Naruto 1. Chapter 1: Death of a Demon

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Shadow hearts (this includes this chapter and any future chapters)

**Death of a Demon**

It is said that the Multiverse is never ending, where every choice creates a new universe. On this world alone there are nine demons that roam the planet so the idea that there are other worlds or other universes with more demons or worlds full of demons is not out of the realm of possibility.

Demons are said to be the opposite of gods, but what are demons and gods? There are some civilisations that quite often see their leaders as gods, so if there was a creature with great power say enough power to destroy a mountain then it is possible that this creature would be seen as either a demon or god or possibly both.

On our world the nine demons are too strong to be killed through normal means, so the people of the world came up with creative ways of dealing with them, using a skill which is not understood very well the demons were contained within object and people (the stronger ones could not be held in objects for long). This skill (sealing) uses lines to control the flow of chakra (energy created from the body and spirit combined), as the lines can be any shape it allows chakra to be shaped into more complicated shapes with less chakra used. If a line on a seal is misplaced or slightly out of place it can have drastic effects from slightly changing the efficiency of the seal to making the seal backfire.

Minato Namikaze atop of a giant toad used one of his signature techniques to move both himself and Gamabunta to face the Kyuubi that had been released from his wife to attack their village by Madara Uchiha. Minato after facing off against the Uchiha now had to face the most powerful being known to their people, to save as many people as he can as Konoha's (the village where he lives) shinobi were trying to push it back, he asks Gamabunta to hold off the Kyuubi whilst the giant toad does what asked of him (not without complaint) Minato gets in close and uses his signature technique one more time, this time to move both himself and the Kyuubi.

"Kushina what are you doing here?" Minato exclaimed as his wife carrying their new born son in her arms was present at the sight he and the Kyuubi appeared, Kushina restrained the Kyuubi using her special chakra in the form of chains.

"I will draw the Kyuubi back into me with the last of my chakra so it will die with me!" The tomboyish redhead spoke with tears in her eyes "You made me happy by loving me, there's nothing that I could imagine that would make me happier than to live with you and see our son grow up."

Minato moved quickly to embrace his love knowing it will be the last time with tears in his eyes his heart and throat both burning, still embracing his wife he starts making seals using his hands "I will give you the chance to see our son growing up, I will seal your chakra inside of him with the fox, know that my time with you has been better than all that I could have wished for, I love you!" with that Minato finished the last hand seals for the dead demon consuming seal.

This seal opened a hole throughout the multiverse with his son at the focal point, everyone throughout the world felt a shiver go down there back as if someone was walking over their graves. This hole in the multiverse only lasted for a couple of minutes but in that time the creature thought of as the god of death (If something is only seen when summoned without contract kills both summoner and target it gains a reputation), a creature of ineffable size and power attacked the Kyuubi with as much power as the portal could allow through, the nine tailed fox was almost killed in the attack and left virtually powerless. Before the fox had chance to recover the hole in the multiverse started to close and pulling the fox towards the young baby, Kushina's chakra that was surrounding the fox was pulled along with it into the young child via the seal.

Whisker marks appeared on the young boy's cheeks and a spiral tattoo on his stomach, the tattoo glowed for a few seconds before breaking and evaporating off his skin leaving behind a small red diamond just above his navel.

Minato was in excruciating pain knew he didn't have long to live but held on until Sarutobi Hiruzen appeared at his side, he was almost delirious at this point but he got out what he wanted to say even with his vision fading "Please protect Naruto he is all that's left of my love and our greatest achievement, please let him know that we both loved him and are proud of whatever he becomes, he is a hero before he can walk…" Minato lets out his last breath and collapses on the floor next the one who brought him his greatest happiness.

With a tear falling slowly from his brown eye Sarutobi moves over to Kushina and removes the sleeping bundle from her protective grasp before issuing commands to the ANBU in the surrounding foliage with an emotionless voice "Prepare them for burial, Inu go to their house and seal up all of their possessions, you'll need to be quick before the council catch on. Deliver them to my estate later on and don't hand it over to anyone but me, Uma get me a list of all new mothers and the rest of you gather the council, bring order back to the village and patrol the surrounding area move out."

It was several hours later before the whole council was assembled and Sarutobi again wearing the Hokage's robes of office was seated in front of them still holding the sleeping baby in one arm, the other holding a list his eyes slowly going through it. He looks to see most of the council there and the ones that weren't were probably not going to turn up for various reasons such as the giant nine tailed fox that crushed them or their family.

"As you can no doubt tell Minato fell facing the demon fox, as such I will be taking control of the village until I can find another worthy successor or I fall in battle as is dictated in the village mandate." Silence followed this announcement and many of the council had their heads bowed remembering the man that ended the last war and brought prestige to their village.

After a brief stint of silence Sarutobi continued "As you know it is impossible to kill a bijuu through normal means…" a small pause in anticipation of the outcry that he knew will follow his next statement "so Minato sealed the Kyuubi inside the new born child I'm holding." As expected there were cries of revenge amongst the council, mainly from the civilian side as they have less knowledge of seals than the shinobi side.

Sarutobi kept his peace until the council quietened down again "The child Naruto is as far as we know an orphan and will be known as Naruto Uzumaki out of respect for the former containers until such time as his parents are discovered, until then I will place him in a suitable home and he will be protected by ANBU until he can look after himself. There is to be no discussion on this anyone that is found trying to hurt Naruto will be considered a traitor to the Village anyone who is found informing others that Naruto is a Jinchuuriki will be considered a traitor and be executed on the spot. Danzou I know you will want to train the boy to be a weapon and I refuse, the boy will be given an elite tutor from the age of two until he reaches the age of academy graduation where he will be put on a team with people his own age."

With that said he stood, the council standing with him out of habit, and headed towards the Hokage's office to re-acquaint himself with it Naruto and the list still in his hands. Upon reaching the office he kicked it closed and barely made it to his chair before his emotionless face broke, he looked at the peaceful face of the child and thought as dreadful that this day was it could have been a lot worse.

Concentrating on the list in his other hand, automatically excluding clan mothers as that would cause hell with the other clans; he selected a few women who were shinobi on leave due to recently giving birth and made a new list of possible surrogate mothers for Naruto. With that done he went through any urgent paperwork (there wasn't much as people tend to forget paper work when a two hundred and fifty foot fox attacks) and wrote down instruction for the secretary to make sure the town gets back on its feet tomorrow put a reminder for a memorial service in his calendar before heading home.

A dog faced ANBU met him at the front of his estate and handed him a scroll "Good work Inu, I want you to call the women on this list to the tower tomorrow, make sure there is a half hour gap between each appointment." He handed the list of new mothers to the ANBU agent who bowed and left in a whirl of leaves. Sarutobi looked up at the starry night briefly before entering his family home.


	2. Chapter 2: Meeting Mothers

It was kind of annoying that the only review I got for the first chapter was about how Naruto got his whisker marks (I wonder if I have to put in minor plot changes as well as major plot changes in the summary…) but I must admit I didn't know he didn't get it from them from the sealing, this does mean he already had Kyuubi chakra in him before the sealing however. As I'm making this up as I go along I have altered what I was going to put to include the whisker marks hahaha…

Sanity is in perspective

I apologise in advance for not creating many names for passive characters, I'm crap at making names (although looking at the number of reviews I got I think I've got more than names to worry about…)

**Meeting Mothers**

It had not been a good night for the re-instated Hokage, he had passed Naruto onto one of his servants who he trusted to look after him for the night but he (and everyone else in the house) had been woken up several times by the wails of the young babe. Of course this didn't make finding Naruto a new home any more important as long as he was gone by the end of the day sure babies are cute as long as you can give them back.

One of the first things Sarutobi noticed upon retrieving Naruto was the diamond seal above his navel and although he didn't know much more than the basics of sealing he had picked up a few things over the years, in retrospect he thought he should have had the seal checked first thing last night but it had been a stressful day what with the death of Biwako and Naruto looked fine so the thought hadn't crossed his mind. He headed towards the Hokage's tower with his servant following a few steps behind pulling funny faces and making stupid noises to entertain the baby in her arms.

They made their past the two ANBU guards waiting outside the tower both bowing the Sandaime into the building and made their way up the stairs till they came to some double doors with two more ANBU guarding them, one of the ANBU opened the door and both bowed as their re-instated leader passed inside, once inside Sarutobi made his way behind the desk again and took his seat whilst his servant moved to the side of the room taking a seat on the couch placed against the wall. Sarutobi called out "Fetch me Jiraiya and a Medic Nin, hold everyone else outside until I call for them." There was a slight shift in the shadows before the Third Hokage started on his paperwork what little there was as most paperwork is done by administrators; looking through losses from the Kyuubi attack both financial and shinobi, as well as security measures that need to be taken like repairs and feelers as to any action taken by other countries whilst they are weakened.

It was ten minutes later before a knock at the door and the Medic Nin was introduced; Saiyuri became a full time medic after she was diagnosed Diabetic and couldn't continue her shinobi career as other people's lives would have depended on her and many missions take unexpected turns. When she was diagnosed she was well on her way to becoming a genjutsu specialist, it was devastating to her to find out all her hard work turned out to be useless to her, but her drive kept her going till she became one of the best medics in Konoha and her pleasant disposition and experience made her popular with the shinobi.

"Ah Saiyuri-Chan how nice to see you again" the re-instated Hokage said from behind his desk presenting a grandfatherly smile to the medic, she bowed in response "Hokage-sama" she replied. Sarutobi chatted with the young medic asking seemingly pointless questions which gave him an outline of her personality and inquiring about her friends and family to find out what her most likely response would be to the young Jinchuuriki.

By the time they had finished talking Jiraiya had appeared through the window as was his custom, although hard to tell Sarutobi noticed that his student was distressed, his usually buoyant attitude absent, let alone he hadn't made any comments about the young medic yet. The grandfatherly face disappeared from the Third Hokage's face indicating the start of the reason were both called, Saiyuri stood to attention out of force of habit.

"As I'm sure you've both noticed the baby," neither of the two subordinates even bothered turning "This child's name is Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto." At this Jiraiya whole attention focused on his teacher "Jiraiya as you have no doubt worked out this child is the Jinchuuriki for the nine tailed fox." A short gasp followed this announcement from Saiyuri before the Sandaime continued "I need you to check the seal to see if everything is functioning fine, Saiyuri I want you to do a medical scan to see if Naruto is healthy, I'll need to know if the fox has had any effect on him, also due to problems it will cause if anyone finds out about Naruto this case will be classified top secret and all future medical needs will be supervised by you unless you have a problem with the baby?" Sarutobi looked at the medic with questioning glance for which was obviously not a question.

At this Naruto was brought over by the servant and laid on the desk before she bowed and left the room heading returning to her other duties back at the Sarutobi estate. Saiyuri moved forward when indicated by the Hokage and started going through various medical scans on the young child stopping every now and then to make a note on the sheets she took out of her pouch. Upon completion of the exam a look of disbelief was shown on the young medic and subsequently the Sandaime and Jiraiya when they heard the result "Sir according to the scans he is physically healthy, there are small traces of Kyuubi chakra localised around his stomach but there is another chakra source there that seems to be trying to withhold the chakra and for the most part succeeding. The child has enormous chakra reserves for his age as expected, at the moment they are around what's expected for a chunin ninjutsu specialist but there is a problem with his chakra… it seems to be somewhat chaotic and it doesn't look like it is because of the Kyuubi but I've never examined anyone like him before. Because of the chaotic nature of the chakra I'd guess that controlling it will be probably be difficult but as I've never seen this before I can't be certain, on the plus side because there is so much of it in the small body and it's in constant motion it seems to be compressing his muscles and bones this will likely permanently increase his strength and if he works towards it he might approach Tsunade's strength naturally. There might be other effects due to the density and nature of the chakra but they will probably only show as he ages."

Recovering from this new information and altering his plans the Sandaime dismissed Saiyuri asking her to inform him if anything regarding Naruto comes up leaving just one more thing to check before he meets people to take the place of a mother for Naruto, It was Jiraiya's turn to move close to the baby his eyes taking in everything about the child before moving over to where the seal is located.

He placed his hand on either side of the babe's stomach before channelling chakra only to find out that nothing happened, now somewhat panicked Jiraiya focused on the diamond prodding it a few times whilst whispering to himself, standing up he strokes his chin in thought before going through several hand signs and placing his hands once upon the diamond. For a few brief seconds the diamond glowed before spreading across Naruto's stomach in a spiral pattern, suddenly Naruto was bawling as the whisker marks grew thicker on his cheeks before Jiraiya stopped and both the Diamond and whisker marks returned to the way they were.

Looking at his teacher "Sensei… the seal on Naruto stomach is not holding the Kyuubi… it's hard to explain heck I'm not even sure I understand it myself but the seal on his stomach is like Tsunade's creation rebirth seal only it seems to be stopping the Kyuubi from taking over Naruto's body, as for the Kyuubi itself, I suppose the only way to explain it is it's a part of Naruto now sort of, I believe if this seal wasn't in place there would be a contest of wills between Naruto and the Kyuubi to see who gains control of the body, when Naruto is older it should be possible for us to release the seal and let them face each other… if Naruto won he might gain full control of the Kyuubi's power of course if he lost we would probably have a nigh immortal being that would probably like to kill us all. As for why this happened I can only assume that it is a new advanced bloodline, although I have no idea what it could be used for, even though neither Minato nor Kushina showed any signs of the possibility but then again we don't know how advanced bloodlines start."

Sarutobi was lost in thought for a few minutes before responding to what he had just learnt "What is your opinion Jiraiya is he dangerous to Konoha? Do I have to take appropriate measures?" The response he received was adamant "He is harmless at the moment, unless someone decides to remove the seal on his stomach then it will be fine, you do know that the seal on his stomach most likely contains Kushina's chakra?" Sarutobi hummed in response, Jiraiya seeing it as a dismissal went to leave before he was stopped by Sarutobi "oh Jiraiya by the way I will be looking for guardians for Naruto in a few minutes do you want to stay and help?" the toad sage looked uncertain so Sarutobi continued with something he knew would convince the super pervert "you should know that there will be lots of young attractive Kunoichi to be interviewed, and I would love your input." Oh how easy it is to control the pervert.

In the end they found their candidate, her name is Inugami Saki (see Shadow Hearts Covenant), she had a still birth and due to complications was unable to conceive again her partner left her when he found out and due to their separation she ended up in a not so nice part of the village so was deemed unsuitable for adoption. Saki is well rounded as a ninja but focuses mostly on taijutsu, unusual for a Kunoichi due to them being inherently weaker than their male counterpart. She was once beautiful but because of recent events had become somewhat gaunt in appearance, nothing that a bit of healthy living couldn't fix.

After all the interviews had finished Jiraiya left to take care of his spy network whilst Sarutobi called Saki back to see if she would accept the 'missions' he had planned. During the interviews Naruto had been kept in a separate room under ANBU watch but now he was again in the arms of the village leader, squirming as much as a one day old baby can.

Saki again entered the Hokage's office, curios about what was going on as it wasn't every day the village leader called you in to talk about how your life was going. Upon entering she noticed that Sarutobi was facing the window looking out over the village, Saki moved to stand in front of the desk before bowing and announcing her presence. Still looking out of the window the old leader started talking with a solemn voice "I have a small problem which I believe you can help me with Saki, I had talked to many women this morning and found you to be the best candidate for a few missions I have that need to be taken care of," with that Sarutobi turned slowly in his chair to once again face his desk.

Keeping his eyes fixed on Saki's face "This child was used to defeat the Kyuubi (a surprised look crossed her face but there was no hostility), because of the number of people who lost their lives in the attack yesterday there will no doubt be many people who would take their misguided anger out on the baby (here he was happy to note a disgusted look flash across her face). From the talk we had this morning and looking into your past" Sarutobi indicated a folder sitting on his desk. Saki somehow seemed to fidget without actually moving waiting for the verdict.

"I have noted that you had applied to adopt but were refused," Saki started to offer her defence before Sarutobi held his hand up and continued with what he was saying "I have looked at your psych report as well as your background and it appears that the only reason you can't adopt is because it is thought that you would be unable to support a child financially and because you don't have a partner to look after the child while you are away on missions."

Saki looked down obviously upset with how this conversation was going "Therefore I have a few long term missions which I would like you to take (indicating to the baby in his arms), I would like for you to raise Naruto as if he was your own child (Saki's face split into a grin, her face seemed to regain a lot of its vitality) this will be classed as an on-going C class mission, I also need a teacher for a recently orphaned child this too will be an on-going C class mission and finally I will need a bodyguard for a figure which will play a big part in Konohagakure's future of course this will be a C class mission. So do you think you are up to taking on three simultaneous?"

The young lady was almost bouncing on the spot she could barely contain herself before accepting the missions, after which she held her arms out towards the Hokage who carefully deposited the young blond into the excited woman's arms (grateful that he wouldn't have to spend another night being woken up by a screaming baby), it was hard to draw the happy mother's attention away from the bundle in her arms, which brought a smile to the old man's face.

When he did eventually get her settled down enough he started to inform her of important things she would need or want to know "Due to what Naruto is everything I am about to say is strictly classified and can only be spoken to with either myself or Jiraiya. Naruto's parents were Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki Namikaze, because of the conflict it would cause with factions inside and outside of Konoha Naruto will be using his mother's maiden name until such a time where it is decided it will be beneficial or he can be trusted to know, if he shows proficiency it would be useful if he learnt Fuuinjutsu. I had a medic check him out this morning and for all future check-ups or problems you should go see her, you've probably met her before, her name is Saiyuri. The medical scan showed that Naruto has a lot of chakra but it is chaotic at the moment, he will be physically stronger than normal but will probably have trouble controlling his chakra… focus on his taijutsu and set him tasks to do to control his chakra whilst he is practising his kata."

The Sandaime paused for a minute trying to remember what he had forgotten before bringing out a scroll from his pocket "this scroll contains all of Naruto's parent's possessions, it will be held here until Naruto can be trusted with their identities, I have also taken the liberty of purchasing a place of residence for yourself and Naruto near one of the ANBU bases towards the outskirts of the village, there is a security seal inside that will bring aid in less than a minute in an emergency, the house is remote and it should give you plenty of privacy. Now I think it's time to show you your new house and then you can go and collect anything you want from your old house before you move in." With a nod one of the ANBU around the room stepped out from the shadows and led the ecstatic mother home.

Life passed peacefully for the mother and child for the first few years, as most people didn't know where or who they were and Naruto for the most part never left the boundaries of the property. At first Naruto was just like any other baby eating, pooping and sleeping then he learnt how to crawl and crawl he did with his never ending energy it was almost as if he teleported to the top of the stairs. Luckily Naruto seemed to heal extraordinarily quickly from any injury he received so he was ready in no time to go exploring again.

Saki spent most of her time looking after Naruto, teaching him like the dedicated mother she was started with simple things like walking, talking then moving on to more advanced like reading, writing and swimming. As there was no one except the Hokage Saki could trust Naruto with she rarely got a break from looking after him but she wouldn't trade it for anything in the world Naruto had become her life.

The only thing about Naruto that upset Saki was that he had no choice on what he would be in the future, she knew he would be a shinobi and would likely face more dangers than most other ninja of the leaf and although it upset her she had started Naruto's training before he could walk starting with giving him weighted clothes to move in, showing how to move silently and gracefully. As he grew Saki started playing games with him like hide and seek to teach him tracking and stealth, blind man's bluff to teach him situational awareness and juggling between the two of them to increase hand eye co-ordination. These 'games' progressed in difficulty like making Naruto stand on a pole whilst juggling to increase balance, this lead to gymnastics (luckily there was no-one there to tell him it was a girls sport*) and eventually martial arts.

At first it Saki found it difficult to teach Naruto anything academic because he had so much energy he found it difficult sitting down for more than a few minutes and trying to wear him out more often than not wore her out first (she quite often wondered how he kept still enough to sleep), She eventually found a solution to this problem when they first tried a chakra control exercise. Naruto's chakra was so chaotic he wouldn't be able to do any ninjutsu for quite a while yet (and she doubted he'd ever be able to do genjutsu, on the flip side because of his chakra most genjutsu wouldn't affect him as genjutsu needs to be anchored to your opponents chakra) but he could expel chakra through his tenketsu; the benefits of making Naruto expel most of his chakra was that he became tired enough to concentrate on academic work, it helped slightly with his chakra control and it strengthened his tenketsu meaning he could expel more at once of course this left most of his body feeling like he'd been struck by lightning (smoke effect included) but his mother told him to do it so he did.

By the time Naruto was eight he had the taijutsu skills (Saki taught him a style that relies on speed and strength to quickly disable or kill an opponent as opposed to her own style which focuses on flexibility) matching that of most chunin and the speed and strength to match any jounin (except Gai), he had a descent understanding of Fuuinjutsu with only Jiraiya and Saki (she had to learn to teach him) in Konoha knowing more. Naruto still couldn't use much in the way on ninjutsu, when he used Henge there was a noticeable glow around him/her (there weren't many people that he knew so he henged into Saki) and when he used Kawarimi whatever he was replaced with had a tendency to be crushed, he had tried to learn bunshin but they gave it up after a week as impossible. Naruto's genjutsu was non-existent period and his chakra control left a lot to be desired, he could walk on water but it was more of a brute force approach and he could walk up most walls and trees but he quite often left indents in them.

It was on Naruto's ninth birthday and he was home with his mother and the Hokage, Naruto received a book his father wrote on advanced sealing from the old man. His mother Saki gave Naruto three things which meant more to him than any of his other possession, these were a set of gauntlets called Dragonfangs (they are blue with two blades on each one and two pearls in each hand guard that made them look alive**) which used chakra to repair themselves, a photo of the two of them together with a message on the back 'Know that I will always love you my son' and finally the truth about who he was and what he contained, he carried all three with him everywhere.

Naruto was somewhat of a recluse as the only people he ever talked to was his mother and the Hokage and although he was happy both adults in his life though it would cause problems later on when he would have to work with others.

Under the recommendation of the Third Hokage Naruto started to explore beyond the grounds of the house accompanied by Saki at first and a couple of hidden ANBU, they went to a couple of restaurants and the park. The Hokage then decided it would be a good idea to have a gathering of important figures in Konoha including Naruto of course this is where their problems really started.

"Naruto-Kun how nice to see you again" all heads turned towards the young blond as the leader of their village shouted out across the room in greeting as said blond stood rooted to the spot wishing he was younger so he could hide behind his mother, quickly putting his embarrassment behind him as he'd been taught Naruto stood straight and bowed gracefully, his mother joining him. Saki put her hand between Naruto's shoulders and led him over to where everyone else his age was before leaving him with a quick hug. He stood embarrassed in front of all the other children scratching the back of his head "Nice to meet you, I'm Naruto" he was soon introduced to many of the clan heirs from the Aburame to the Yamanaka as well as quite a few civilian children from wealthy families. After the introductions Naruto stayed in the background listening to the various conversations around him and inputting little as he had no idea why Sasuke is soo cool.

What he did notice was that a lot of the non-ninja parents seemed to be collecting their children a few minutes after he arrived although he didn't think much on it since this was the first time he'd been to such an event. What he didn't know was that after the meeting when he was born word had spread in certain circles that a boy his age with whisker marks on his cheeks was the container for the nine tailed fox and as information is power almost all of the adults in the room thought they knew what he was and even if some of them didn't hold it against him they were a bit wary about leaving their children with him.

It was a couple of weeks after the gathering when Saki and Naruto were taking a break from their training to go shopping when they noticed something was wrong, everyone was avoiding them and they were receiving cold looks from most everyone. Somewhat puzzled and worried they never the less carried on at a somewhat quicker pace keeping close to each other out of comfort, they were somewhat relieved when they reached home and could relax.

Naruto headed off to the kitchen to put the shopping away whilst Saki went to contact Sarutobi via letter to inform him of the odd behaviour of the village. They were sitting around the table eating tea playing a word game Saki thought up teach Naruto ways to gather information when they started to fall asleep at the table their heads falling into the remains of their tea.

It was about half an hour later when Naruto woke up to find himself tied naked to a metal stake which had been drilled into the kitchen floor. He could see his mother across the room; she had been strapped to one of the kitchen chars which had been nailed down, she was thankfully still clothed. On the kitchen table all of the things Naruto had been wearing were piled and he could see people around the edge of the room.

Naruto groaned as pain shot through his head "Oh your awake I see and half an hour early too, although I suppose we should have suspected that from demon scum!" there were jeers around the room as the instigator of all this swung in front of Naruto a sadistic grin on his face "You thought you could take everything away from us and get away with it? Now we're going to show you what it's like to lose everything." As Naruto started to struggle with his bindings bringing all of his considerable (if somewhat weakened due to the drugging) strength to bear against his bindings but it was no use as with a small signal from the man in front of Naruto the stuff on the table was set on fire including the birthday presents from his mother.

Whilst he watched his stuff burn one of the surrounding villagers went to wake his mother up using smelling salts completely ignoring Naruto's shouts to leave her alone. Over the next few hours Naruto was forced to watch as the villagers tortured his mother quite a few of the villagers would leave as they couldn't stomach watching Saki's bones being broken or her flesh tenderised, one of the civilians took the Dragonfangs with her as they were the only things on the table to survive the fire. Naruto could see the life leaving his mother's eyes and then she spoke her final word with barely any indication of the agony she was going through "Live on Naruto and show these bastards what my son can do…". "!" Naruto screamed in absolute anguish as his world went dark.

Everyone else in the room looked towards the now unconscious blond as he let out an unearthly scream, what they saw terrified them as his unconscious body was twitching the whisker marks on his face expanded as a red glow emitted from the diamond tattoo on his stomach his eyes opened again except they were not the same ones that had closed they were black within black. His mouth opened but the sound that came out was more like a bird than a human and sent a chill down the back of anyone who heard it. The whisker marks on his face glowed red once more before disappearing off his cheeks, a bright light encompassed the child shattering the pole he was attached to, when the villagers could see again they felt that maybe this excursion to punish the demon wasn't a good idea because in front of them stood a demon, this demon was almost completely black with an exoskeleton it had a pair of wings coming out of its back the feet had two toes to the front and one to the back on each foot each tipped with blade like claws and an almost sword like blade growing out of one of its arms. It looked around the room with its inhuman head and then the screaming started…***

Meanwhile Naruto found himself in what appeared a stone passage with eight different coloured pipes running along the roof, the pipes from left to right were; green, blue, red, colourless, yellow, white and black. The black pipe was emitting what can only be called a black light and the colourless one seemed to be interconnected to all the others and had some of the black light flowing through it. Naruto followed the pipes till he came what looked like a central chamber, three of the pipes went off to either side where a there were more passages the colourless one went to the centre of the room where it split in two one going through the roof the other through the floor. The yellow pipe carried on across the room and through a gate, a gate that was chained shut by chains that seemed to originate and end from a woman hanging halfway up the gate.

Naruto quickly made his way over to the woman and examined her but he couldn't make out much with her head bowed against her chest he started to reach forward "Hey are you okay?" but quickly fell back when her head shot up and her green eyes opened "Naruto!"

*I in no way think that gymnastics is a girl only sport

**See Dragonfangs on Shadow Hearts Wiki

*** See Somnion on Shadow Hearts Wiki

I will be using the third level fusions from Shadow Hearts Covenant and the Kyuubi will replace Amon/Seraphic Radiance


	3. Chapter 3: Breaking the Mask

Two reviews for two chapters I'm on my way I only have to write another 998 chapters to get my target number of reviews.

As for the review I got thank you, I'm sorry to say I'm going to completely ignore the pairings you suggested as I don't really like Hinata or Sakura, Ino is a possibility but I was thinking more along the lines of Tayuya/Anko/Kurotsuchi/Yugito/Samui/Karui I'll probably put a poll up when I work out how :), I won't include multiple partner relationships, as much as I like reading them they're somewhat un-realistic.

Naruto will not learn any Ninjutsu in this story, he will be purely taijutsu unless he transforms

I've gone back and read my previous chapter, spelling grammar and missing words have hopefully all been corrected (though my English grammar is poor so there might be a few mistakes I missed).

**Breaking the Mask**

'It's funny isn't it' Ibiki the new head of the torture and interrogation department thought to himself, 'civilians all think that when a person experiences a lot of pain they are rendered unconscious but the reality is much worse; pain is one of the greatest stimulants it will keep you awake through almost anything', many of the civilians who thought it was a good idea to avenge their loved ones lost from when the Kyuubi attacked had learnt this as they were subjugated to the interrogation department of the ninja corpse. The stories that they told painted a grim picture for the old Hokage as no detail was spared, he was most interested that Naruto had transformed into something that although demonic looking did not resemble the Kyuubi at all.

The Hokage's plans to help out the young blond had taken a great blow this day and as soon as word got out to the rest of the population of Konoha (as not all involved were killed by whatever Naruto changed into or captured by the ANBU in their nearby base who sensed the malice produced by the change in Naruto's chakra) which is why he was currently seated in his office contemplating what to do when his old teammates entered he knew this was not a conversation he was going to enjoy.

"Sarutobi we heard what happened to the young container… something must be done to make sure another incident like this doesn't happen again." Koharu stated clearly expecting a response, Sarutobi sighed and leant back in his chair "hmm I can't do anything yet, only a fool walks before he knows which is the correct path to take." He held up his hand to forestall any complaints "I've had Saiyuri his medic check him out and his chakra has changed slightly though it's still a chaotic as it's always been he seems to be fine. I will have Inoichi check out him out when he wakes up and he will have chakra suppression seals on till we find out what happened." Somewhat mollified his old teammates asked to be kept informed when the young Jinchuuriki had been examined.

As Naruto regained consciousness he noticed several unusual things, for starters he couldn't move due to being restrained to the bed and it felt like his chakra was being drawn out of his body against his will, as his mind cleared he recognised the chakra restraining seals and monitoring seals attached to his body but there was something else different about his body. Although Naruto would admit he wasn't the best at manipulating chakra but he wasn't completely hopeless after all he could do the Kawarimi (somewhat) and water walking so he was quite happy (and somewhat worried) when he noticed that there was an extension to his chakra pathways that wasn't there before, there wasn't any chakra going through it at the moment as there was an almost gate like barrier between his normal chakra pathways and the new ones which gave off a feeling of darkness (?) but he knew he could open it up if he wanted to.

Before Naruto could decide to experiment with his new chakra pathways the door into the room opened to admit a tall blond with a ponytail and green eyes, the man moved to his bedside before speaking "Hello Naruto, I'm Yamanaki Inoichi. I've been asked to see how you are feeling after the events of last night?" Naruto tried to think back to last night but it was almost as if a shadow clouded his memory a headache suddenly grew, the more he tried to think of the previous night the worst his headache got. Inoichi saw the pain on young boys face and recognised the symptoms of repressed memories; he tried to step in before Naruto hurt himself more but it was too late as Naruto started struggling in his bindings screaming as the previous night's events flashed through the young Jinchuuriki's mind.

It was several minutes before Naruto calmed down enough for Inoichi to examine him, even though Inoichi had regrets in assaulting the child's mind whilst he was in distress he had a job to do, a few hand seals later and Inoichi was standing in a familiar tunnel with coloured pipes running along the ceiling. Following the pipes the blonde mind walker came across something which he wasn't expecting (not that's it unusual to find something unexpected in someone else's mind), chained up against a gate was a red headed woman he hadn't seen in just over nine years "Kushina what are you doing here?"

At first there was no response from the woman chained to the gate but slowly her eyes opened as she looked up again "Inoichi have you seen Naruto, have you seen my baby?" although shocked to meet an old friend here he responded quickly "I haven't seen him yet I was just looking for him, could you explain what this place is to me?" Kushina looked off into the distance as if there was something which she could see and he couldn't, she spoke in a not her own "Fire, Earth, Wind, Water, Darkness & Light the facets of the Harmonixer. Fides the demon of fire, Gaudion the demon of earth, Libertis the demon of wind, Veneficium the demon of water, Somnion the demon of darkness and Miserati the demon of light. Inside the Harmonixer resides these demons power his to control but beware the seventh demon whose power resides chained inside waiting to be released to devour all." Speech done Kushina lost consciousness.

Inoichi was floored by what he just leant but recovered quickly repeated what he heard quickly memorised by 'writing' down what he was told knowing the Hokage will be interested to learn what he'd just learnt. Having done that he reached towards Kushina to try and unbind her from the gate but as soon as he touched her chains attached to her started rattling and the whole room trembled as familiar malevolent chakra poured out of from behind the gate. Deciding it wise to leave well alone for the time being Inoichi moved away from the gate and went exploring through the left passage, he didn't have to walk far to reach the next room which was a plane box room with steps on three sides leading to Ivory doors. Inoichi took note that the three pipes running along the ceiling split apart so that one went through each of the doors.

Inoichi went straight to the left door with the white pipe going through it, after a quick examination of the door which showed there were no hand holds, he tried to push it open but no matter how hard he pushed the door didn't budge at all. After quickly trying at the other two doors (containing the green and red pipes) Inoichi backtracked to the central chamber and went down the remaining passageway which went to another box room identical to the other except for one detail, the door with the black pipe running into it had black runes covering the door.

Heading straight to the 'black door' Inoichi once again pushed against the door and to his relief the door swung inwards, as he moved into the room he took note of his surroundings; the room only had one door (the one he came in through), in the centre of the room the black pipe dropped down from the ceiling and connected to an alter containing a glowing black gem, in the corner of the room Naruto sat his back against the wall arms hanging loosely by his side and a blank look in his eyes. With a sigh Inoichi moved forward to complete the job he was instructed to do…

Inoichi stood to attention in front of his commanding officer as he reported everything that went on in Naruto's mind and the containers current mental health, which was understandably fragile; his meeting with Kushina too was reported.

After the mind walker had left Sarutobi's old teammates appeared at the Hokage's side, stepping out of non-existent shadows "So the boy is unstable, we have to be careful or we could end up in the same situation as Suna. I think it would be a good idea to keep him away from the population for the time being." Homura advised "We need to train him so that he is loyal to Konoha and also able to interact with his fellow ninja, I have a suggestion but I'm sure you won't like it."

Sarutobi was never one to procrastinate so motioned for his advisor to continue "I'd like to suggest that we place Naruto under the supervision of Danzou," "Never, I will not turn Naruto into an emotionless weapon." The Hokage interrupted but Homura continued "I know you don't agree with his methods but he does get results, he has enough space in and his old root bases to train Naruto in so, Danzou also has his old subordinates to help with the training as well. This way he will not have any interactions with anyone that we don't want him to and if you are worried by the boy's sanity then assign one of your ANBU to keep watch over his training."

The old ruler brought his pipe up to his mouth and lit it, after a few minutes of contemplation he'd made his decision and prayed it didn't come back to bite him later on "As much as I hate the thought, I don't have any better suggestions at the moment, inform Danzou that he will have a new charge and get me Tenzou." The shadows shifted as the ANBU agents went out to complete his orders.

It only took just over ten minutes before both Danzou and Tenzou entered the Hokage's office, Sarutobi started "Danzou I know your loyalty to Konoha is beyond question and even though we quite often don't agree on most things we both want what is best for our village which is why I have a unique proposition for you. As you've no doubt heard Naruto was attacked recently and his carer was killed in the incident, he has been examined by Inoichi and it was found out that he has unique blood line ability… he has the ability to transform into different demons and we believe in time will have the ability to control their powers as his own but as you can imagine this isn't something we want to be spread around. I have two tasks for you Danzou I would like you to continue with his ninja training introduce him to a few of your 'friends' so he gets used to working with others and I want you to train Naruto to use this new power."

If not for the years of training Danzou would not have been able to keep the grin off his face, this was an unprecedented chance to gain a powerful weapon for his own arsenal but before he could celebrate (not that anyone would be able to tell) his oldest rival continued "There are certain conditions that you will have to agree on before I will consider giving up Naruto into your care; the first you are not allowed to access the Kyuubi's chakra or allow Naruto to without first getting my or the future Hokage's permission, second you are not allowed to add any seals to Naruto if you want or need seals to be added to him then inform me and I will get Kakashi to do it, third Naruto is to be taught to control his emotions but he is not to be turned into an emotionless drone, fourth Naruto will join a gennin team after he turns thirteen so he can progress through the ranks normally and finally Tenzou will monitor his progress until he has joined a gennin team. These terms are non-negotiable Danzou so tell me if you still intend to take the boy?"

There was silence for a few seconds before Danzou nodded and left to go pick up his new charge, Tenzou following a few second later after bowing to the Hokage.

Four years Danzou had to shape Konoha's jinchuuriki and he was more than eager to get started, after picking up the almost comatose blonde from the hospital he made his way to one of his well hidden hideouts avoiding being seen by anyone, the first thing he did was introduce Naruto to a few of his 'friends' and left him in their care. Danzou's operatives proceeded to try and engage Naruto into taijutsu practice, at first the young jinchuuriki didn't respond but after taking a few light hits a light came back into his eyes then his jaw clenched in anger and he took his all the anger he had about what happened to his mother out on them.

Danzou was ecstatic as he watched Naruto tear his operatives apart especially when one of them was punched through the wall. After all his opponents were disposed of Naruto sank to the floor covered in blood and began to sob, it was then that Danzou decided to re-enter the room and comfort the boy telling him how it wasn't his fault and encouraging him to get stronger as his mother would have want him to so it doesn't happen again to anyone else he cares about.

And so the years past with Naruto constantly training under Danzou's supervision, at first Danzou thought to teach Naruto the Shadow Clone jutsu to increase the speed of the training but had to give up on that idea as it seemed as though Naruto was incapable of performing even the simplest of ninjutsu as the Kage Bunshin was simple, the only requirement was a large supply of chakra.

After he gave up on teaching Naruto ninjutsu he focused on the blonde's taijutsu and fuuinjutsu as it was apparent that he would never be able to learn genjutsu and kenjutsu became almost pointless when his taijutsu was already at such a level where one hit can kill his opponent (and a couple of opponents behind that one) plus most weapons didn't last long with Naruto's strength.

Of course there was the emotional training as well; this usually consisted of Danzou's operatives insulting the blond until he lost his temper, fortunately for Danzou's men Naruto was restrained during this procedure, this normally lasted a couple of hours and eventually Naruto started to stop caring. Tenzou was always close by to make sure they didn't go too far, though the Hokage would have been better choosing someone else as Tenzou tended to never show emotions himself.

One of the first things Danzou did after he continued Naruto's taijutsu training (teaching many different styles) was to get the blond some training weights with seals to increase their weight, he had decided this was a better solution than getting the Hokage to add seals directly to Naruto as there was no telling what Naruto's chakra would do to the seals, the training weights consisted of two wrist and ankle bracers as well as an weighted vest.

For the first two years Naruto schedule was to wake and expel enough chakra so he could study for two hours (strategy, politics, anatomy, history, economy and first aid) then train in taijutsu until he could hardly move then train in fuuinjutsu until it was time to sleep with a helping of added emotional training on the weekend. But after the first two years the schedule changed Naruto was brought to different base, one that was larger than most of the training fields in Konoha, this base had been modified over the last two years to suit Danzou's needs. There were shield seals covering every surface to stop any chakra from being sensed from outside as well as to protect the walls from taking any damage from the inside.

Now Naruto's schedule started off with studying then training in taijutsu for a couple of hours followed by weapon's throwing (kunai, shuriken and senbon) and fuuinjutsu, then around three in the afternoon every day four of Danzou's best operatives came in to stand around a seal that was in the centre of the room, the seal had a diameter of about ten feet, Naruto was moved into the centre of the room inside the seal with Tenzou just outside the seal.

It was time to learn how to learn to control his new 'abilities', the first time he transformed when he saw his mother murdered it was as if he had lost his mind (though he couldn't remember) and attacked anything in his sight so Danzou had taken all the precautions he could to make sure that if Naruto did lose control they would be able to restrain him without hurting him. The seal placed on the floor was a barrier seal on the outside with a chakra draining seal on the inside which could be activated independently from the barrier and then there was Tenzou who had his mokuton to restrain Naruto if it got that far.

As Naruto stood in the centre of the seal he felt a bit of excitement as there was always the temptation to access Somnion's (he'd been told of what his birth mother had said and if that wasn't enough Somnion was inscribed on the alter with the black gem) chakra but had been kept so busy that by the time he was free for the night he could hardly think of doing anything other than sleeping. An almost glass like barrier went up around Naruto as the root ninja (Danzou's men) activated the outer seal, as soon as it reached the ceiling Naruto focused on the gate in his chakra network that he had never consciously opened before.

A sharp pain went through Naruto's head forcing him to reflexively bring his hands to each side of his head, and then a bright light escaped from all his tenketsu at the same time. When the light had faded there was a gasp from Tenzou as everyone in the room took in the sight of Somnion, at first the demon was motionless but then it move its hands in front of its face before it started to move around looking over its body.

The pain in Naruto's head quickly faded but it was replaced by a faint whispering, he moved his hand in front of his face and was surprised to see his hand looked like it was made out of obsidian bone then he took a look at the rest of his body although he could only see parts of his new body he thought it looked somewhat intimidating. After about a minute of examining his new body two things occurred, one the blonde found out how to move this new body almost instinctually and he knew just what it was capable of doing, the other thing that happened was the whispering in the back of had become a lot louder and it was getting harder to think straight.

The observers could tell that Naruto was in control of the demons body as it had yet to do anything aggressive, they observed through the barrier not quite prepared to let Naruto out (just in case) and were glad that they didn't as Naruto suddenly attacked the barrier, the root soldiers moves instantly and activated the emergency seal as cracks were already starting to appear in the barrier. As the emergency seals glowed as they activated and started absorbing the demonic chakra the demon moved back and raised one hand, a black spike shot out from the floor in front of the demon heading straight toward the closest root agent. The spike hit the barrier and went straight through, it was only through great skill that the root agent survived with only a flesh wound, there was another flash of light as Naruto's body returned to normal except for him being unconscious.

It was a couple of days before they tried again, after Naruto had regained consciousness and explained what had happened as well as his belief that he could use it's techniques as well, more security was added to the training room to reinforce what was already in place as they added a few more barriers as well as movement restraining seals connected to the chakra draining ones. After the second time they tried Naruto learnt how to transform back by himself as well as how to tell when he was going to lose control.

Danzou brought in another agent to help Naruto learn to control the demon better, the agent was called Fu he was a member of the Yamanaka clan who started to teach Naruto how to fight off outside influences affecting his mind. Progress was slow but steady, after about nine months of training Naruto could keep control of his demon form for just over a half hour and it was still progressing as his other training was. After a training session of using Somnion's chakra using it's techniques against dummies Naruto again lost consciousness which hadn't happened since the first his first training session transforming.

Naruto once again awoke inside the stone passageway with the pipes running along the ceiling; he followed them again to the room where is birth mother was still chained up to the gate keeping the Kyuubi at bay, Naruto once again approached his mother.

There were tears in Kushina's eyes as she looked at her son but there was also a smile on her face "Naruto… I don't know what to say even though I have nothing to do in here but think, ever since I found out I was pregnant all I've ever wanted was to see how you grow up to spoil you with love as I was a jinchuuriki and its always difficult for jinchuuriki to have children I always knew you would be special." Her tears fell to the floor "I know that you probably blame your farther and me for what happened but know that we both love you and I will continue to be here to protect you in the only way I can until you no longer need it, Naruto I'll always be here for you even if you hate me."

Even though Danzou had taught Naruto to control his emotions it was not enough to stop the tears from appearing in his eyes, his head was down his fringe covering his eyes and his hands were clenched into fists, he looked up and met Kushina's gaze "I don't blame you, I know you've always been with me but it's so hard not being able to hold you." Naruto's hand moved towards Kushina's cheek but as he drew close the chains around the gate started rattling as a warning, Naruto withdrew his hand "I'll be back to tell you about my life later mum but it feels like there's something I have to do here?"

Kushina smiled gratefully at her son "You've started to grow up, it seems as though you're now strong enough to control another demon. Go do what you must but please come talk to me from time to time tell me what's going in your life and if there's a special girl that you like?" Kushina giggled as her son blushed and moved away down the corridor leaving her behind.

Naruto went down the passageway with the white, green and red pipes. He'd had plenty of time thinking of which 'facet' he would choose if he had the choice, so he quickly made his way to the door with red pipe going into it after all he lived in fire country. The room was exactly the same as Somnion's except it was bathed in a red light from the gem in the centre which fed the pipe and the alter was inscribed Fides. When Naruto approached the alter its inscription set on fire as his whole world flashed white.

When he could see again he noticed he was in the training room, taking note of himself, he was covered in orange armour which can only be described as a representation of fire. He reached his hand out in instinct and a ring of fire opened on the ground a great sword emerged from within the ring with an orange grip…

As Naruto moved into his final year of training he was occasionally sent on specially selected missions. At first it started off with courier missions then moved onto missions where he had to destroy bandit camps, after that he was given hunter ninja missions starting out with the lowest rank hunter missions, he was escorted on every mission to evaluate how he did and how he could improve as well as for his protection.

During his final year of training with Danzou Naruto gained control of his third demon, he chose Veneficium the facet of water which was a dragon shaped demon that floated. His skills had improved greatly over the years; his taijutsu was almost as good as Gai's but he was faster and stronger his strength almost matching that of Tsunade's, His fuuinjutsu was still nowhere near as good as Jiraiya's but it was better than anyone else's in Konoha and he could now control his demons for almost an hour unless he was in combat where it became a lot harder to control them but he could fight for almost twenty minutes which was generally long enough to take on most opponents.

Naruto had turned thirteen a few months ago; Danzou had told him on his birthday that his training under him would end when the next class at the ninja academy graduated which is why he was standing just outside the academy doors, in his ANBU gear (another present from Danzou) the leaf hitai-ate (forehead protector) resting snugly on his forehead, preparing himself to meet his future comrades…

There's no need to worry Naruto will not be on team seven

I will probably have Naruto and Tsunade fight at some point (mass destruction)

To see what the demons look like go to shadow hearts wiki Fusion

Please review; let me know if I should carry on


	4. Chapter 4: Welcome to the Team

I can't believe how much effort goes into writing a chapter; I have nothing but respect to the authors that write over 100k words it must have taken them months to write as each of my chapters is about 8 A4 pages

**mavs7073: **I was going to reveal who had the gauntlets in this chapter but I've put it back to the chunin exams like you suggested thanks

**Welcome to the Team**

Naruto moved silently to the desk in the reception room of the ninja academy, the chunin sitting behind it gave him a once over before asking if she could help him, before he could reply his name was called from the other side of the room, he turned and a smile spread across his face "Old man, it's been a while… are you okay you look a lot older than I remember?" there was a gasp at the disrespect shown to the village leader from the chunin sitting behind the desk but Sarutobi just laughed it off and motioned Naruto to walk with him "hmm it's been four years as you put it so eloquently time is catching up to me but not to worry yet there still several more years of fight left in these old bone."

They walked slowly down the hallway towards the classrooms "I'm glad to see that you're okay Naruto I was worried about what was Danzou was doing with you over the years but Tenzou assured me you were fine. You know if you need me for anything you know where to find me." They stopped outside a door obviously their destination and Sarutobi motioned for Naruto to enter before heading back to his office.

Naruto looked around the classroom, there were only a few other people in the classroom, the two chunin at the front of the classroom and a two male gennin sitting silently at opposite sides the one by the window seemed to be sulking whist the other with the long coloured jacket and sunglasses was just staring straight ahead.

The chunin with a scar across his nose waved him over "I'm Umino Iruka; I take it you're Naruto?" a quick nod "okay take a seat wherever you want I will announce team placements when everyone is here."

Naruto gave a short bow to the chunin instructor and moved to the back of the classroom and sat in the corner behind the brooding gennin, as time ticked by more and more new ninja entered, when the class was almost full there was a commotion from the corridor that caught his attentions, two kunoichi tried to run through the door at the same time but got caught on the frame. The two young girls started pushing at each other so they could enter first; it wasn't long till they started bickering as Naruto watched them in disbelief he couldn't believe it; they were gennin? He double checked and yep they each had a hitai-ate.

From the front of the class Iruka let out a long suffering sigh and move to separate the two girls, it looked like it was a common occurrence. After a quick dressing down Iruka told each of the girls to take a seat, they shot off towards the brooding boy next to the window and again started an argument of who got to sit next to him which again was stopped by the irritated chunin. When they had finally taken their seats (the blond girl managed to get the seat next to the brooding boy) Iruka gathered the class's attention "Congratulations to all of you for passing the gennin exam, this will be my last lesson to you before you join the world of ninja." He looks round the whole class "Once you leave these halls anything can happen, never think that you are safe even on the simplest of missions things can go wrong that you aren't prepared for, It's a good idea to prepare for the worst and hope for the best." The whole class was silent.

*cough* "Now onto the teams … Team Three; Ami*, Shino and Naruto your Jounin instructor is Mitarashi Anko …Team Seven; Sakura, Sasuke and Tobio** your Jounin instructor is Hatake Kakashi, Team Eight; Hinata, Kiba and Sai your Jounin instructor is Yuuhi Kurenai… and finally Team Ten; Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji your Jounin instructor is Sarutobi Asuma. The Jounin will be here to collect you after lunch so please come back here by then but for now you're free to get to know your new teammates or whatever you want and I'd just like to say It's been a pleasure to teach you for the most part and if there's anything you don't understand or need help with please feel free to come see me."

As soon as the chunin finished talking Sasuke got up and left the room followed by most of the girls in the class, the rest of the class split off into groups with their friends or occasionally their new teammates. One of the gennin approached Naruto (the one that was staring straight ahead as he entered the classroom) pushed his glasses up and said "Naruto? I am Aburame Shino." Naruto waited a few seconds to see if he was going to say something else, it quickly became apparent that he wasn't "nice to meet you Shino…err do you know where the other member of our team is?"

There was a slight buzzing noise from Shino before he responded in monotone whilst pointing out the door "following Sasuke." Naruto could already tell he was going to get along great with his team…

Meanwhile the jounin instructors were observing the gennin through a crystal ball that the hokage had, well most of them were Kakashi and Anko were both missing though nobody was surprised Kakashi is always late and Anko… well she's Anko she's somewhat eccentric. It was Asuma that spoke first whilst watching Naruto and Shino sitting in silence through the crystal ball "So that's him? So why'd you place him with Anko?" He looked towards his farther the hokage whilst most of the other jounin were wandering who they were talking about.

"I thought I'd try out a new type of team, it's similar to the rapid response team but more diverse. Naruto is a heavy hitting close range fighter but if things get bad he can cause wide area destruction, Shino being an Aburame can be used for tracking and capture as well as a close, medium or long distance fighter. Ami at the moment is the weak link as she has no noteworthy skills but I will recommend Anko gets her to learn genjutsu as well as basic Iryou Ninjutsu (medical ninjutsu) and then there's Anko who's an assassination specialist who has a good foundation in ninjutsu, taijutsu and genjutsu. Of course this set up is untested at the moment but it looks good on paper." Whilst the hokage gave them his thoughts on team three one jounin who should have been at the meeting went to go collect her new toys from the academy.

*BANG* everyone who was still in the classroom at the academy watched as the door was literally blown off its hinges using small explosives and a woman dressed in fitted mesh body suit with a mini skirt and an overcoat over it, she was standing in a pose one foot forward with her arm in the air "Team three follow me!" she was met by silence "eh this is the right class isn't it cause this is the third door I broke down and the hokage will get angry if I blow up many more?" there was still silence for a couple of minutes before Naruto got up and approached her followed by Shino "umm sensei you're a bit early you weren't supposed to show up until after lunch…our third member isn't here at the moment." Naruto said whilst scratching the bag of his head.

Anko blushed a little in embarrassment and tried to play it off "Of course I knew I was early I just thought my cute little gennin would be eager to see their awesome sensei and I didn't want to keep you waiting ahahaha" she squinted at her two students to see if they believed her but it was hard to tell as there was no reaction from either of them, she sighed before carrying on "alright then let's go find my cute little gennin that's late to our first meeting" she turned back towards the door and ran out leaving the two behind. Naruto turned to his teammate "We should probably follow her before she decides we've gone AWOL or something" Shino just nodded and they both ran out after their new teacher whilst the rest of the gennin were wondering if all jounin are like that.

Anko had fortunately waited for them just a little outside the classroom, mostly due to the fact that she had no idea who her third gennin was; from there Shino took point since he was the only one did know. It didn't take them long to find Ami thanks to Shino whose bugs led him straight to her, she was with a group of other girls looking for Sasuke.

Now that the whole team was together Anko lead them to training ground five, the training ground was a clearing in the forest with a small but deep river running through it and boulders scattered around, they took a seat of one of the more level boulders "right how about we get to know each other, how about we start with you?" Anko asked nodding towards the only other girl on the team.

"Well I like Sasuke he's so dreamy, I don't like Sakura and Ino and I hope to one day get married and have a large family" Anko had a blank look on her head she burst out laughing "ha what makes you think I care who you like or dislike, I was hoping to hear what skill you have, you know something useful?" it was here that Naruto interrupted "Sensei, unless the old man has changed in the last four years I know he would have given you information on all of our skills?"

Anko just waved him off "He did but I don't waste my time reading all your files when I don't even know if I want you to be my students yet, after all with me being so awesome I can only take the best students. So come on girlie let's hear about you?" Naruto was starting to think his sensei was not entirely all there.

"Um well I know the three jutsu which we had to do in academy and I placed second for the girls in taijutsu after Hinata and I had average academic scores." Ami was again met by a blank look from their jounin teacher then Anko starts muttering to herself "take on a group of gennin the old man says, it'll be fun he says they'll be like family ha this one will be lucky to survive on D rank missions let alone the type of missions I like" by the end she was almost sulking and there appeared to be a depressing aura around Ami, Anko motioned for Naruto to go next.

Naruto had a thoughtful look on his face when he responded "I know several forms of taijutsu and can use them well, I'm also good at fuuinjutsu and I have a special ability that I can use if I get into trouble. I can't use ninjutsu or genjutsu and I have already done several missions so I have a bit of experience." Anko made a mental note to look at his file after the meeting to find out what this special ability was 'maybe this won't be too bad after all' she though and motioned for Shino tell them his skills.

Shino pushed his glasses up again "I am well versed in my clan's techniques and taijutsu" then the ten second silence waiting to see if he was going to say any more, Anko used to the Aburame just shrugged it off and continued "Now that we all know each other I'm going to give you a little task to do failure is not an option unless you want to go back to the academy!" "What! Back to the academy, I'll never go back there… I'll do whatever it takes; who do I have to kill?" screams Ami whilst whipping out a kunai. Anko gains an evil grin on her face fingering the hilt of her own kunai "Maybe I was wrong about you girlie maybe the two of us can get along."

It took a few minutes to calm Ami down before Anko continued "Alright gakis listen up, I've got a friend who will be doing her own gennin team test tomorrow, her test is to get her gennin to find retrieve an item from her…of course her team would have no chance if she was serious but I'm sure she'll make it easy for them so I'm going to make it somewhat more interesting. First you'll track down her team and capture them and find out what the item is after that you are to engage her in combat and take said item and return it to me any questions?"

"Yes if our targets resist how forceful are we allowed to be, what skills does the jounin have, what's our target look like and do you know where and what time they are meeting?" Naruto queried. Anko took up a thoughtful pose for a few seconds "Well I guess anything goes as long as you don't hurt them bad enough that they have to spend more than a day in the hospital, as for your target you can't really miss her she's the only person in the village with black hair and red eyes as for her skills she's a jounin who she specializes in genjutsu but don't take her other skills lightly… I believe her team will most likely have the Hyuuga girl in it. As for where and what time consider it part of the test. Well I'll see you tomorrow here at half one pass or fail." With that said Anko disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

Surprisingly it was Shino who broke the silence left by their jounin's departure "We need a plan, Hinata was paired with Kiba and Sai…?" the other two nodded in agreement "So what do you know about our target team?" the blond asked, Ami explained what they knew about their targets "Hinata was by far the best girl in the class at taijutsu only Sasuke was better and as far as we know she doesn't know any ninjutsu or genjutsu that wasn't required to pass the academy exam but her family has these weird eyes that allow them to see through genjutsu, Inuzuka Kiba is kind of an idiot but he was one of the best in taijutsu as well, as for Sai he only joined the class a little before you did so we don't know much about him except he is always drawing."

It wasn't the gennin that Naruto was worried about but it's always better to know what to expect and if you have the chance plan how to get rid of as many unknowns as possible before going into battle "Ami, I have a plan that will hopefully make taking out the gennin of their team a lot easier but it relies on you do you think you can do it?" Naruto received a quick nod from the girl.

"I want you to find Kiba and do anything it takes to get him to tell us where his team's training ground is going to be, if he's anything like the general Inuzuka he will be brash and proud this can be a weakness if you know how to use it. To get him to tell you where his training ground is start off by saying how much better our team is somewhere close to him, when he joins the conversation say something along the lines of how we were given a better training ground and see if you can get him to take you to his teams. Also if you can see if you can find out when his team is meeting as the last thing we want is to interrupt them whilst the jounin is still there." Naruto explained.

After receiving another nod of understanding he continued on "Shino if possible can you attach a few of your bugs to all four of them, not enough for them to notice but enough that we can find them all later and give us a bit of an advantage and if we can find out which training ground they are using then can you seed your bugs into the ground before dawn so that you can drain them of most of their chakra?" Shino's answer was as short as always "It's doable, and you…?"

"Me? Well tonight I'll need to get settled into my new accommodation, don't worry though my part will come tomorrow. I'd suggest that we meet at our training grounds at half four tomorrow morning then we can go over what Ami has learnt, let Shino seed his bugs and make any alterations to the plan, are you both okay with this?" the blond asked and although Ami was upset about getting up early (not enough beauty sleep) but they both eventually agreed before the three split up to complete their tasks.

Naruto had been assigned a new apartment, this apartment was much more secure than the place he lived with his adoptive mother, the whole building was hidden by a permanent genjutsu that made people remember that they had something important to do that couldn't wait (did I leave the iron on?), under that was a small bungalow with only one door and all the windows in the ceiling both reinforced with seals attuned to his chakra signature (they found out he could active simple seals as long as it doesn't require precise chakra control). Danzou had gotten everything he needed to live with so he wouldn't have to go to the merchants in town but they had yet to be unpacked as Naruto had requested as he hadn't had his own space to decorate before. The house was connected to the root base where he did most of his training and he was still expected to continue his training there when he had the time away from his team.

The house was only made up of a few rooms; a kitchen diner, a living room, a bathroom and two bedrooms one of which when he has decorated will be an armoury, after all which respectable ninja doesn't have his own armoury with lots of pointy things and exploding things…

When the team met up at training ground five at half four in the morning Ami looked as though she was sleep walking but she had good news, it became apparent that Kiba does fit in with the consensus for the Inuzuka clan and had not only told Ami the time and place for the meeting but also information of the other gennin that he had found out in their first meeting. Naruto told them what he thought would be the best course of action to capture the gennin "I believe it would be best if you two took on Sai whilst I keep the other two occupied, once you have restrained Sai then we will restrain the other two if I haven't done so already of course if we're lucky they won't put up much of a fight if most of their chakra has been drained."

It took Shino about five minutes to set up his bugs in the clearing across training ground eight. They then moved into the forest to set up a few traps just encase before settling down almost a mile away from the clearing, not wanting to be seen by Hinata or sensed by the jounin, to catch up on the rest that they missed with assurances from Shino that his bugs will wake him up when their targets approach, it wasn't long before all three of them were sound asleep though it would be hard to tell with Shino.

The next thing Naruto knew he was being shook awake by his team member who then moved on to wake up their other teammate (who almost screamed upon being woken up). The three resorted to the sign language taught to all Konoha ninja to communicate; they waited for Shino's signal to move out, it was given when the jounin (Kurenai) was separated from her potential gennin and his bugs had mostly latched onto the team and drained their chakra.

By the time they reached the training ground of their target team the three gennin they came to capture weren't looking too well, it appeared that Shino's kikaichu (chakra absorbing insects) were a lot more effective than he thought as all three of them seemed to have trouble breathing. They were quickly subdued as only Kiba seemed to have any fight left inside of him (even though his ninken (Akamaru) was sleeping completely drained) which was quickly subdued after a soft punch to the gut from Naruto; they were quickly restrained with ninja wire.

Naruto started of the questioning with Hinata thinking she'd be most likely to cooperate "I'm sorry about this but we don't have a choice, our sensei gave us a the task of finding out what task your sensei asked you to do… if you tell us we can untie you so we can both complete our tasks?" The young Hyuuga stuttered out her response even though Kiba was shouting not to tell them anything she couldn't see any reason not too "Ano… Kurenai sensei wants us to find her and take the tag attached to her back."

Naruto nodded to his two teammates and they started to leave the clearing to chase after Kurenai but were stopped momentarily by a shout from Kiba "hey you said you'd let us go?" Naruto faced the brash gennin "oh about that I lied sorry" there was as cheeky grin on his they left the devastated team behind.

They knew that sneaking up on a jounin was a bad idea if you valued your life so they went for the straight forward approach, knowing that it was too much to hope that Shino's Kikaichu had left her in the same state as her gennin. As expected she seemed unaffected by the chakra draining bugs, her eyes narrowed as they appeared in front of her "Your Anko's team aren't you…*sigh* I should have expected something like this, so I take it you've already incapacitated my team" there was no response to her question as the three got into the formation they had agreed on last night before they could move in an attack Kurenai held up her hand in a stop motion "instead of fighting why don't I just give you whatever Anko wants you to get, I doubt she expects you to actually pass it would be great if this blew up in her face?"

The team looked at each other before shrugging Ami gestured for Naruto to take the lead "We were told to fight you for the tag you have on your back, I don't know if Anko would accept it if you just gave it to us… but then again I really don't want to face a jounin…maybe we could take the test that your gennin team was going to?"

Kurenai seemed to agree "Your right Anko probably wouldn't accept it if you didn't get hurt at least a little, alright we'll have a little spar and I'll give you the tag if I think your good enough. You should come at me with everything you got."

The three gennin fell into their combat stances, Naruto in the front with Ami and Shino hanging back as support, ready to throw weapons or send kikaichu at Kurenai when opportunity presented itself.

Naruto was the first to move, to his teammates it looked like he had disappeared and reappeared in front of Kurenai his fist already moving to hit the beautiful jounin, Kurenai was shocked as even she had trouble seeing the gennin move and it was only her years of experience that allowed her to dodge the fist heading towards her, unfortunately the tree behind her wasn't so lucky, as Naruto's fist hit the tree it seemed to vaporise at the point of impact as gravity took effect on remainder of the tree the jounin was already retreating as fast as she could going through hand seals.

As Naruto followed the jounin his teammates had already attacked; throwing kunai at Kurenai trying to stop her from doing her jutsu, as the kunai hit the jounin she turned into a log with explosive tags attached. Naruto eyes widened as he saw the explosives notes, he knew he wouldn't be able to stop his forward momentum in time so he angled his approach to minimise the damage he would take luckily they were training notes so the explosion was much smaller than normal but it was still enough to blast him back into a tree.

As Naruto was temporarily incapacitated Kurenai had moved behind his two teammates hidden behind a genjutsu, she approached Shino first and punched him on a pressure point at the back of his head only for Shino to fall pieces into thousands of kikaichu. Kurenai jumped back a few feet going through more hand seals finishing in the tiger seal she took in a deep breath and released a fireball at the swarm of bugs killing many and making the rest retreat.

Shino appeared quickly to save as many of his kikaichu as he could and was quickly rendered unconscious by the jounin with another hit to the back of the head. Naruto who had mostly recovered moved in again this time with a lot more caution covered by more kunai thrown by Ami. Kurenai whilst dodging was starting another technique, she relaxed a bit after she had completed her technique knowing that no gennin could escape from such an elaborate genjutsu which is why she was surprised as she was sent flying by a punch from the young blond.

Kurenai slowly clambered back to her feet her arm where she'd tried to block at the last second was hanging loosely by her side already starting to swell a wince on her face "I think that's enough, well done; I underestimated you a lot. I'll give you the tag but there are a couple of things I want to know first…how did you get out of my genjutsu and how are you as strong as Tsunade?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head with a sheepish grin on his face whilst Ami kept silent wanting to know as well "Well I guess you could say it's an advanced bloodline, my chakra is constantly moving strangely, it makes controlling it almost impossible but it also make me immune to genjutsu as well as stopping muscle atrophy." Kurenai shook her head as she removed the tag and gave it to the gennin who injured her before heading off to find her team.

Ami fell onto her back after the jounin left letting out a sigh of relief whilst Naruto brought out smelling salts and went to wake up their last teammate. As Shino woke and regained his senses "The mission…?" he queried "Mission accomplished, let's go back to our training ground to give our sensei the tag" Naruto responded as he helped Shino to his feet.

The three of them went to training ground five to find their teacher lounging on a rock in the sun with her back to them eating dango, as she finished eating she leant her head back so she could see her team "hmm back already so how'd it go?" she asked.

The three looked at each other before smiling (well they assumed Shino smiled as well) as Naruto brought the tag out of his pocket and laid it on the rock before the eccentric jounin "I don't believe it you actually did it?" Anko cried her grin was long gone.

After a few seconds it was replaced by another grin "Well brats I guess there's only one thing left to say…welcome to the awesome team that is team Anko, oh and by the way fishcakes I'm looking forward to playing around with your special abilities. From now on we'll meet here at seven every morning for… training; don't be late or you'll wish you'd never been born bwahaha."

*Ami is the girl that bullied Sakura when they were younger

**Tobio is the boy that knocked Naruto into kissing Sasuke in the anime

It took me ages to think of their gennin test as I've read enough bell tests to last me a lifetime, I considered many options (before I thought of the one I chose it was the assassination of Tora the cat)

I always read stories where Danzou and the two elders (councillors) are as bad as Orochimaru; I just thought I'd try to make them more reasonable

Please review out of the 265 visitors I only got 4 reviews, the more reviews I get the faster I type… (Well not really but it does make me feel better about the story)


	5. Chapter 5: Gennin Days

**Gennin Days**

All the jounin except Kurenai that took gennin teams were reporting to the hokage as to which teams had past the individual tests; the teams that past were team three Anko's, team seven Kakashi's and team ten Asuma's. Just when the meeting was about to end Kurenai appeared via shunshin kneeling in front of their leader her arm bandaged "Hokage-sama sorry for my tardiness, team eights test has been delayed due to unforeseen circumstances." Sarutobi eyed her curiously "Is it anything I need to worry about?"

The red eyed jounin shook her head "No sir, there were for unforeseen circumstances which invalidated the test, I will be re-testing again tomorrow when we have all recovered" her eyes flicked to where Anko was only to find her gone, Sarutobi noticed where she was looking and chuckled to himself as he realised what must have happened to Kurenai's test.

Naruto was not surprised to find both of his teammates already at the training ground by the time he got there even though he was still early. They only had to wait a couple of moments before Anko appeared in the middle of the training ground in a swirl of leaves "Alright gakis we're going to make you into decent ninja as fast as we can because there's no way I'm going to be doing D rank missions as such I need you to be good enough to do C rank even if I have to whip you into shape!" what really scared the gennin was the whip that actually appeared from somewhere.

Anko started off by testing their combat abilities against her mud clones; Naruto dispatched the clone within in seconds using his incredible speed to get close and literally knocking the head off the clone, Shino's fight took almost ten minutes but he did eventually beat the clone by draining it of all its chakra reverting it into a pile of mud, Ami on the other hand was pounded into the ground over and over again until Anko got bored of watching it and cancelled the technique leaving a well beaten Ami panting on the ground.

"Well that's about what I expected, sheesh what are they teaching kunoichi in the academy these days? Well anyway let's move onto the next exercise…chakra control, what you're going to do is climb one of the trees at the edge of the training ground by focusing chakra into the soles of your feet to grip onto the tree…well get to it I want you all at the top of those trees in the next hour or I'll add some motivation for you" Anko gave off an evil laugh at the end of her speech.

Ami groaned but got to her feet and moved towards the nearest tree exhaustion radiating off of her but the thought of motivation from her teacher pushed her on, as she reached the tree she tried to focus her chakra into the soles of her feet but was having difficulty due to her inability to think straight as well as how difficult it is to get chakra to move to your feet. Shino on the tree next to Ami had managed to get the chakra to his feet and was attempting to get his right foot to stick onto the trunk of his tree adjusting the amount of chakra until his foot stuck to the tree, that is until he lifted his other foot off the ground where the added weight made his right foot loose cohesion and he fell back to the ground.

Naruto after watching his teammates for a few minutes went to help Ami as it appeared she was having the most trouble "Hey Ami" she looked in his direction, a look of frustration on her face "If you don't relax you'll have difficulty controlling your chakra, forget about sensei (Anko was sticking her tongue out at him) and think of this as a game. Take a deep breath and focus on nothing but the chakra in your feet and the tree then follow Shino's example and take it one step at a time until you are sure of your footing and then speed up as you get used to it if you use too much chakra then the bark will break but too little and you will fall off, I'd suggest starting with finding out how much chakra it takes to break the bark first."

Ami gave a grateful smile and a nod in thanks then closed her eyes to do as he said, Shino who was listened from in front of his tree again put his right foot on the tree but this time he kept increasing the amount of chakra in his foot until the bark broke, then moved to another section of the tree and tried again adding a bit less chakra to make sure it wouldn't break the bark then did the same for his left foot. Ami was soon doing the same and they were both climbing up the tree one foot at the time concentrating on nothing but the tree.

Naruto waited until they got to the top of their trees before he even started knowing that he would distract his teammates by climbing his tree; once they had reached the top though he set off up his own *crunch* *crunch* *crunch* the bark split with every footstep he took but his foot stuck to the trunk underneath until he reached the top branch of his tree, Ami had a look of shock on her face as though she expected him to be able to do the exercise perfectly.

"Alright you three you have five seconds to get down here…" their teacher called up to them from the where she was sat twirling a kunai on her finger. Shino and Ami quickly made their way down jumping from branch to branch whilst Naruto jumped straight from the top branch down to just in front of Anko his legs barely bending as they absorbed the impact leaving a small imprint of his feet in the floor.

"It seems the three of you are full of surprises I didn't expect you to be able to reach the top of the tree that quickly…but you need to keep on practicing till you can sprint up and down the tree for at least half an hour before that exercise is complete so I expect you two" she points to Shino and Ami "to continue this exercise after team training is complete oh and I'll know if you don't practice, as for you blondy I read your file so I know your never be able to do this properly so you continue learning seals" all three of her students nodded their acceptance of her order.

Anko had a small smile on her face as she continued "right kiddies just one more thing to do today before I let you go today" this made Ami brighten up a bit until "After all I need to make your individual training schedule so tomorrow the real training begins. Now then for you to work as a team we need to know each other's skills properly, we'll start with bug boy as I doubt stalker girl has any skills not taught in the academy…" again there was a small aura of depression around Ami.

Shino moved his glasses up his nose "I can use insect bunshin and insect gathering techniques…Clan can communicate with insects…I am learning Insect Cocoon technique and Insect Jar technique…" Naruto raised his hand in question "Okay I think I get what the first two are but the two you are learning…?" Shino's eyebrow rose "Insect Jar is whole body defence… Insect Cocoon increases production…"

All eyes were still on Shino for a moment before Anko jumped to her feet "okay now for you blondy, let's see this special ability of yours in demonstration… I've been looking forward to this all day so hurry up…" Naruto sighed as he stood up and moved to the centre of the clearing "Alright I guess you will need to know what I'm capable of so it doesn't distract you in battle when I use it and it would be easier to just show you…" with that Naruto's whole body tensed for a few seconds before a blinding light appeared from the blond, when their vision cleared they came face to face with what appeared to be a knight wearing orange armour.

The knight held up his hand and a sword appeared from a ring of fire on the floor, the knight was giving off a lot of chakra that contained an evil tint to it and the temperature of the training ground had risen by several degrees. Anko was at his side almost instantly jumping around him like a child "So what can it do?" she prodded a section of the armour only to jump back with a yell "ouch that things hot I don't know how you can stand it in there?" she said whilst waving her hand in the air.

There was another flash as Naruto returned to normal, he stumble a bit as the flash died down and took a second to regain his breath "I'm not inside of it, I am it so I don't feel the heat as for what it can do well…It increases my defence and strength whilst decreasing my speed a bit and it also allows me to use unique fire jutsu whilst making me immune to fire attacks… but I can change into different ones which have different strengths and weaknesses."

"I've seen a lot of freaky stuff in my career but this has got to take the cake, I am so jealous… well I suppose at least we'll never have to make a camp fire with you on the team" their hyperactive sensei was on rocking on the balls of her feet "well I've got to go make your training schedules" she waves and disappears in another swirl of leaves.

Ami made her way over to her teammates slowly due to her exhaustion "hey you guys do you want to go out somewhere to celebrate becoming a team?" both of the boys looked at each other before Naruto shrugged "sure I guess but you should know I'm not well liked around the village due to my special abilities… it would be better if you one of you got takeaway and we meet back here"

In the end it was decided that Shino would be the best option to get the take away because Ami was so tired (and yet still had enough energy to argue), luckily they had the forethought to write down their order before sending Shino to collect it…

Their training was in a word exhaustive; Anko had provided the three of them their own unique training schedules as promised. Shino was given a kusarigama by Anko with an extended chain; the weight at the end had a hollow section that could be filled with Shino's kikaichu. Shino was taught how to use his new weapon in the morning by a clone of Anko which was using a sword. After a couple of hour's weapon practice Shino and the clone moved onto taijutsu practice until lunch. After lunch Shino was taught tracking followed by ninjutsu directly from Anko until around three pm where he was given chakra control exercises for the rest of the day except the last hour.

There wasn't much Anko could teach Naruto as he couldn't control his chakra well enough to do ninjutsu so she decided to give him a bit more combat training by throwing kunai and senbon at him as well as all manner of ninjutsu that she knew; his objective was to reach Anko whilst evading or going through the attacks sent at him. After lunch he was taught Anko's own taijutsu style by a clone followed by training using his fusion abilities until he almost loses control then he was told to continue fuuinjutsu practice.

Ami's schedule started off with endurance training which consisted of being kicked around by a clone of Anko's for the first four hours in the morning followed by some medical training where she had to heal the wounds she had received from the endurance training; of course Anko was kind enough to provide the books she needed. After Ami had finished patching herself (and her teammates if they needed it) up then she was given chakra control exercises whilst Anko taught Shino ninjutsu, her day was finished off with genjutsu training directly by Anko. The last hour of the day was team training where they got used to each other's abilities and the way they each moved.

It's amazing how quickly time moves when you're busy, it had already been just over a month of non-stop training for team three when Anko decided they were 'not completely useless' as she said and thought they could handle themselves on the boring C rank missions which is why the three of them were standing behind their sensei whilst she was given a list of available C rank missions, most of which were guarding caravans of merchants which Anko had no interest in as the chance of combat was slight. Eventually she did find one mission that she thought might not be too boring for her; it was a request from a small mining village on the border of fire country next to tea country, the village was having trouble with a large pack of tundra wolves that were attacking their supply lines and had requested a team to eliminate them.

"Alright team you have one hour to prepare for a month long mission and meet up at the village gates!" with that their jounin left her team behind with a shunshin, team three already used to their sensei by now just shrugged and made their way to their respective houses to pack their equipment, Naruto had added seals onto their upper arms to seal spare equipment away so no one had to carry heavy rucksacks with them.

The three gennin met up at their teams training ground after they had gotten all their equipment together and made their way to the village gates for their first mission, as they approached the gates still ten minutes early they could see their sensei already there tapping her foot impatiently "where the hell have you three been I've been waiting here for ages, I swear when we get back I am going to run you three twerps into the ground to teach you never to be late again!"

"Um sensei we're still ten minutes earlier than you said you'd meet us?" the pseudo medic on the team answered almost exasperated at their teacher "…anyway I'll deal with your punishments for being late after we get back, it will take us about three days to reach Tetsumura to meet up with the client; Naruto take point Shino, Ami you've got the side and I'll guard the back. Team three head out" It was amazing how quickly Anko became serious as she gave out orders, the whole team was quick to obey and they were jumping from tree to tree outside the village within seconds.

It was a new experience for Ami and Shino to be outside the protection of the village walls but it soon became boring as nothing happened, Ami now was somewhat grateful for the torture her sensei had put her through as she would have been unable to move by the time they stopped for the night due to exhaustion if she hadn't gone through the training. They each took a two hour turn keeping lookout as their teammates slept.

Whilst team three was traveling the next day team seven too was receiving their first C rank mission to guard a bridge builder on his way home to Wave Country, unlike team three team seven were already experienced at doing missions (if D ranks count as missions) but they had yet to receive any personal training from their jounin, who whilst being a genius and one of the best jounin in Konoha was also almost as laid back as the Nara clans men are said to be.

Team seven so far had only had team training exercises, this consisted of exercises like throwing an egg to one of your teammates without breaking it and practicing formations before taking on D rank missions for the rest of the day. In the end it was Sasuke who made the team take a C rank mission; during their last mission he had done something which he never had before, he had spoken to Sakura talking about how the missions were a waste of time.

Today the Hokage was in the mission office as he quite often was as it was a good way to get face time with a lot of his ninja. Sakura normally wouldn't dream of questioning the Hokage on what missions her team received after all she was very academic and always listened to her superiors…unless Sasuke was involved then all her intelligence went straight out the window, which is why when the Hokage was going through available D rank missions for the team and she saw Sasuke scowling she just couldn't help herself.

"Ano Hokage-Sama we've been doing these missions for over a month now would it be possible to do something a little harder?" the pink haired young girl timidly said as not only was she talking to the highest ranked person in Konoha but she was happy to be doing missions without any danger to them, it was only her obsession with the Uchiha that made her ask.

"Hmm well Kakashi what do you think, are they ready for a C rank mission?" the old leader asked the jounin who for once wasn't reading his porn "They've been ready for a while now I was just waiting to see who would request one first, to be honest I was betting on Tobio." There was looks of disbelief on Kakashi's gennin's faces (well Sasuke had a look of Anger) as the Hokage went through the pile of C rank missions for them "ah here we go" he nodded to a chunin at the entrance "Please let Tazuna in…"

Anko was right it did take them three days to reach their client village; the village was about a tenth of the size of Konaha it was built on either side of a small river which was fed from the mountains behind it, the buildings were all wooden with thatched roofs, the streets were unpaved and there was a simple wooden wall surrounding the village to stop wild animals from entering.

"Alright team we'll meet up with the client find out what the situation is then turn in for the night and complete the mission tomorrow" Anko said whilst leading the team towards the mayors house (direction provided by the two gate guards). The mayor was an overweight man who seemed to have led an easy life and was obvious he had never worked in the mines, as Anko was talking to him he was sweating a lot and seemed nervous; now this would normally seem suspicious but it was Anko he was talking to so they ignored it and listened to what he had to said "We've always had trouble with wolves in this area but they've never attacked any of our caravans before as the caravans are always guarded by a few swordsmen but recently the wolves seem to have gotten more aggressive as a group of them has been praying on all of our food supplies. Our stockpile of food is growing short so it would be helpful if this problem was solved quickly so we can re-start our supply lines."

The mayor went into another room and came out with a couple of scrolls in his hands which he handed to Anko "this is an account of what happened from the survivors as well as a map of where the attacks took place, I've also arranged for accommodations for your team at the local inn…I'm afraid I only booked one room for the four of you. I will wait for your report on your success" with that the overweight mayor led them to his front door "the inn is the biggest building in the village, good luck" with that he closed the door leaving them in darkening streets.

The room had two beds and a couch squeezed into it, there wasn't much floor space left around the furniture. Anko decided it would be a good idea to play rock, paper, scissors for who got to sleep where, which is why it ended up with Shino and Naruto on the beds and Ami on the sofa leaving Anko the floor. Now it would be the gentlemanly thing to offer the girls the beds but they were shinobi and they just weren't brought up that way (and the floor didn't look appealing).

The reports they had received about the attacks were helpful as it gave them an idea on numbers and the map showed the location of the attacks. Anko left it to her gennin to decide on their course of action (after they had decided her idea to set fire to the forest and see what comes out was a bad idea (they put that idea in reserve)). Again Naruto's teammates left the planning to him; in the end it was decided that the Shino would contact the local bugs to find out what was going on in the area and find the location of the wolves and then get his kikaichu to keep track of them all whilst they took them out from above.

About half an hour after the team had turned in for the night Naruto felt his bed shift as Anko crawled in behind him, he was about to ask her what she was doing when her arm wrapped around him "sensei…?" the young blond was uncharacteristically embarrassed as he questioned his jounin teacher "hmm the floor is uncomfortable and as nice as Shino is I don't fancy the idea of sharing a bed with his kikaichu. Don't tell me you don't want to share a bed with your beautiful teacher?" there was no response from the blond but it took him a long time to get to sleep and he had no intention of telling his mother next time he saw her or he'd never hear the end of it.

The next morning team three was standing by the roadside where the last caravan was attacked, Shino bent over with a net of chakra spreading out from his hand attracting insects to ask about the wolves. Meanwhile there was an awkward silence from the rest of the group as Anko was munching on dango she acquired from somewhere, it was Ami that had woken up first in the morning to find Anko wrapped around Naruto gently chewing on his ear.

"Found the wolves…and bandits…bandits taken wolves abode…" Shino as stoic as always provided just enough information for them to fill in the rest "Well that explains why the wolves suddenly attacked the caravans, what do you suggest we do sensei?" Naruto asked their teacher with a blush on his face whilst not looking at her. "Well if you're sure you don't want to start a fire and kill everything that comes out then we will need to go in and take out the bandits and the wolves, this missions keeps getting better. I get to kill lots and I got a new toy to cuddle up with" Anko had a sly smile on her face.

"I think we should split up and attack both at the same time, Shino and Ami would be best taking out the wolves whilst we take on the bandit's sensei." Even though Naruto was embarrassed to be near his jounin at the moment he knew Shino would be needed to keep track of the wolves and Ami probably wasn't ready for the slaughter that was sure to take place. After everyone agreed with him he added "Shino, Ami don't attack until you hear activity from the bandit camp after all it would be easier if the bandits were taken unaware"…

At the Hokage's office an ANBU appeared in a puff of smoke kneeling in front of his leader "Hokage-Sama we found two missing Nin, the demon brothers of Kiri tied to a tree on our patrol, they were found next to the road to Wave country" the ANBU left in another puff of smoke "that's where Kakashi's team just left for, it's strange that he hasn't reported back if he encountered ninja on a C rank mission, ANBU get me a list of teams that are in that area" there was a shift in the shadows of the room...

The bandits had taken residence in the wolves cave, they had a few guards on the outside but they looked bored and weren't paying attention, Anko took control of the mission from here as she cut he thumb open went through several hand seals and slammed her hands into the ground. Seals appeared from where her hands were and then there was a small cloud of smoke as a common Forest Rat Snake appeared "Hey Aerisu I need to know how many people are in the cave and if there are any captives?" the snake nodded and quickly slithered un-noticed into the cave.

Five minutes later Aerisu was back it spoke with a genderless voice and its 'S's' were held longer than they should have been "there is no captives and just over thirty peoples in the cave" its job done the snake went back to where it was summoned from.

Anko thought for a second before a grin literally lit up her face "alright Gaki here's what were gonna do, you set up explosive and incendiary seals on those trees either side of cave and make sure I can activate them after that wait atop of the cave taking out the sentry they have up there. I will then approach the front of the cave and attract attention to myself and see if I can't get a few of them to come out of the cave, I'll then blow the logs trapping the rest of them behind a wall of fire whilst you change into your fire thingy and take out the rest of them, any questions?" the blond nodded "Just one sensei what is it with you and setting things on fire…?"

The guard on top of the cave didn't know what hit him as suddenly his world went dark as a kunai was shoved into his eye with considerable force, as his body went limp Naruto who was standing behind him caught him and lowered the corpse silently to the ground before taking up position near the entrance of the cave.

As she said she would Anko approached the entrance to the cave and drew attention to herself, at first the guards were a bit cautious but thanks to a henge Anko looked more like a geisha than a ninja and as she flirted with the guards (who didn't seem to think it strange that a geisha was in the middle of a forest) more men appeared from within the cave, as soon as the number reached about a dozen she made a ram hand seal and explosions erupted from the trees on either side of the entrance with the falling trees quickly going up in a blaze as they fell to cover the entrance of the cave.

Nobody outside saw a blur enter the cave before it was covered by the trees or the flash of light that appeared within but they could clearly hear the screams that came from behind the wall of fire not that it mattered much to them as they had their own problems such as the woman that was going through them like a hot knife through butter.

Team three met up again at the roadside when they had completed their missions, Anko and Naruto were the first back, Ami was looking a little green at what she had just done but none of the others showed any emotions…well except Anko who seemed to be quite satisfied at the moment.

As the team made its way back to the village to give a report on the success of the mission to the client a messenger hawk gained the attention of the team as it made its way towards them, Anko held her arm up as the hawk hovered above them, it landed on her arm quickly its claws taking a firm on her overcoat. It took Anko a couple of minutes to decode the message rolled up in the pouch attached to its leg.

"Alright gakis it looks like there is a change in plans we have orders directly from the old man, after we have reported to our current client we are to head to Wave country on our way back to assist team seven in their mission" team three made no complaints as their sensei picked up the pace to reach the client village before they moved onto Wave country…

Has anyone else noticed that most of the main countries in Naruto are named after what they are weakest against; Fire country is mostly forest, Wind country is in the desert and sand storms are caused by wind, Lightning country is in the mountains where lightning storms are most common and Stone country I believe is mostly that stones so avalanche?

Sang28: I initially wasn't going to include team three in Wave at all but as you want to see it…

I will try to update this weekly but no promises

The poll for who Naruto will be paired with is up on my profile feel free to vote


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