your progress and growth in any of the elements to get an idea for what may be your affinity, as it will always be easier to work with an element your are in tune with or have an affinity for, and likewise harder to work with it's opposing element."
"So if I had a fire affinity, I would get those exercises quickest and the water ones slowest?" asked Naruto, trying to ensure he understood completely and starting to realize how helpful this could be if he learned about all five elemental affinities.
"You got it," replied Kakashi with his customary eye smile. "Now let's start with 50 clones, 10 for each element and we'll go through the exercises."
For the next half an hour, Kakashi shows Naruto and his clones all five of the beginning elemental leaf exercises several times. Trying to burn the leaf for Fire, cut the leaf for Wind, crumble the leaf for Earth, electrocute the leaf for Lightning, and soak the leaf for Water. Kakashi demonstrated each one, though he struggled with Water, as he was a primary Lightning with a Fire secondary, Naruto was able to see the results and learn the little tricks that each element seemed to have. Air needed to be grinded down almost like the sharp side of a blade, Water needed to be saturated from surrounding water molecules, Lightning needed that static charge, Fire needed to be rubbed together and fed oxygen, Earth needed to be broken down into dirt.
When Kakashi left him to his own training to check on the other two, Naruto couldn't stop the grin that was forming on his face as he realized how helpful these exercises were towards the next big building block of any ninja's arsenal, elemental attacks. Deciding to speed this step along a bit, he created another 500 clones and split them into five even teams to keep everything fair, and had them join their fellows in practicing until they dropped. Naruto himself took a turn trying each of the beginning leaf exercises to see how little progress had been made with each of the elements and realized that this might take some serious time and work.
After today's mission, tilling a farmer's field on the east side of the village, the three genin separated for their own homes and lives, or more training for the two boys of the team. While Sasuke predictably returned to his compound's own private training grounds, Naruto didn't immediately head to dinner or another training ground but looked around to make sure he was alone before disappearing down into the nearest sewer manhole. Once down there, he used his own memories of countless clone explorers to navigate his way throughout the village's sewer system, until he came upon a different set of tunnels that also crisscrossed the entire village and led to many very interesting and strategic points throughout Konoha.
Knowing that most of these tunnels were completely abandoned from the lack of any signs of use, Naruto was happily planning out where and how to grow his small but growing empire and utilize these to avoid the general population. Finding a large open cavernous underground room not too far from his apartment complex, he decides to start building it out into a hidden training ground for him to practice away from any prying eyes. Spawning almost 1400 plus clones now, he set them all to work on cleaning out and organizing the tunnel system and building the new underground training center and the protections he wanted put in place because of where it was.
Heading back towards Ichiraku's Ramen stand, Naruto was happy to discover another entrance into his secret tunnel system only a couple hundred yards from his favorite place to eat, and knew that route was going to become very popular very quickly. That night, Naruto set about making a fourth blood clone, knowing that they were simply too valuable not to exploit as a resource for gathering more information, money, and skills and realized that he probably needed to start increasing his organizational efficiency as well. With that in mind he decided to give each blood clone a specific function within his growing organization, to make sure everything was getting covered and accomplished that he wanted.
Blood Clone Number One (BC1) was going to be the overseer and run his underground training facility, and be responsible for organizing training areas and keeping up on learning new skills and strengthening those he already knew. Inside this department would also be Research & Development for new jutsu, and pretty much everything related to training in the ninja life. BC2 was in charge of the civilian side of things, and was responsible for keeping up with the many civilian working clones they had throughout Konoha in order to increase the money coming in, and looking for ways to grow that even further, as he had ideas to maybe start a civilian business, and would also be responsible for all the accounting and business ventures his clones got involved in.
BC3 and BC4 were the information gathering clones who doubled as the Genjutsu Dispelling team, as their main function was to both keep every clone and the original up to date with information and continue to search out new sources of learning and information gathering. Eventually this would be the center of his spy network once they had exhausted all the libraries and learning available inside Konoha. But for now, they were working on the Library infiltration project, and had even sent out a scout team to start investigating his teammates' compound in the hopes he might one day get invited or have to sneak inside the Uchiha Library.
He was distracted as he readied himself for bed, by the elemental training clones successfully completing the first of the five beginner leaf training exercises, with Wind. He wondered if what Kakashi believed was true, then that meant his primary affinity was Wind, and he could honestly say that he was happy to have something relatively unique, especially in Fire Country. Luckily he already had the shadow clones, as Wind was the only element without a defined elemental clone that he knew of anyway, and wondered if that was something he should look into. Deciding to bring it up with Kakashi tomorrow, he reviewed the five beginner exercises he had been working on, and could tell that he had progressed in most of the others as well and couldn't wait to see the fruits it bore.
When Naruto woke up that next morning, still relatively early in order to meet with the Green Beasts of Taijutsu practice, he could instantly tell that today was going to be a great one as he reviewed the thousands of memories he collected throughout the night. Apparently, both the Water and Earth beginner leaf exercises had also now been completed by his clones, and he had even started to make some progress on the other two, though neither was close to completion as the other three now were. Earth and Water were both very balanced with both offensive and defensive capabilities, and he thought they would be a great compliment to his primary Wind affinity. Now having done the exercise successfully for three of the elements, Naruto was easily able to tell the difference between his affinity for each of the three as both Water and Earth chakra seemingly fought him a little still, while Wind practically leapt out of him eagerly.
Emboldened by his success, Naruto gathered his chakra for a larger than normal clone creation, and was rewarded with almost 1500 clones emerging throughout his apartment complex, that he quickly sent off to join with the BC1 training. He then left for his own training with the Green Beasts, which he felt was really going well lately, as he and Lee were starting to push each other now that he had seemingly caught up enough to provide the bowl cut boy an actual challenge. His own taijutsu style that was an incorporated mixture of Guy's goken style with several elements of the Uchiha interceptor style, and even several elements of Kushina Uzumaki's own familial style she brought to Konoha from Uzushio that seemed to work really well for the young blond, though he didn't know about that part yet.
"Hey Naruto," called Guy once said blond arrived at Training Ground Nine, where the Green Beasts usually practiced and trained, and only saw the older jonin there waiting with a large scroll across his back. "Sorry for the late notice, but my team is taking a C-Rank mission today out of the village and I wanted to give you some things to work on while I was gone."
"Oh, no worries sensei," responded Naruto, understanding the need for mission priority, "what did you have for me to work on?"
"This is the complete set of taijutsu scrolls I created of the Hariken Style, also known as the Hurricane Style of Uzushiogakure," began Guy seriously as he watched the young blond genin for any reaction to the name, knowing he would be dropping some information on the young orphan that would potentially change his life, but felt the young man deserved it for all the hard work he had put in recently.
"Uzushiogakure?" asked Naruto with a confused face as he tried to remember or place the Village Hidden by Whirling Tides, and not coming up with anything, other than assuming it was part of Kirigakure.
"The Village Hidden by Whirling Tides ...or Whirlpool," came the response from Guy, "a village once allied with Konoha, it's spiral symbol is still part of our crest, they were known as Masters of Fuinjutsu and their people well respected for their skills, potent chakra, and longevity of life."
"Okay," answered Naruto, still somewhat confused about the information he was being given and feeling like he was missing something very important about it, "why are you telling me all of this?"
"Because, the other important detail of Uzushiogakure, that is most relevant to you, Naruto," continued Guy seriously, "...was the ruling clan of the village was the Uzumaki Clan."
Naruto's whole body instantly froze the moment Guy mentioned the name Uzumaki, and he couldn't move as thousands of thoughts raced through his mind in seconds. He came from a Clan, he had a family, a history, a connection, were there more Uzumaki's out there, why hadn't he heard of Uzushiogakure before now? It was almost overwhelming to the young genin as his thoughts went all over the place trying to understand why he was only learning about this now, and who else knew about and kept this information from him.
"I created this scroll from my own observations watching this style, as I had the pleasure of an Uzumaki leading my genin team," continued Guy quietly and with concerned eyes as he watched the young orphan try to come to grips with everything he was learning, and seemed to be struggling with it all and knew his next words would be an even bigger shock to the young ninja. "I owe your mother more than I can ever repay, Naruto. Know that if you ever need anything of me, you need only ask. And when I get back, if you can show me you are serious about learning the Hariken style ...I'll tell you everything I know about Kushina Uzumaki, the Red Hot Habanero and the previous jinkurichi of the Kyuubi."
Naruto was beyond stunned at this point, as he was assaulted with thoughts and fears he had dreamed about and wished for longer than any other dream or desire he could ever remember. He was finally going to learn something about his mom, his Clan, and his birthright, and he couldn't believe it was finally happening after so long of being alone in Konoha, and knew now why he always felt so connected to the spiral symbol of his village that doubled as the symbol of his Clan. He wondered if this meant that others knew about his mother too, and also why he was only now being told about her, and not even by the Hokage who he had asked several times about his parents.
Realizing that he was starting to get mad at all the unanswered questions he had, and all the information that was apparently being withheld from him, he quickly tried to calm down and thank Guy who at least was willing to provide some of that information, even if he wished he had been told previously. His mom was a jounin of Konoha and a jinkurichi to the Kyuubi, she also came from the ruling Clan of Uzushiogakure, and he couldn't wait to learn everything he could about her.
"Thank you Guy-sensei," came Naruto's first words after several long moments of trying to get his composure, despite a few tears seemingly finding their way down his cheeks, as he bowed deeply to the green clad shinobi he could honestly say had been one of the most helpful and honest he had ever worked under and was proud to consider his teacher and friend. "I won't forget your kindness, and would very much like to know more about her whenever you are available."
"You got it, Naruto," answered Guy with a beaming wide smile that instantly lifted Naruto's spirits and made him realize how much lighter he felt now knowing anything about one of his parents, and had him gladly return the megawatt grin to Guy. "When I return from this mission, I'll set aside some training time for us to talk about her ...you really do remind me a lot about her."
"Thanks Guy-sensei," responded Naruto thoughtfully and earnestly.
"See you in a few days then young Naruto," replied Guy easily, "keep up the practice ...and I think you are really going to take to that taijutsu style."
"Yes sir," came the determined, yet still somewhat emotional voice of Naruto, who just found a connection to his mother that he was eagerly looking forward to learning and incorporating into his own style.
With his normal morning routine disrupted by Guy's and his team leaving the village for a few days, Naruto decided that there was no time like the present to get started on something that connected him to his mother and his Clan, and it was vital he learned it immediately. So he spawned a dozen clones to read over the taijutsu scrolls several times before he started at the beginning, going through all of the various forms and exercises until they came to him easily before moving on to the next. Over the next few hours, Naruto methodically tore through the taijutsu scroll prepared by Guy, committing every movement to memory and increasing the amount of clones steadily until he had over 100 working exclusively on incorporating these new moves into his already hodgepodge form.
By the time for him to get a late breakfast, so he could continue with his day as usual, he had already gone through the entire scroll once and couldn't wait to keep practicing the new style that seemed much more natural to Naruto than anything he had used earlier. Having a quick meal, he then rushed to Training Ground Seven to find his teammates waiting for him to start their chakra control practice while they waited for Kakashi to appear. Sasuke actually asked Naruto for a hint about Tree Climbing, and the blond easily replied with everything he learned about how much chakra to use and how to fortify your body with chakra as you climbed higher in the trees as the pressure increased on your limbs.
He then helped Sakura get a little bit more steady on the Water Walking exercise she was currently working on, glad to see her still trying to train and improve a little and knowing she had a long way to go until she was really helpful to the team. With them taken care of, Naruto spawned a bunch of his own clones before setting them up to continue working on elemental chakra control, knowing how important the building blocks of great elemental attacks were going to be long term. He divided the clones evenly and put them back to work on the beginning stages of all five elemental training exercises, to increase his familiarity with his expected Affinity for Wind, and his seeming secondary affinities for Water and Earth, while still trying to complete the Lightning and Fire exercises before Kakashi arrived for daily training.
"Yo!" greeted the lazy silver haired one-eyed jounin as he arrived via shunshin in a swirl of leaves, interrupting the three practicing genin for a moment until telling them to continue with their current activities as he would come around and offer help and direction for the next steps.
Starting with Sasuke, who was now getting the hang of the Tree Climbing exercise, and only needed to perfect it before moving on to the next. He then went to Sakura, who was now able to stand on her own above the water, as long as she didn't move too much and tried to help with hints to keep up the practice. By the time he reached Naruto, he was able to tell that the young ninja had succeeded several times over on his task of learning the basic elemental exercises and asked his student what he thought of each element now.
"Wind is definitely the easiest, I was able to figure that one out within an hour of starting," answered Naruto with a happy grin on his flushed face. "Water came next, with Earth not far behind it ...sometime this morning my clones figured them out. I feel pretty close to getting Fire, but I don't know if I will ever get Lightning and even Fire doesn't feel completely natural."
"Hmm," came a thoughtful hum from Kakashi, "I wonder if your tenant isn't responsible for the unnatural Fire element ...it would definitely make sense that the Fox had a Fire affinity. It would also maybe explain the unnaturalness of it compared to the elements you were able to work."
"I never thought of that, do you think it's possible?" asked Naruto curiously, not knowing what went into the elemental affinities, and figuring he should probably try to find out, as it may be family related and something he shared with his unknown father or the recently learned of Kushina Uzumaki, and therefore very important to him on a personal level.
"It's definitely possible," answered Kakashi honestly, "Jinkurichi have always carried over a bit of their demon, or more accurately, their youkai (demonic chakra) bleeds through any host to sometimes very specific effects. I am pretty sure the One-Tailed Tanuuki comes with a fundamental and almost in-born control over sand ...it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Kyuubi also manifested in specific ways in it's hosts."
"Do you know how it manifested in Kushina Uzumaki?" asked Naruto slowly and very carefully, having not thought he would have the chance to bring up his recently learned about mother, but wanting to know both if she manifested any of the Kyuubi's traits and if Kakashi knew her or would talk about her to him.
"Where did you hear that name?" asked a suddenly still and almost panicking Kakashi, as memories he had long since buried came to the forefront of his thoughts and her visage superimposed itself over her equally loud and energetic son, causing him to almost choke up and look away from the boy that so resembled Kushina and Minato, his hero and sensei, that it was an almost painful physical reminder of everything he had lost.
"Your Rival, Guy-sensei told me a little about her this morning before leaving on a C-Rank mission with his team," answered Naruto slowly and carefully, not wanting to upset his jounin sensei, as he realized from the man's reaction, that he did in fact know Kushina and probably even more than he expected. "Did you know her as well?"
"Yes Naruto ...I knew her," sighed Kakashi in defeat, as his whole body seemed to sag in depression, and Naruto realized that his sensei's memories of her might not be all that positive, and that for some reason made him nervous, not wanting to learn that his mom wasn't as amazing as he dreamed and believed. "But now isn't the time to talk about the past," he continued reluctantly after a moment's pause, "...after our mission today, I'll tell you a few stories I have."
Naruto was beyond excited to potentially learn even more about his recently discovered mother, but even he could plainly see the topic was not a happy one for his jounin sensei, and wondered what about his mother that saddened and upset the usually lazy and unflappable Kakashi Hatake. Hopefully, some answers would come this afternoon, and at least he now knew something about his mother, and it filled him with a previously unfelt feeling of pride, and a need to prove himself as a good successor in both his Clan family and in hosting the Kyuubi. He had always wondered who his parents were, and why he wasn't allowed to even know of them as he grew up alone and unloved, and craving the love and care usually only spared by parents.
Now, armed with just the basics of knowledge of who his mother was, and already he felt infinitely better with a strong sense of connection to this person that shared his burden of the Kyuubi, and couldn't wait to learn everything he could about her. He made a mental note / command to his hundreds of clones running around to start searching for any information they could find on Kushina, the Uzumaki Clan, Uzushiogakure, and Jinkurichi in general. With his thoughts still running around in his head, he tried to put it all to the side so he could instead focus on his sensei who was standing right in front of him, handing over a small scrap of clean white paper.
"Here Naruto," started Kakashi once he noticed that his young student was back to listening and paying attention, "this is the Chakra Paper I was telling you about. Just push some chakra into it, and we will wait and see what your elemental affinity is. It reacts differently to every element, so let's see if your training was correct about your affinities?"
Naruto eagerly grabbed the Chakra Paper and sent his chakra into it causing an instant reaction that had him dropping the paper almost as fast as he grabbed it. The paper instantly split in half rather violently, with one side slowly crumbling to dust as the other was slowly saturated with water, confirming his estimates about his affinities exactly. With that out of the way, Kakashi tried to help with the last two elemental affinities, but quickly told Naruto to just continue working on the basic exercises, if he ever wanted to incorporate Lightning and Fire jutsu's in his arsenal and that the next step in all the elemental training would come soon.
He then instructed Naruto about the exhibition match he was to have the following day in Training Ground 7, against a chunin opponent he expected Naruto to beat if he came at him like he did that first day for the bell test. Naruto asked if he could prepare the area with traps like he did against his jounin instructor, but was told that he wouldn't be allowed to prepare, as that would give him an unfair advantage that he wouldn't even need. The silver haired jounin also told him to lower his weights, if not completely remove them so he could fight at a faster / chunin level and also to start getting used to moving at faster speeds.
"If you show me you are ready, I'll take your training up a notch after this exhibition fight," added Kakashi to the excitedly happy Naruto, who couldn't wait until his training was taken up a notch by his jounin instructor. "Just remember to try your best, and make Guy and I proud."
"Yes sensei," mumbled a slightly embarrassed Naruto, who was unaccustomed to people rooting for him, and not used to other's support or offering him help in the past, and wanted to prove his teacher's faith in him wasn't misplaced. "I'll be ready."
"I know you will Naruto," added Kakashi with his usual eye smile, as he nodded at his younger blonde student with a growing smirk on his hidden face at the thought of the Dead Last crushing a career chunin in just over a month of real training, and what he was going to do with all the money he won off of Ebisu, dreaming already of the newest Ichi Ichi Paradise Gold Edition, he was saving up for. "Now, go get some lunch and meet back at the Mission Office in one hour for our afternoon chores."