Naruto 1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto. It is the propriety of Kishimoto. The same goes with any abilities taken from the show "Heroes".

Hello everyone. I know some of you will be angry for this but I couldn't help it. This is the new version of "Sylar's Bloodline".

I couldn't do anything else other than rewrite the first version because there were too many errors and plot holes. Also while I like a super powered Naruto, it came to a point where he had so many ability that it was difficult to chose which one to use. Make no mistake, he will still be powerful but this time it will be in a logical way.

I have changed several things about the plot and you will notice it upon reading the story.

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><p><strong><span>Prologue<span>**

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><p>Konohagakure no Sato, currently one if not the strongest ninja village in the elemental countries. It is the village having produced the highest number of prodigies. Among them are the four hokage who were the most powerful ninja if not among the most in their respective time. Ninja likes the sannin were also rumored to be in a league all their own.<p>

But even among geniuses, there are those who stand out like the yondaime hokage Minato Namikaze.

He was acknowledged as the fastest ninja to ever walk the world, gaining the reputation of 'yellow flash' solely because of his speed and the technique that allowed him to teleport to any place he had previously marked. This technique was what allowed him to decimate entire platoon of ninja in a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately for Konoha as a whole, he met his demise at the hands or paws of the nine tails Kyuubi during an attack on Konoha. He died by sealing the beast into his own son Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze. Many will think of it as an act of kindness and selfishness to save his beloved village but they will be far from the truth.

None knew it at the time but this simple act would seal the fate of the village and maybe the shinobi world, whether for good or bad, only time will tell.

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><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>11 YEARS AFTER THE SEALING<em>**

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><p>Naruto was running through the forest. He had accomplished the task given to him by Mizuki, his teacher in the ninja academy, which was to steal Konoha's Forbidden scroll of seals. He was now trying to reach the indicated meeting point as was asked of him. Many would wonder why he accepted such mission, which is why understanding the events preceding it were the key.<p>

After the sealing of the Kyuubi, Naruto lived a life no one would ever wish to their most hated enemies. He was constantly attacked by mob of villagers trying to finish what the yondaime started, they would say. Though this stopped upon Naruto reaching the age of seven, mainly because by that age he was able to hide very well after learning the Henge no jutsu from the academy. But even then, he could only hide from villagers. When it came to ninja, he wasn't that hard to find. Fortunately for him, those weren't regular attacks and only happened when he was in secluded spots.

The ninjas had it for him but they weren't stupid enough to attack him in broad daylight. Granted no one would have reported them, they still didn't want the reputation associated with that kind of behavior.

Anyway, Naruto began the ninja academy at six with the goal of graduating like everyone at eleven. That was wishful thinking though, as no one taught him anything worthwhile, and if he was taught something, it was generally wrong. So he was forced to become self-reliant. He learned the Kawarimi and Henge no jutsu by himself after stealing scrolls from the academy instructor. Unfortunately, he could never seem to be able to grasp the concept behind the Bunshin no jutsu, which was mandatory to pass the exam. He had an inkling that it became mandatory when he entered the academy though but he could do nothing about it.

Because of his grades, everyone thought he was a stupid moron, but this was far from the truth. Compared to the children who had access to all kind of information, he could be considered a genius. But even geniuses could go only so far without any reliable material. It was because of this that he failed the exams 3 times in a row. He was so desperate that when Mizuki confronted him with this mission, he accepted it anyway, as he would be able to look into a scroll obviously containing powerful jutsus, if it was restricted.

Coming back to the matter at hands, Mizuki told him to steal the scroll in the evening as there would be less guards but Naruto being as he is, chose to steal it in the middle of the day to give himself a couple of hours to look inside it and learn something.

It was relatively easy to steal the scroll, as he was extremely proficient in stealth. Something happened though, during the theft that shocked him. While leaving the hokage tower, he met with the Sandaime. To Naruto, Sarutobi was like a grandfather, but when said hokage found out he had stolen the scroll, during a split second, his grandfatherly image dropped to let out a snarl of disgust aimed at him not unlike that of the villagers. This took Naruto completely caught off guard and stunned him for a moment, but he quickly came back to his senses and used the Oiroke no jutsu to knock Sarutobi out.

Even now, Naruto was wondering if what he saw was real or not. He may be a genius but he was still naive like every child his age.

Finally reaching a clearing, he forgot everything else and concentrated on reading the stolen scroll.

The first jutsu mentioned was the Kage Bunshin no jutsu. From the description of said jutsu, it creates a physical clone that can be dispelled by receiving a strong enough hit. But what caught his eyes was the part where it was explained that whatever the created clones learns is transferred back to the original. He did read that the technique was restricted because the user needs an enormous amount of chakra to make it works. As if it had always waited for this, his brain went in hyper processing mode, imagining all the possibilities of said jutsu.

_'Whoa, I MUST learn this technique. It could greatly accelerate my training.'_ Naruto thought while looking at the diagrams showing the handseal needed for the technique.

An hour or so later, Naruto was panting. He just learned the Kage Bunshin and was amazed by the fact that he could create a dozen of clones, but not feel drained at all.

'To think that I would learn such technique by listening to Mizuki of all people!' He thought while scowling at the end while remembering all the time Mizuki tried to teach him wrong. 'This is really a godsend for anyone possessing as much chakra as I do and me. I shudder to think what ninja would be capable of if everyone could use as many clones as me and accelerate their training.' An image of 'shibi' ninjas running through the streets launching powerful fire jutsu at each other appeared in his mind.

He looked at his watch and saw that he still had a couple of hours before his sensei was supposed to show up. Smiling, he looked back at the scroll hoping to find another useful technique in it.

Unfortunately, the following jutsu were too complicated for him, as they all seemed to require advanced knowledge in seals, illusions or elemental techniques. He still kept looking though and that is how he reached the last jutsu of the scroll.

The _Shiki Fujin_.

It took him a good hour to read everything about it and when he finished, he cried. The text explained that it was a seal designed to call upon the death god to seal away something in an object or a person. But that wasn't why he cried, it was because he finally found why the villagers hated him so much. Apparently the yondaime had wanted to use this seal to defeat the Kyuubi but it wasn't finished. He was thus forced to use another seal, less powerful but that still did the job and sealed the beast in Naruto. From the notes, it was explained that he was the only baby that could survive the sealing because he possessed incredible longevity and vitality by being of Uzumaki blood. These abilities were from his mother who was Uzumaki Kushina while his father was the Yondaime hokage himself.

But what caught his eyes in the description of the seal was that he could free the Kyuubi whenever he wanted by just removing a paper seal inside his mindscape. Even before dying, he could choose to free the fox.

_'So it is because of this that I am still alive?'_ Naruto thought while clenching his fists. _'They cannot kill me in fear that I will set the fox free. Were they all in this machination?'_ He specifically thought of the Sandaime as he was reminded of his short meeting with the leader after stealing the forbidden scroll. He didn't want to believe that the one he looked up to was playing an act around him in the hope that he wouldn't strike back at Konoha. If it was the case then he didn't know what he would do. Playing with his feelings was something he disliked the most.

In his mind, simply attacking him out of anger was bothersome, nothing more, having dealt with that all his life. But to use him like that, manipulate him to such an extent, it became _personal_.

It was then that Mizuki entered the clearing wearing a stupid grin on his face. Naruto imagined he was congratulating himself for manipulating someone as easily as it seemed and scoffed at that.

_'He is proud of deceiving someone with a reputation of being stupid? Is he that much of a failure to be proud of such thing?'_ He wondered while letting Mizuki talk.

After Mizuki explained his plan on using Naruto to steal the scroll and kill him afterwards, the latter decided to play the fool and act like he was afraid. He knew that no one was in the surrounding area, except the strange feeling he got of being watched. It wasn't the first time he had that feeling, but everytime, the feeling would stop after a moment.

It was then that Mizuki launched the Fuuma shuriken he kept on his back.

Despite knowing that his sensei would attack, Naruto was caught off guard by the speed of the flying weapon. He knew in his mind that he couldn't dodge such attack, Mizuki was a fool but he still had the skill of a Chuunin while Naruto was barely genin material. Shocked by the turn of events, Naruto stood still as everything he experienced while alive flashed in his mind.

_'So this is how I die. I didn't even get to have my revenge on Konoha. I can't die here. NO. I won't die here. NEVER.'_

Shock turned to hate as he saw just how hard his live had been since birth. Before long, a strange feeling coursed through his body. If he were to describe it, he would assimilate it to a cold metallic liquid running through his veins. He didn't know where it comes from but he embraced it wholeheartedly.

Just before the flying weapon impacted on his body, Naruto vanished from everyone's sight. It was like he had never been there in the first place. Even Sarutobi who was looking at this scene through his crystal ball didn't understand what happened. What he did know though was that it was no Genjutsu as the crystal ball worked like a Byakugan and could see through any optical illusion. So it was understandable for him to be stunned by whatever Naruto did.

In the clearing, Mizuki was worried. For more than thirty seconds, his student had seemingly disappeared and unfortunately, he took the forbidden scroll with him. The scroll being the goal of his mission, he looked around desperately trying to find Naruto.

While this was going on, Naruto was looking at himself or through himself? If he wasn't as shocked as he was, he would have shouted by now, not minding if someone heard him.

Because instead of a solid body, his body was like a ghost, completely see-through.

Earlier he had been caught off guard when the weapon flew harmlessly through him. Calming himself, he looked around and saw to his growing amazement that the colors around him had changed. Instead of a blue sky, he saw a red one. The green color of the forest gave way to a brown one. Choosing to investigate it at a later time, he looked back in front of him and saw a confused Mizuki who seemed to be looking for something.

_'Is he looking for me?'_ Naruto thought in surprise before something clicked in his mind.

'_He cannot see me.'_

This simple fact turned several gears in his mind as he already imagined the advantage of such ability. Pushing that to the back of his mind, he slowly tried to move and to his shock found his body as light as a feather. Knowing that he was still in danger, he quickly moved behind a tree behind Mizuki. Once there he tried to get things back to normal and silently as before, he appeared back in the real world although he noted that it took a great deal of concentration and the process was very slow.

After calming himself, he took the time to think of a solution to his current predicament.

_'Mizuki maybe an idiot but he is way more powerful than I. Only in number can I beat him.'_ He thought before smiling at the end as he found the solution to his problem.

"Kage Bunshin no jutsu"

Mizuki heard a voice yell behind him and was shocked when the clearing was filled to the brim with smoke. When he could see again, a chill went through his back as he saw hundred of Naruto surrounding him, all of them sporting a malicious grin as they looked at him. The only thing that went through his mind at that moment was that he was dead.

What happened after that was a beating that Mizuki would never forget. Each of the clones took its turn in beating the shit out of him before he finally lost consciousness.

With that done, Naruto slowly moved toward the downed Mizuki and looked at him with barely hidden contempt. When he was close to his ex-teacher, he suddenly got an urge to transform back to a ghost. Without controlling it, he appeared back in the strange world he found himself in earlier on.

Before noticing what was going, he kneeled in front of Mizuki before trying to touch the latter, but his hand just went through the unmoving body. Then he found himself draw into it. Not knowing what was going on, he let his body act on its own and dived in Mizuki's body.

He didn't know it yet but by doing this he made one of his greatest discoveries to come. Indeed, once inside Mizuki, he downloaded every bit of memories and skills from Mizuki. Then came something that made him glee, he found himself able to analyze Mizuki's DNA. He knew what it was because he learned about it when Iruka made a lecture on Konoha's clans and their bloodline.

What surprised him though was that understanding the DNA was like reading an open book now. He could see what everything was for. And strangely enough, he found that he could improve some of it by moving or adding other sequences. He did try to make some changes but it seemed that he couldn't modify Mizuki's DNA. Thinking nothing of it he decided to go back to the outside world.

Once outside Mizuki's body and after appearing back in the real world, he created another clone to carry his unconscious sensei and moved toward the hokage tower.

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><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>HOKAGE'S OFFICE –<em> **AN HOUR LATER

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><p>It has been a long night for Sarutobi as he had to listen to Naruto gives a detailed report of the forbidden scroll incident. Once the latter finished, he gently smiled at Naruto who looked at him with narrowed eyes.<p>

"Can you stop that, it is really irritating me!" He finally said to a surprised Sandaime.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the smile, acting like you care about me when it is clearly false." His voice was becoming louder as he spoke but he didn't care.

"You know, I thought of you as the closest person I ever had, as my grandfather. But I really must have been blind not to see just how fake it was." Sarutobi looked at him with wide eyes and was about to reply when he was cut off.

"I mean, I am a master at wearing mask to hide my feelings. How could I not notice it earlier?" He looked pointedly at Sarutobi who found nothing to say. Was he shocked from learning that he wore a mask all this time? He couldn't tell, but he was past from caring at this point.

"Let's us forget about what happened this night. The real issue is what will happen now that I am aware of everything." He looked at Sarutobi in the eyes. "And I mean _everything_!"

If the message wasn't clear enough, Naruto didn't know what would be clearer. In any case he had done is job, and was now in the process of turning the card around the table for the first time in his favor.

Sarutobi's worried and strained face slowly faded to give place to a hardened one, one that had seen countless battle and had gained experience far beyond normal understanding.

"What gave it away?" He asked not letting any emotions appear on his face.

"I don't know, maybe the fact that you dropped it for a short time when I stole the scroll. Or the fact that you are not denying anything at all" was Naruto's snide reply.

"I suppose the only reason I am still breathing or aren't detained is because I finally have some leverage against this wretched village." For the first time since the whole fiasco, Naruto smiled at Sarutobi. But this wasn't his usual smile; this was the smile of a predator who knew he had backed his prey in a corner.

And Sarutobi didn't like that one bit.

"And that leverage would be...?"

"The choice between freeing the Kyuubi or not."

The bomb was dropped and a chill went through Sarutobi's spine. _'He knows'_ was his only thought of the situation.

He narrowed his eyes at Naruto. He never liked behind blackmailed. He found it acceptable when it was him the blackmailer but not the other way around. He thought about all the trouble he went through to stop this from happening, and couldn't help but gnash his teeth in anger.

_'I could lock him somewhere and throw the key away but even then he would just free the fox as he has nothing to lose right now, I made sure of that. The only option is to wait for him to come back. For the moment, I will have to play along'_

"So what do you want? You wouldn't have threatened me right now if you didn't want something, so what is it?" He finally said trying to ascertain Naruto's intentions in the hope of using it against him later on.

"I will become a shinobi." This answer surprised Sarutobi even though he remained emotionless. "I suppose I will have to be in a team but know this I won't do any D-Rank missions. I don't see why I would want to do housework for this ungrateful villagers."

"I should warn you that by becoming a ninja, you won't receive any allowance anymore. These mission will become your income, so if you don't do them how will you afford anything?" Sarutobi inquired to a smiling Naruto.

"For a moment I would have thought you cared." Sarutobi scowled at the comment but said nothing. "I don't need your village's help. I will fend for myself just like I have always done."

"Very well. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, this one concerns my future sensei. I know that he won't teach me anything and if he does it will be in the hope of killing me by teaching me wrong. So we can forgo any training session, I will learn by myself."

Naruto finished to an impassive Sarutobi although the latter was smiling in his mind. _'He must really be stupid to think that he will improve all by himself. Everyone need a tutor to get far in this world, where does he think he will get the information needed? Certainly not in any library if I have anything to say about it.'_

"We are in an agreement then. The team assignment will be in one week from now." He said while tossing a Konoha headband at the resident Jinchuuriki.

The latter took it and moved out of the office. He stopped at the door though and looked at Sarutobi.

"I forgot to tell you that anyone who try to attack me would be dealt with accordingly." He said leaving a shocked hokage behind.

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><p>After Naruto exited the office, an anbu with a dog mask appeared and said:<p>

"What will you do now that he has this leverage over the village?"

"Don't worry about it, we will find a way. You will be his team teacher and you will have to keep an eye on him. By the next Chuunin exam in Konoha, someone who can deal with him permanently will be back." Sarutobi replied.

"Who is it?"

"You don't need to know at the moment." Sarutobi answered before the anbu bowed before disappearing in a swirl of leaves.

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><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>NARUTO'S APARTMENT –<em>**

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><p>The next morning, Naruto wake up feeling truly happy for the first time for the first time in his life. Obviously learning that he was important would do that to someone like him, someone who has been belittled all his life. He was needed, that was gist of it. Konoha could pretend that it didn't care what happened to him, but the truth was out now.<p>

He was needed.

Being able to release the demon fox at will was only part of why he was needed. He had foolishly assumed that the threat of a released Kyuubi was the sole reason why he was still alive. But when he came home last night he thought clearly on it and everything he knew about how the ninja system worked. He asked himself why was it that Konoha wasn't attacked after the death of his father. Why was Konoha left alone during the struggle with Kumo when the village was clearly weakened? He came to the only logical conclusion.

Konoha possessed a war deterrent, _him_.

With the power of the strongest Bijuu hanging above their heads, any village would think twice before attacking Konoha, and that was without counting the elite ninjas residing in the village. At one point in time, the secret of Konoha having a Jinchuuriki must have been found out. Then again this was most certainly the worst kept secret ever. Everyone except those too young knew who the Jinchuuriki was. At this point, it was simply impossible to keep it contained. The real question was 'had Konoha done that on purpose?' because if they really wanted to keep it a secret there so many ways to do so.

Anyway, Naruto slowly opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling above his head. He couldn't stop the smile that appeared on his lips as he contemplated on the power he used in the forest. If he guessed right then the fact that he seemed able to understand and manipulate Mizuki's DNA means that he could alter his own, thereby copying special genetics of other people. In other words, copy bloodlines. Adding the fact that he could become invisible to anyone, maybe even from dojutsu was the icing on the cake.

_'I will have to test it'_ He thought quietly.

What was so interesting about it though, was that it didn't seem to use chakra to stay in that ghost-like form. It means that he could become invisible and escape dangerous situation as long as he wanted.

He looked outside his apartment and saw that it was still earlier in the morning. He still had another week before he was supposed to present himself at the academy to be placed on a team and that made him smile, as it will give him time to prepare himself for his life as a ninja.

After fixing himself a small breakfast, he moved toward the only desk in the room to make a list of things to do that day.

_'First, I need to change my clothes. Now that I don't need to hide anymore, I can wear anything I want. Second, find a secluded spot to train, preferably away from the village. No need to show them what I am training on. I also need to take a look at Mizuki's memories and skills and find a way to efficiently use my clones for training.'_ thought Naruto.

Agreeing with himself, he created a dozen clones to meditate and review these memories while he himself tried to become invisible again.

It took him an hour to be able to transform at whim. Now he could do it in a heartbeat although when it comes to go back to his normal form, he found out that no matter what it took him about three seconds or so. He immediately concluded that the form was worthless for real battle as by the time he had formed his enemies would have reacted. Despite this setback he wasn't deterred and chose to continue his testing by finding what he could do in that form he now called phantom form.

After another hour, he had a good understanding of his phantom form. He could fly in that form at about on kilometer per second, which was amazing. He could become intangible and invisible to anyone, even dojutsu users as he moved in that form in the Hyuuga compound and no one noticed him even with their Byakugan activated. He was extremely giddy at the prospect of copying a dojutsu but refrained from doing so, in order to concentrate on learning what he couldn't or was denied at the academy from Mizuki memories. Another thing was that he could turn any object he touched, in his invisible form if he wanted.

With the testing out of the way, he went to a massive shinobi shop and stole everything he needed, from clothes – all dark in color – to weapons. He even stole some chakra weights for his ankle, hands and fingers – to increase handseal speed –. He chose this shop hoping that the theft wouldn't be noticed easily as there were too many articles. His shopping over, he went back to his apartment to drop it, and then got out again, this time to find a secluded spot to train.

It took him over three hours to find the right spot. It was in the middle of the forest of death, in the SS-Rank zone. No one went there because it was too dangerous. Not even the hokage went there as the deeper inside the forest the thicker the trees became darkening the area. Fortunately for him, as he was invisible and intangible, all the dangerous plants and animals he found couldn't attack him. He found a massive cavern there. It contained everything he needed to train, a lake, a waterfall, several clods, a clearing where he could work physically. All in all, he could train there with many clones if he wanted. What was strange was that there were five other similar caverns close by this one. And each one of them could contain hundred of his copy easily.

This objective completed and having memorized the position of the cavern he went back to the village.

Once he came back to his apartment, it was already three in the afternoon.

_'I need to finish my training method now'_ He thought before moved back to the desk in and thought about it carefully.

It was another two hours later that he had the schematics of his training method, and was really proud of himself. He knew that he would have a headache if he dispelled too many clones at the same time from what the notes on the technique said. So he come up with an alternative, he would create only one clone with the chakra reserve needed to create the number of clones he wanted which meant almost all of his chakra. Then that first clone would then create the clones he needed. In doing so, the copy of the first clone upon dispelling themselves, will send their memories back to him, giving him the time to sort through all the memories before dispelling himself, so the original wouldn't need to sort through those memories, thus avoid the headache.

Another thing he noticed during his fight against Mizuki was that when he dispelled the clones, he felt the chakra left by them, so he thought that if he could absorb the chakra left, then he could improve his training method by adding this concept.

When a clone make a meaningful progress in whatever he is learning, he dispels itself so the others can continue were he left or improve it. The clone in charge of monitoring them will then absorb the chakra left and recreate another copy from said chakra. With it, he could train faster than just using a bunch of clones for the same task.

After the clones were dispelled, he reviewed Mizuki's memories and found out from them that he wasn't taught any chakra control exercise, which was something fundamental. He learned that there were several chakra control exercises, leaf floating, tree climbing, water walking and others but restricted depending on your rank. Mizuki only being a Chuunin didn't have the information. Apparently, leaf floating was for academy student, tree climbing and water walking was for genin and Chuunin respectively. He also learned the academy style of Taijutsu from Mizuki's skills, how to properly throw kunais and shurikens, and how to use a Fuuma shuriken perfectly. For Ninjutsu he learned the Katon Gokyaku no jutsu and Katon hosenka no jutsu. For Genjutsu, he learned how to dispel them by disrupting his chakra.

Of course, to perform all these techniques, he would need to be at least at the same physical condition, and have at least the same level of chakra control needed. With his tasks completed for the day and being late in the night, he went to bed knowing that the next week will be very tough on him.

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><p><strong><span>Author's notes:<span>**

I haven't changed the premises but after that, you will notice several changes. In the first version I wanted to wait for Naruto to be outside the village to recruit people but this time, I have changed my mind


	2. Chapter 1: Graduation

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto. It is the propriety of Kishimoto.

Hello everyone. I finally got the time to finish the second chapter of Clash of realms. I hope you will like it. And just like I said, things will begin to change dramatically from the fist version.

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><p><strong><span>Chapter 1:<span> Graduation**

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><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>NARUTO'S APPARTMENT –<em>**

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><p>Sitting on his bed, Naruto looked at his room with a strangely content expression. It was eerily calm outside, as if the village as a whole was asleep. No sound coming from villagers or overenthusiastic kids. He looked at the alarm on his bedside table and quickly understood why there was no sound out there. It was five in the morning. Although not so early for the ninja population, it was for the civilian. And considering his residence was among the civilian ones, it wasn't a noteworthy observation.<p>

Knowing he only had a week to prepare before he was assigned to a team, he hurriedly took a bath and ate breakfast. By the time he was ready to go for his first day of training, it was almost. Going by the schedule he established last night, he was supposed to fill the gap created by years of shunning. To do so he was to learn everything he could in the civilian library.

There existed two libraries he knew of. The first was the above-mentioned civilian library, which housed information on subject like geography, sciences, and laws. It was also there that the academy level material for ninjas was kept. He had never been allowed inside its walls for obvious reason, but with his newfound ability he promised himself to remedy this situation.

The second library was only accessible by ninjas of the village. Even then the information you had access to, depended on your ranking. Obviously genins wouldn't get access to Chuunin level material and so on.

While the second library was very appealing to him, with the prospect of learning powerful jutsus, he knew that to become truly powerful, he needed a solid foundation to improve from. That is why he decided first to learn what he would have in the academy had the teachers not been biased.

Changing in his phantom form, he slowly flew out of his apartment toward the library. While moving above the village, he was able to spot several ninjas moving on the roofs, patrolling the village as always. Taking no mind to them, he quickly reached the large building that housed the civilian library. He also saw the lone guard standing at the entrance.

He knew the man quiet well as the latter was the one who always refused him entry. While he could use his threat to release the Kyuubi to get by the guard, he didn't want to advertise the village on the knowledge he was seeking. The less they knew about his abilities the better off he was.

He flew through the wall and found a quiet spot before slowly materializing back to the real world. The task done, he gathered his chakra while he moved his hand in a cross hand seal.

"Kage Bunshin no jutsu." He muttered as 20 clones appeared in a poof of smoke beside him. As each of them already knew why they were summoned for, they moved along the alleys towards different subjects. Of course they first changed their appearance with a simple henge.

Satisfied with a job well done, Naruto transformed back in his phantom form and flew out of the building, this time faster than before and toward the forest of death where his cave-like training ground was situated. Once there, he removed the scroll attached to his back and unsealed all the weapons and training materials he 'acquired' the day before. He then moved to the center of the cave.

'Here goes nothing' He thought as he gathered all the chakra he had at his disposition.

"Kage Bunshin no jutsu."

The smoke dissipated, Naruto gazed at the lone clone standing before him. He could feel the huge amount of chakra it possessed and concluded that the experience was a success. He wobbly walked toward the edge of the cave. He was dead tired, having given more than ninety percent of his chakra to the clone. Once there he looked back at the monitor clone that created 80 more clones.

Among them, one would be learning how to absorb the chakra left by the clones upon being dispelled. The others would learn the first chakra control exercise he pilfered from Mizuki's mind, the leaf floating exercise. It consisted in using a leaf and sticking it to one's forehead using chakra. Once confident enough, the trainee would slowly push the leaf above his forehead with his chakra and control the height at which the leaf floated.

Naruto watched as all his clones took a leaf and went to work, under the supervision of the main one. Half an hour or so later, Naruto rose from his sitting position to get on with his own training. He took the weights he stole and put them on his limbs. Never having trained using weights he set it at five pounds per limb.

He then moved to his own training area and slowly went through the academy katas using Mizuki's memories as a guide. He would randomly change his speed, either increasing or decreasing it to get a feel of his movements.

At the end of the day, he went back to his apartment in his phantom form. He had trained for ten hours and was extremely tired despite his high stamina. On his way back, he made a stop to one of the restaurant that kicked him out whenever he went there to eat, and stole a full meal for the night.

While going back he absentmindedly thought about the first day of his training and was happy with the results. The training method had paid off, as he didn't suffer from any headaches when the main clone dispelled. Instead he gained the already sorted memories of his clones, to the point that he could easily recall what his clones did. Training wise, he learned how to absorb the chakra left by his clones. While it wasn't a quick process yet, it was still encouraging and with time it would become instantaneous. Also he could easily make a leaf float above his forehead now.

This was in fact what made him so happy. Normally it took a year or so for an academy student to get to the level he was now at and he did it in a day. This was simply mind-blowing. While students in reality trained their chakra control for 2 hours a day and 3 times per week, which equaled to 312 consecutive hours in a year, Naruto on the other hand trained for 10 hours with 79 clones, which meant 790 consecutive hours, more than twice the amount of training a normal student did in a year.

It was obvious that he would learn as quickly as he did. Despite his success though he wasn't satisfied. From Mizuki's memories the average graduated student could make five leaves float on various part of his body. Apparently Sasuke could make seven, the highest of their year, while the record detained by the yondaime was fourteen. Also most of the revered geniuses were between ten and fourteen. Because of this he vowed to exceed them all.

He wasn't blind to the possibilities offered to him by the clones training method. Most ninjas never took the time to master their abilities as they had other areas they had to focus on. If he were to master every skill he possessed, he would completely be out of everyone league, and that was exactly what he wanted, to be so powerful that none could compare.

He sighed and chose to focus on the present first as he still had a long way to go before he reached his dream.

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>1 WEEK LATER –<em>**

* * *

><p>The following days of training were the same for Naruto as he sent about 20 clones to the library while he used 80 to train in chakra control and absorbing the chakra left by the dispelling clones. While his clones trained, he worked physically on the academy Taijutsu all the while slowly increasing his weights once he got accustomed to them.<p>

With such training schedule, the results were quickly visible.

For the leaf control exercise, he accomplished his goal of surpassing his predecessors. He was now able to make 30 leaves float on various part of his body. This in turn tremendously increased his chakra control to the point that he was now able to make an hundred more of clones than before. He also noticed something strange while doing this exercise. It seemed that no matter what he tried, he couldn't separately control the height at which the leaves floated. The more he thought about it the more compelled he found himself to find out a way around this problem. Of course he already came to the conclusion that he needed to be able to do two things at the same time, to make it work. That is why he decided to add it on his next training schedule.

But that wasn't all. Thanks to the clones he sent to the library, he was able to fill the gap, knowledge-wise, he had with his fellow genins. He learned most of the geographical disposition of the elemental countries and the various political intrigues that surrounded it. He also got an interest in sciences, specifically physics as he could clearly see how useful it could be in understanding the techniques ninjas used.

For his physical training, he reached a point where he was almost as fast as Kiba without his weights. Compared to Sasuke it was nothing but for a genin, it was average. Also speed had never been his forte until now so he was happy with the results he got. It wasn't like he could do something about it for now as physical aptitudes would take time for him to gain as he didn't have the clones to help him.

Naruto looked at himself in the mirror and smiled. While still shorter than his fellow genins, he could see that he grew up a little. He was wearing a blue pant with a grey shirt. Above the shirt was a blue jacket. His blonde hairs were now tied with a grey bandana while his headband was around his neck.

_'No way am I putting it on my forehead. It is not as if I want anything to do with Konoha'_ He thought scowling at the end. While he could have refused to be among the military force, it was its only way to _officially _gain access to key places in the village. He would deal with it for the time being.

He nodded to himself before he moved toward the academy for the team placement. On his way there he saw several villagers glaring at him. He glared right back making them flinch, as they weren't accustomed to a Naruto who wasn't meek. Happy with the reaction he got from them, he continued on his track.

Upon reaching his classroom, he quietly went to sit on a free place. It wasn't long before Shikamaru noticed him and asked the question everyone was dying to ask.

"I thought you didn't pass?"

The only answer he got was Naruto ignoring him and sitting without a care in the world. He still glanced at Shikamaru though.

_'Keep thinking that I care about any of you, someday you and your clan will get you desert for what you made me endure in this hell hole.'_ He thought as he remembered the times he played with Shikamaru and Choji. He knew that Shikamaru was supposed to be a genius but when it comes to human acting he was blind just like the rest of the village. The only reason he played with them was to stick it to their parents as they were among the people that attacked him that day. Oh he would never forget that day, the day he lost everything, the day he became an empty husk hell bend on revenge.

Knowing that he was early, he let his head fall on the table before taking a nap. He was rather tired from his extreme training schedule and the only thing that kept him going was the results he got from the training. He was already planning another program after the real genin exam if he was forced to attend. Indeed he knew that to become a genin, they would have to pass another test given to them by their jounin sensei.

Shikamaru on the other hand looked at Naruto with narrowed eyes. While he let others think that he was too lazy to notice things, he did kept an eye on several people, one of them being Naruto. He had noticed the hate displayed by the villagers toward his apparently fellow genin and had wondered where it came from. Although he never found an answer, he still kept looking when he could. While the way Naruto reacted shocked him, he wasn't surprised. He thought the latter had finally snapped. _'Tch, it is too troublesome to think about it.'_ He thought before following Naruto's lead and sleeping on the desk.

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>HOKAGE TOWER –<em>**

* * *

><p>The jounins were gathered in their leader's office to take a look at the future members of their assigned team. They were surprised though when they saw Naruto enter the classroom as most of them thought he had failed the exam, which was voiced by none other than Kurenai the "Ice queen" of Konoha.<p>

"Excuse me hokage – sama but I thought it failed the exams?" Everyone could see that she was very displeased of seeing the Jinchuuriki in the room.

"Indeed he failed, but he took a remedial test to pass. Although I fail to see your need to be concerned as he is not even in your team." Sarutobi replied while looking at her with a hard look. He noticed the grumbling noises coming from those present in the room but dismissed it, as there was nothing he could do about it. Not yet anyway.

Kurenai quickly nodded not wanting to invoke her leader's ire, and looked back at the crystal ball projecting what was going on inside the classroom.

It didn't take long for the jounins and the hokage to widen their eyes, as an altercation between Haruno Sakura and their resident Jinchuuriki was about to take place.

At that moment, the only thought that went through Sarutobi's mind as he remembered the threat delivered by Naruto about anyone who dared to attack him was "SHIT".

* * *

><p>Back in the classroom, no one was surprised to see Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino, the two self-proclaimed fan girls of Sasuke Uchiha, fighting each other. Everyday, the two would fight to decide who deserved to seat beside Sasuke. Unfortunately said Uchiha, exceptionally for this day, decided to seat beside Naruto who was sleeping, hoping that those fan girls would leave him alone.<p>

Upon entering the classroom, rather loudly at that, Sakura and Ino's eyes zoomed toward Sasuke, and quickly ran to his side. When Sakura was in front of her crush, the first thing she noticed was Naruto sleeping beside Sasuke. A large grin formed inside her mind as she found a reason to pound Naruto to the ground. Indeed, her mother had always encouraged her to beat Naruto whenever she could. At first, she didn't like doing it as she thought it was wrong, but several things made her change her opinion.

One of those things was the fact that her mother would always give her a gift every time she did it. While it was a reprehensible behavior, it became normal for her as most children her age would do anything to please their parents or even to receive a candy or the like, no matter how misguided it was.

Another reason was that Naruto himself didn't react to the beating. It came to a point where she thought he would never react to whatever she did, even if it was completely wrong to do so. She didn't know it yet, but she was in for a rude awakening. She was about to become the first victim of Naruto's new policy against his enemies.

She tentatively approached Naruto and said, "Wake up Naruto no baka and let me sit beside Sasuke – kun."

The sound of her voice was more like a shrill but Naruto didn't respond. Seeing this, she yelled again but to no avail. By this point the gathered genins were forced to cover their ears from the screeching banshee. When Naruto still didn't react, she slowly raised her right hand, before letting it fall toward her target's head rather quickly.

BANG.

The result was Naruto's head being violently crushed on the table. But to appreciate the brute strength of this attack, you would have to understand that when children came to the academy, the first thing they learned was to constantly channel chakra through their body, especially vital areas. This in turn, increased the durability of their body by a huge margin, thus allowing them to train more easily in dangerous settings.

That was the real reason why an accomplished academy student was said to be able to beat weak muggers despite his young age, as they could endure extreme damages and come back almost unscathed. Of course, when the opponent is too channeling chakra to enhance his ability, it counter acts the above-mentioned technique quiet effectively.

Especially in this case.

Naruto naturally learned to constantly channel chakra around his body to reduce damages, but against Sakura's strength, it was completely negated. Again, that was because the latter, without knowing it, was releasing all of the gathered chakra at the exact moment of the impact, and focused it perfectly. She didn't know it, but she already could use the first level of Tsunade's monstrous strength.

So it came without a surprise that the entire class was left stunned by what she did and what occurred next. She had never done that as Naruto always obeyed her. Something she took great satisfaction in. The tension in the room was high as everyone wondered what Naruto's reaction would be.

For the blonde, the pain he was in rudely awakened him, as the punch broke his nose or rather pushed his head further on the table thereby broking his nose to gain more room. When he raised his head the children gasped as they saw the way his blood was freely flowing out of his nose.

Ignoring the sound around him he looked at his surrounding in wonder. The first thing he saw was Sakura's still outstretched hand toward him. This was all he needed to understand what had happened and this angered him even more. He narrowed his eyes looking at her and noticed that she took a step back.

Remembering all the times the pink haired girl in front of him belittled him and punched him for supposedly trying to act cool like Sasuke, he moved until he was on Sakura's right side facing the opposite direction she was facing. While it was nowhere as fast as Sasuke, it was still very fast for most of the kids in the room as most of them only saw a blur.

_'Fast'_ was their thought as they impatiently waited for what Naruto would do.

Sasuke on the other hand looked at the event with a lazy gaze. While Naruto's speed took him by surprise it was still nothing for him to worry about and that was all he needed to know. _'Pathetic, the lot of them' _He thought dispassionately watching the altercation.

Sakura slowly turned her head in fright to look at the standing Naruto. She didn't see him move at all and that shocked her more than anything. Though upon fully turning her head she noticed his right arm moving toward her head in back hand strike. It was like looking at the inevitable slowly approaching her as she knew she didn't possess the speed or the skill to stop it.

BAM.

The impact was brutal to say the least as the strength behind that strike had her roll on the ground a few times before being stopped by the wall. No one in the room could have expected such reaction from Naruto of all people especially toward his 'true love' as he always proclaimed.

'_Damn. He must have packed a lot of chakra to enhance his punch that much.'_ was the only thing passing through the children's minds at that moment.

Their eyes widened even more when they saw – for those who could – Naruto rushing toward the downed Sakura and proceeded to repeatedly kick her on the stomach. While saying

"Haruno Sakura, obviously you think I hold some kind of feeling for you but let me set things straight. I despise your very existence. Even the thought of being in the same room as you makes my body shake in disgust. So the next time you pull a stunt like that, I won't only kill you, but everyone in your family, everyone you hold dear in front of you before killing you. Do I make myself clear?" Not once did he stop kicking her while speaking and by the end he lifted Sakura by her neck and looked at her pain-filled face. By that point everyone was too shocked by what they were witnessing to intervene in any way.

"Ye… Yes" Mumbled Sakura as she struggled to breath especially with the blood coming out of her mouth.

It was then that an anbu appeared just behind Naruto, his sword draw in a threatening manner.

"Uzumaki Naruto, you're hereby charged with assault on a fellow ninja. Come with me peacefully or I will be forced to use deadly force." While the voice seemed professional, Naruto noticed the slight pleasure as the masked ninja spoke behind him. _'Another haters then!'_ He thought as he replied, his gaze never leaving Sakura's fearful one.

"You should learn who to mess with inside this village anbu – san. I wonder what would happen if the other villages learned that Konoha had lost their Jinchuuriki." As he said this, the anbu flinched back as if struck by an invisible weapon. "This is what they will do, they will use this opportunity to finish what the Kyuubi started that is what. And that is without even counting the fact I could just as easily release the Kyuubi whenever I want. So I dare you to make a move." The emotionless voice of Naruto was so frightening that the anbu was at loss of what to do.

While he was thinking about what he just heard, the children in the room froze upon hearing the comment about the Kyuubi. Fortunately he was saved from making a grave mistake by the arrival of the hokage accompanied with the other jounins sensei.

"Anbu resume your post. Medic!" Sarutobi ordered in a commanding voice while the anbu nodded and disappeared while medics rushed toward Sakura – whom Naruto had casually set on the floor – to heal her. Then Sarutobi turned toward Naruto, his angry face displayed for anyone to see.

"Save it" Naruto interrupted him as he opened his mouth. "I don't fucking care what you have to said. I warned you that anyone who so much as threatened me would be as good as dead. So you should be glad I didn't outright kill her"

The jounins hearing the way he spoke to their leader bared their teeth. A few even took a step toward Naruto to silence the brat but a look from Sarutobi stayed their hands.

"Now who is on my fucking team, so that I can go? I don't have all day." Naruto continued not caring if he was disrespecting one of the most powerful ninja in the world and in front of his own army no less.

Even the children were amazed at the way he talked to the hokage. The jounins on the other hands wanted nothing more than to kill the brat but Naruto just looked at them as if saying 'Attack me if you can'. Before the situation could get even worse Sarutobi replied with a resigned face.

"Your team is composed of Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura, the girl you just attacked" He looked at Naruto with narrowed eyes but seeing it had no effect he continued. "Your sensei will be Hatake Kakashi."

Naruto looked at Sasuke then at Kakashi who was standing before the hokage and snorted.

"Like we agreed, I will only work with this team when they do mission higher than D-Rank. Also I already know about the real genins exam and I simply don't have the patience to attend such thing so you will excuse me." Naruto transformed in his Phantom form thus disappearing from everyone view.

The other soon to be genin were surprised about the existence of another test before they were full fledged genin while the jounins wondered how Naruto learned about this particular fact.

It was at this point that Iruka came inside the room to find it full of jounins. After the mess was fixed, Iruka read the team placement to the children in the room as was required.

What no one noticed was that Naruto stayed inside the classroom once he transformed. While knowing the team placement was that important for now, he knew it would serve him well in the future. Upon gaining the information he was after, he dived inside Kakashi. He had already decided that he would possess Hatake Kakashi because of his rumored legendary skills. The fact that said person was his sensei was only a bonus. Unfortunately what happened next wasn't something he was prepared for.

Because he was ejected from Kakashi's body quiet violently.

The shock he felt was like nothing before.

_'What? How is that possible?_' He wondered as he looked at his body to check if he really was in his phantom form. _'I did everything just like last time, why couldn't I enter Hatake's body?_'

He looked around himself clearly frustrated that he couldn't do what he wanted. While looking around himself, he noticed that Kakashi seemed tired, with sweat on his forehead.

_'He couldn't have felt it, could he?_' Naruto wondered in horror as he observed Kakashi. It was vital for him that no one knew he could steal skills and memories from people. It was his trump card and he didn't want anyone to learn of it.

Resigning himself, he quickly flew out of the room with only one thing in mind, finding out what went wrong.

* * *

><p>A few minutes later and Naruto was back at his training ground. Not wasting anytime he created a dozen clones and they all sat in a circular pattern.<p>

"You all know what happened earlier, I want to know what you think of it." The original said as a debate was opened.

This was a way for him to brainstorm on ideas and theories he may have. The fact that each clones possessed a slight difference in their mentality helped a lot when it comes to provide ideas for a problem. None thought alike, thus provided different point of view.

Thirty minutes later and he had come to several theories about his inability to access Kakashi's memories. None of them, he particularly liked but he would have to test each one until he could confirm his finding. The most likely theory now was that he couldn't enter a target's body if they were conscious. If that were to be the case, it would put a serious wrench in his plan.

Because let's face it, he had one absolute priority, to keep his ability a secret. So if he wanted to steal someone's skills, he had to do it quietly and without even the target's knowing. Obviously he will go after powerful ninjas, which mean direct approach was impossible... for now.

He looked outside the cave and saw the sun was still up in the sky. "Tonight I will test if I can enter someone body if they are asleep." He said out loud as he thought about the targets he had in mind, his precious people.

For a while now he had wondered if the people that showed love for him were really sincere. What with even the Sandaime being among his haters. That night would be the day of reckoning, one way or another.

"I still got time before the night. I think it is time for me to visit the ninja library." He said as he changed in his phantom form and flew toward the place.

A few minutes later and he was inside the library. He had used an isolated spot to turn back in his real body before applying a henge to hide his features. Just to be safe, he added several layers on the jutsu in the off chance that someone dispelled the technique. With a confidence he didn't know he possessed, he moved among the people there, until he reached the section he was after. A large sign labeled 'FUUINJUTSU' marked the entrance of the section.

The first thing he noticed in this section was the abundance of scrolls. While walking around, he looked at the other sections and none had as much scrolls as this one. That alone was concerning as it implied the vast knowledge Konoha possessed on an art that had been deemed extremely difficult. He was so distracted that he didn't see the librarian approaching him.

Haruno Kaede was a very strong willed woman. She would have to, as she was the only person not including her daughter, left from her clan because of the Kyuubi attacks. She still remembered that day, seeing her loved ones die like mere bugs compared to the demon that was the nine tails. That day had traumatized her like many in the village. In the end, it wasn't the fact that they lost their loved ones that affected them the most. After all they lived in a shinobi village, people died everyday. No, the reason she was traumatized, was that the Kyuubi had made her and many more, remember that they weren't the top dogs in the world, that they were mere insects compared to the beast. It had made them feel so powerless.

That was why she couldn't bear to see Uzumaki Naruto strolling in the village. She was part of those that wanted to have him executed. But as she didn't get her way, she, along with several civilians, organized mob to attack him whenever possible. She was proud to say that she had her fair share in beating the demon spawn.

Anyway, like many in her late clan, she was extremely gifted in bookwork. She could tell you almost everything that was inside the library. So when she saw a young ninja frowning, looking at the seal section, she couldn't help herself but go towards him.

"Excuse me sir, can I help you?" she asked smiling at the stranger. Said stranger looked at her, before clenching his fists, but quickly relaxed. This fortunately went unnoticed by the woman. He put a smile on his face.

"Yeah, that would be much appreciated. You see, I was just shocked to see so many scrolls in the seal section, when there is next to nothing in the other ones. Could you explain why madam?"

To this, Kaede just smiled. "This isn't the first time someone wonders about it. You see, the other sections have been cleared by the Sandaime himself to keep it in the hokage library, so that he could easily monitor which information people had access to. This section on the other hand stayed the same as almost no one has the drive and understanding to learn it. By giving access to this section, Hokage - sama hopes that another young man will be able to delve into the art and further advance Konoha's knowledge on the art, like yondaime did."

Naruto nodded. _'Understandable. I would have been disappointed if everyone could access any jutsus that easily._' He looked again at Kaede

"Can you help me then on which book to choose among those?" He asked while gesturing at the shelves of scrolls.

"Unfortunately, like I said, not many people understand seals. That is why there are so few people in this section. So I won't be much of a help there. I can only urge you to look for scrolls ranked by level."

"Thank you madam." Finished Naruto smiling at the departing woman. Once no one was around, the smile turned to a scowl. _'You must not have learned yet what happened to your daughter, bitch!_' Dismissing the thought he looked back at the shelves.

It wasn't long before he found some interesting books like "_An introduction to seals and their uses"_, "_Everything you need to know about seals beginner, novice, advanced and master"_.

Once that was done, he reached the same isolated corner he used earlier and transformed again and flew toward his training ground.

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>LATER THAT NIGHT –<em>**

* * *

><p>In a dark room stood afloat Naruto. He was in his phantom form and was looking at the person asleep on the bed. It hadn't been difficult for him to wait for Teuchi and his daughter to close the ramen stand and go to bed. Afterward, he had waited until they were asleep. Now that it was the case, he was free to do as he pleased.<p>

He looked at Teuchi's sleeping form and couldn't help but apprehend whatever he would learn tonight. He stilled himself by reminding himself it was necessary. Taking a deep breath – even though he couldn't be sure it was air he was breathing – he slowly dived inside Teuchi's body.

He could feel the resistance of the target, just like when he tried earlier that day with Kakashi. But unlike before, the resistance wasn't as strong. Sure enough, he succeeded in breaking in the body and was rewarded with the familiar feeling of having someone's life open to him.

_'It seems that my assumption was correct. I can only access someone's body when they are unconscious or when they are asleep. Although I suspect it would be next to impossible to access a high level ninja's body when they are asleep. What with them being constantly alert and sleeping with one eye opened._' He thought as he skimmed through Teuchi's memories.

He had already decided not to download the memories in him, instead directly look at them. After all, it wasn't like he would gain any skills except maybe cooking ramen.

It was half an hour later that Naruto got out of Teuchi's body with an angered look.

_'The nerve of this man..._' He though furiously as he slowly sat on the chair in front of the bed. At the same time he rematerialized in the real world. He cared not if the sleeping man noticed his presence. What he cared right now was revenge.

On the bed, Teuchi stirred and slowly opened his eyes, taking care of not moving his body too much. He had been happily dreaming when he felt someone's presence in his room. He wasn't a ninja but that didn't mean his instinct wasn't developed enough to sense such thing. His first reaction was to reach the bat that was under his mat, but he quickly dismissed that thought when he heard the intruder speak.

"I know you are awake old man." A chill ran up his spine as he recognized the owner of the voice. _'What is he doing here?_' He thought and wondered how he should react.

"If you want to pretend to be asleep then suit yourself. Though it doesn't mean you can't hear me." Naruto said again from his chair.

"I came here tonight for one reason, to see if you really cared about me or it was just a ploy like the Sandaime." Teuchi's body stiffened at that and unfortunately for him, Naruto noticed it.

"I expected you to abhor some resentment from me, after all it is because of me you have so few customers... or so I thought anyway."

'_He knows about my other customers?_' Teuchi thought alarmed.

"What I never expected was you and your daughter actively undermining me. Who would have thought a simple cook like you would have what it takes to poison poor old me." The last part was said with anger and for good reason. From what Naruto learned, Teuchi and his daughter Ayame added a special recipe in Naruto's food. The recipe was a slow acting agent that severely weakened the body. It was only thanks to the regeneration he possessed that he could function properly. The idea of using this, surprisingly enough came from Sarutobi himself.

This idea was suggested when Naruto first entered the ninja academy. Because of his Uzumaki ancestry, Naruto's body was already rivaling a genin when he first started the academy, easily outpacing his fellow trainee and by far. This situation was unacceptable for several high officials who didn't want their clan to be ridiculed like that. So they complained to their leader who happily used this excuse to further cripple Naruto and gain political favors.

Naruto was forced back to the reality when Teuchi, like a corned beast, reached for the bat under his bed and pounced on Naruto as fast as he could. Regrettably that was the wrong thing to do, especially against a trained ninja. The moment Teuchi stood from his bed, he felt a punch on his belly removing whatever air he held in his lungs. Coughing he didn't relent and tried again to swing his bat at Naruto. But he could only look in disbelief as one second he was up on his legs, the next he was on his back looking at the ceiling and feeling a foot pressing on his neck.

_'I didn't even see anything! Is this what even the weakest of the ninja rank is capable of?_' He wondered.

Naruto looked coldly at him in the eyes. "Did you really think you had a chance in defeating me?" He ignored the challenging look in Teuchi's eyes and instead sighed.

"I really thought that learning the truth about you would affect me in some way, but the truth is that I am disappointed. Disappointed at me for not having seen this coming. At this point, others would have tortured you to death." Teuchi's eyes widened at that and tried to get out of Naruto's grip. When that didn't work, he begged Naruto to spare him, but the latter didn't listen and continued where he left.

"But that would be giving you too much attention, attention you don't deserve. I have better thing to do with my time. Though that doesn't mean I will let this go unpunished." The smirk on Naruto's face told his victim everything he needed to know.

A few minutes later, Naruto could be seen walking away from Teuchi stand – and home – with a smile on his face. Behind him a violent explosion rocketed the place, destroying the stand. Flames could be seen from afar as they burned through the wood, using it as a fuel.

This would later be labeled as the first causality of Naruto destructive revenge.

* * *

><p><strong>NARUTO'S HOME -<strong>

* * *

><p>While this was happening, another similar event was taking place. News had quickly reached the villagers that Naruto had violently assaulted a student in the academy and came close to killing the victim. This didn't suit well with them and they had quickly gathered in a bar before marching toward the 'demon' house. One goal clear in their mind, to show him his place and to avenge the child he attacked.<p>

Although the mob was large at first, only a dozen or so had the stomach to follow through it and they were now outside Naruto's home.

The apparent leader of the group stood in front of the angered villagers.

"Haven't we suffered enough? Are we going to let this monster continue to mock us? The politicians dare to let him live invoking excuses after excuses to hide their coward way. I say no!" The villagers nodded at what the man said, acknowledging that he was right.

"This stop tonight. One way or another we will protect our sons, daughters, brothers and sisters from this monster. Who is with me?"

All of them raised their hand and yelled at the top of their lungs "ME!"

Galvanized, the mob retrieved the Molotov cocktails they prepared for this and lighted them. As one, they threw their bombs in the house, breaking the windows in doing so.

BOOM

A huge explosion destroyed the house completely with the villagers singing triumphantly. They knew the demon was inside the house as they had someone spy on Naruto's home before alerting them when Naruto came back home.

The ninjas that were patrolling the block never once stopped anyone. If anything else, they looked at the burning house in glee.

There was another person that was looking though. This person was none other than Naruto himself. In his phantom form, he was looking at his burning house with complete apathy.

If they could see him, they would notice his icy cold blue eyes that looked at the one responsible for the destruction of his home. He was analyzing each of them, memorizing their facial features.

For what purpose? Only time would tell.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

I hope this chapter was pleasant to read. Now review if you have something to comment on or question you want answered.

Next time!


	3. Chapter 2: Aftermath

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto. It is the propriety of Kishimoto.

Hello everyone. I present you the third chapter of Clash of realms. I hope you will like it. Next update: Infinite supply

* * *

><p><strong><span>Chapter 1:<span> Aftermath**

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA – <strong>

* * *

><p>Konoha was currently in a lockdown. This wasn't something that happened often. It only happened when the village was in imminent danger or had sustained enormous damages. The last time it happened was after the massacre of the Uchiha clan. So to see the village in a similar state could only spell disaster.<p>

Ibiki Morino was walking toward the civilian district. He just got out of a meeting with the Sandaime and was now going toward a crime scene. Normally this kind of job was given to lesser ninjas of his division - Konoha's Intelligence Division - but the situation was so dire, the higher ups wouldn't accept anyone but the best.

Before the massacre, it was the Uchiha clan that was in charge of investigating any crimes or suspicious activities in the village. The Sharingan granted them the ability to read the witnesses and suspects and detect if they were lying or hiding something. A very useful ability in this line of work. Now that they were all dead, Konoha replaced them with the next best thing, which was the Intelligence division. Their members were famous for being able to analyze someone only by the target's behavior and body language. While not as efficient as the Sharingan it was enough to get the job done.

Before long, Ibiki reached the scene and was immediately welcomed by Anko Mitarashi, his second in command.

"I see you were called too! The shitheads must really want to find the culprit."

"Morning to you too Anko. I had a wonderful night, thank you!" Ibiki replied sarcastically to a grinning Anko. "And stop disrespecting the council members like that!"

"Why should I care? If they don't like the truth then they ought to do something about little old me"

Ibiki sighed, as he knew it was a lost cause to try to make her see reason. Anko had never respected any of the council members and the feeling was mutual. Of course they had tried to give her a lesson and even send her on suicide mission, but each time the girl came back home perfectly fine. Not to mention that the mission was always a success. After a while it came to a point where they just let it go and ignored her.

"So what do we have here?" He asked his subordinate.

"You mean other than a lot of dead civilian bodies?" A look from Ibiki and she stopped her jokes to become serious. "Let me see..." She looked at the clipboard she held and read from it. "Later last night there was a series of explosion that happened all over the village. The first one was a few blocks away from here, the Ichikaru Ramen stand. A few minutes later, the house of one Uzumaki Naruto..."

"The Uzumaki?" Ibiki asked. Of course what was implied was 'the Jinchuuriki' and the two knew each other well enough to read under the lines.

Anko nodded before continuing. "Five hours later, at around five in the morning, twelve houses exploded in the span of ten minutes."

"How many?"

"Not including Uzumaki Naruto, who is currently missing I might add, 38 deads. The bodies were found in their houses."

Ibiki nodded as he looked at one of the house that exploded. Around him were remains of the wooden house. The first thing he noticed was the way the remains were scattered. He had seen it several times already.

"Explosive notes?" He asked Anko without diverting his sight.

"Correct guess. Preliminary investigation indicates that all targeted houses were blow with the use of explosive notes. They were placed at the center of the house and close to the foundations to bring the house down, ensuring maximum damage."

"Was the explosive recovered?"

"Only in a two houses. It was only by luck that the note was defective or we wouldn't have found its trace."

Ibiki nodded and continued looking around for any clues he could find. The defective explosive note was one of the reason ninjas didn't use them for demolition operations as they could be tracked back to their origin. This clue indicated that the guilty party wasn't a ninja or an experienced one.

"Surprisingly enough the notes came from one of Konoha suppliers. Unfortunately they were stolen a few days ago." Anko continued.

"A dead end then? What else?"

"A theory but one you won't like and should be kept from the public." Ibiki looked at Anko with a sharp gaze, wondering what the theory was.

Once Anko finished her explanation, he couldn't help but anticipate the headache he was sure to have soon.

"You are right I don't like it. We have to meet Hokage – sama at once."

Anko nodded as the two disappeared in a swirl of leaves. They never noticed the person that was leaning against a wall, close to their position.

* * *

><p>When the two heads of the Intelligence division arrived in Sarutobi's office, they were surprised to see the latter in a heated discussion with his advisors Homura and Koharu. Upon noticing them they stopped talking and looked at Anko and Ibiki with a fierce glare.<p>

"What can I do for you?" Sarutobi asked as calmly as he could.

"Sorry to interrupt Hokage – sama but we have the preliminary results of the investigation." Ibiki explained as he bowed to his leader. Besides him Anko followed his lead.

"Exactly what we were waiting for. Go ahead and give us a sum up of your findings." Koharu spoke while Homura glared at Sarutobi who was about to dismiss them.

Ibiki seeing this looked at his leader for guidance. The latter sighed before nodding at him to continue.

"Very well. Preliminary results indicate that the houses targeted were blown with the use of explosive notes. We were able to recover a few of them but it led to a dead end, as their origin was a shop in Konoha. The notes having been stolen earlier this week. But because of the timespan between the attacks we were able to establish a theory you might not like sir."

"What theory Ibiki?" Homura asked with a stern gaze.

"Because Uzumaki's house was hit first and the other houses a few hours after, we thought that the civilian houses were a retaliation act from one Uzumaki Naruto. Unfortunately the latter isn't available for confirmation or invalidation. Also another problem with this theory is the first hit that happened way before Uzumaki's house was destroyed."

"Whose house was it?" Sarutobi asked.

"Ichiraku's Ramen stand sir."

At this, Sarutobi tightened his fist, having a very good idea why Naruto would attack the house. But being the only one in the know for the part Ichiraku played in sabotaging Naruto, it was understandable why the others couldn't see the motives. The question though was how Naruto learned of Teuchi and his daughter implication in his schemes.

"I told you this would happen Sarutobi." Koharu yelled at the Sandaime while Ibiki and Anko looked at this incredulous.

"Did we miss something?" Anko muttered to Ibiki who shrugged, as he too didn't know what was going on.

"That will be all Ibiki, Anko. You can keep investigating but for now you are dismissed."

Hearing this, the two mentioned nodded before departing from the room leaving behind the Hokage and his advisors.

"What are you going to do now? It is obvious the owners of the targeted houses were behind the attack on the Jinchuuriki's house. Somehow, the latter witnessed it and retaliated. We told you it wouldn't be a good idea to let him become a ninja but you didn't listen as always." Homura yelled at his ex-teammate who simply crossed his fingers under his chin.

"And what was I supposed to do? Let him train by himself? At least by letting him attend the academy I was able to monitor what he had access to. If he was left to his own devices, he would have sought knowledge to defend himself, and heaven forbid it, attack the village in retaliation. If you had a better solution at the time, why didn't you share your so great wisdom?"

That shut the advisors pretty quickly as they knew Sarutobi was right. At the time the decision was taken they didn't have a better solution. But that didn't mean they had to like it.

"Then what are you going to do now then? Obviously the Jinchuuriki thinks he can fight back without consequences, we can't allow that."

"Nothing!" Sarutobi replied.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me right. I will do nothing. Did you forget that Naruto is now aware that he can release the beast whenever he wants? What will happen once we attack him?"

"So you are going to let him hold us by the balls?"

"That is exactly the situation we are in. Until we find a way to negate his ability to release the Kyuubi we are essentially going to avoid him as much as possible. The last thing we want is another Bijuu attack on our hand."

"The council won't like it." Koharu complained.

"They will have to deal with it because I sure as hell don't want to fight Kyuubi again. You better tell them to behave. They will have to stop their attacks on the boy. They were able to stage those attacks, I am sure they can do the opposite because I sure as hell won't stop him from seeking his revenge on them."

Sarutobi said coldly as he ushered his advisors out. He had his own thinking to do after all.

When the door closed, Sarutobi went through handseals before slamming his palms on the table.

"_Sealing art: Sound barrier_!" Scripts seals erupted from his hands and travelled all around the room, covering the walls before they glowed blue, signaling the jutsu was complete.

"What do you have for me?" Sarutobi asked to a figure that appeared in one of the corner of the room. The figure wore a cloak large enough to hide his features and his identity.

"Not much. I am only here to confirm the theory presented to you earlier. All of the houses targeted housed a member of the group that destroyed the Jinchuuriki's house."

"Do you know where the boy is now?"

"I don't. He is good, I will give the gaki that much. Of course you already knew that. When it comes to stealth, the boy has no rival. I don't know how he does it but he is able to hide his chakra so well that it is similar to the cloak I wear. The only reason Iruka was able to find him was because he wanted to be caught."

"So you are saying he is out there and no one can find him?"

"I can at least tell you that he is still inside the village." The figure spoke with a hint of amusement to a frustrated Sarutobi.

"This doesn't help me much. What about your research? How close are you to finish the seal?"

"At least six more months before we can test it. But even then I don't think it will be of much use by then."

"Why?" Sarutobi wondered as he looked at the intruder.

"What do you think the boy will do during those six months? Sit around and enjoy the power he holds over you? He is not that stupid you know. Currently the only reason his threat is working is because he has nothing to lose. That means he can kill himself pretty easily. But the second he has something worth living his threat is meaningless."

"I see. That means he will have to find something else to protect himself once the time comes." Sarutobi continued.

"Exactly. And that something is power. I am sure you have noticed during the altercation with one Haruno Sakura the progress he made speed-wise. And that was only with one week of training."

Sarutobi's eyes widened at that as he had forgotten about the peculiar progress Naruto had show at that time.

"And if you add the Kage Bunshin technique he learned. You can be assured that by the time the six months are up, he will be incredibly dangerous."

"I can understand your concern but don't forget physical improvements need years to be reliable. This will be his weakness." Sarutobi said confidently to the stranger who said nothing.

_'I certainly hope so. Because I don't know what would happen if the gaki learn something dangerous that doesn't require tremendous physical abilities.'_ The cloaked figure thought as he looked at his leader.

"Anyway, what else do you have to report?"

The figure then gave his report to Sarutobi.

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>WITH NARUTO –<em>**

* * *

><p>While the village was in a state of panic, Naruto was just waking up from a short night of sleep. The last day had been tiring to him. Nevertheless he still woke up with a smile on his face. He looked around himself and noticed the strange walls that surrounded him.<p>

_'Of course I am not home anymore._' He thought as he remembered that some villagers had blown up his house.

This thought reminded him of the actions he undertook when he saw his house being destroyed like that. It wasn't that he liked his house so much. Who was he kidding; he hated the house like the plague. It was a constant reminder of the past, of his inability to support himself without the help of the village. Still he had called the place home, so to see it destroyed like that was like someone ate his bowl of ramen in front of him. Considering Ramen was THE food to him, never mind the poison Teuchi puts it in, it was safe to say that he was royally pissed.

At first he had been tempted to just materialize in front of the villagers and beat the shit out of them before finishing them off but he stayed his hands when he noticed the anbus that were close by. They certainly would have intervened and stopped him from extracting revenge. So he did what he did best, he gathered information on the attackers.

After finding a shadowed alley, he materialized in the real world and created a dozen clones. Then he had the clones tail each of the attackers as they went back to their place. This was easily done considering his high level in stealth. It didn't take the villagers long to reach their home and happily call it a night. What they hadn't known was that it would be their last day in the world of the living.

Once the clones had gathered the necessary information it only became a matter of striking back. The real Naruto went to his training ground where he kept his weapons, and retrieved several explosive notes that he gave to the waiting clones. Afterward he had them plant the notes in strategic position in the attackers' houses and waited a few hours before detonating them.

He cared not for the families of the attackers.

He cared not for the reaction of the villagers.

He cared not if it was traced back to him.

What he cared about was his revenge and stating a fact. No one would get away with attacking him anymore.

He sighed as he got up the bed. There was a layer of dust on the table in a corner of the room but that was to be expected from an abandoned house.

"I think I will crash here for a few days until I find a better place to live." He said to himself as he stretched his body.

After the last night events, he was forced to find another place to live. Using his phantom form, he flew over the village to find an abandoned place, the further from the village the better it was. After an hour of intensive search, he came across a compound that seemed empty. No one lived there and hadn't been for years. Moreover, the place, while still inside Konoha was far away from town. This was exactly what he was looking for.

It was like the place had been abandoned in a hurry as the supplies were still there. A few clones and the room he currently stayed had been cleaned enough for him to sleep here.

"I wonder whose house it belongs to." Naruto inquired as he changed in his phantom form and flew toward his hidden training ground.

Once there he materialized back and sat on a makeshift chair, thinking on his next course of action.

'_As of today, I can do a total of 200 hundreds clones. Right now what I need the most is security_' He thought as he remembered having slept with an eye open last night, afraid of someone dealing him a sneak attack or having his room blown to pieces. He didn't feel safe in the village, even less in an abandoned house.

_'I think I will devote the one hundred new clones to the task of improving my security. That means I will use the amount left for chakra control and knowledge acquisition like last week._' He nodded to himself as he put it on a paper:

79 clones for tree climbing.

1 clone for learning how to absorb chakra from dispelling clones.

20 clones for all kind of knowledge in the civilian library.

_'For security, the only thing I have in mind is learning Fuinjutsu. I remember Iruka talking about using seals to protect important places. And I happen to have stolen several books dealing with seals from the ninja library._' He thought as he got up and rummaged through the stack of scrolls he had.

A minute later and he had the scroll he was looking for: "Everything you need to know about seals - Beginner". He opened it and read.

_For most, Fuinjutsu is a type of jutsu that seal objects, living being, chakra, along with a wide variety of other things within an object. But Fuinjutsu is more than that. Someone who understands the sealing arts is someone to be feared, because nothing would be out of his reach. A correct comparison of this art would be the language of gods because of its limitless capabilities._

_In reality, Fuinjutsu is a language of its own. It possesses its own alphabet and rules to its writing. Learning Fuinjutsu is tantamount to learning a new language, albeit an extremely complex one. Its complexity originates from the fact that the language can be read from left to right and vice versa. Because of this, you have to be extremely careful when you create a seal._

_The more complex seals use this to their advantages by compressing several actions of a seal in just a few lines. There existed a clan that was renowned for their mastery over the sealing arts. This clan was the Uzumaki clan. They were so advanced in the art that they exclusively used a circular pattern for all of their seals. This tremendously increased the effectiveness and power of their seals while rendering the seals extremely difficult to understand and counter._

The fascination Naruto felt as he read the book was like nothing he ever felt before. It was like discovering a part of him that was missing. Of course he caught on the fact that maybe it stemmed from his Uzumaki origins but at that point he didn't care anymore. The only thing he wanted was to understand this art and protect himself.

Thirty minutes later and Naruto came back to his senses. From his reading he was able to establish a plan to learn Fuinjutsu and everything he would need.

_'The first step in learning Fuinjutsu is learning the alphabet, their meaning and writing them. For the writing part, I think absorbing a calligraphy master will be a good idea. This will greatly improve my writing ability and speed up my learning.'_

By the end of his brainstorming he had divided the one hundred clones left like this:

50 clones learning the sealing alphabet.

25 clones learning calligraphy after he had absorbed a calligrapher.

25 clones to begin building a house inside the cave he uses as training ground, after he has absorbed a builder.

His schedule done, he rose from his chair and created the monitor clone that in turn created the eighty clones needed for tree climbing. Meanwhile he flew toward the civilian library to create the clones that would be reading.

It took him the whole day to find a competent builder and calligrapher. Then he waited for them to be asleep before diving in their bodies and absorbing the skills he needed. And by the next day, he begins his training in sealing and building his house using stolen material.

* * *

><p>Two weeks had passed since Konoha was in a lockdown. The situation was resolved somehow as the lockdown was removed allowing people to come and go in the village once more. Strangely enough, Naruto was never seen anywhere in the village and their was a rumor among the villagers saying he was being detained in an underground facility.<p>

Of course it couldn't be far from the truth. The council meeting that followed the last event had its members reeling in shock and anger. Shock for the ability Naruto possessed to release the Kyuubi as he pleased. Anger for their inability to reign him in. After the meeting, a slow and discreet propaganda was done to ensure no one would threaten the boy. Despite leaving a bad taste in everyone mouth for doing this, they knew it was the smart thing to do until they found a way around their predicament.

For a while Sarutobi sent his ninja around the village to find the missing boy, but none succeeded. Even Iruka couldn't find him unlike the other times. After a week of search, Naruto sent a clone to the Sandaime having him stop his fruitless research and let him know he was still in the village. After all, it wouldn't do for him to be marked as a missing nin this soon.

Meanwhile, Naruto trained intensively in his training ground. As expected from the number of clones he used, the results of his training were quickly visible.

First was his training in tree climbing. At first he wanted to do the exercise for one week, but ended experimenting with it for another week. This had the benefits of allowing him to master the exercise to an unprecedented level. He was now able to fight in trees and the exercise greatly increased his chakra control. Another benefit from the exercise was learning how to change the property of chakra. Indeed, to climb trees using one's feet, one had to change his chakra to have it become sticky. Following this example, he changed his chakra to have an enhancing property, thereby increasing his overall speed and strength.

This was how high level ninja increased their physical abilities to superhuman level. With that in mind and knowing the increase greatly depended on the user's initial physical abilities, he vowed to keep training his body physically to reach a greater high once he enhanced his abilities.

Next was his progress in Fuinjutsu. By using fifty clones a day for fourteen days, Naruto was able to do 700 days worth of training or close to two years of learning the sealing art alphabet. Suffice to say that he understood and knew them by heart now. Moreover, thanks to his calligraphy training, he was able to master writing each symbol of the alphabet. His next course of action would be to learn the relationships between each of the symbols.

The construction of his house was going well too, but he didn't rush it, as he wanted it to be perfect. Because the house wasn't finished yet, Naruto had to sleep in the abandoned compound he found. Knowing he wasn't safe in that place, he started creating two clones each night to act as bodyguards while he was asleep. A good thing he did as that strategy not only saved his life last night but allowed him to learn some interesting information.

**###### Flashback ######**

Naruto was sleeping after a long day of work when he felt someone touch his shoulder. He immediately went for the kunai he kept under his pillow when the intruder murmured.

"Shhh. It is me boss."

Recognizing the voice, he looked at the intruder only to look at a mirror image of himself. "What the hell! Why did you wake me up so late?" He asked the clone all the while keeping his voice down.

"There are intruders in the compound."

"What?"

Ignoring the surprised look of his creator the clone explained. "While I was patrolling the area, I heard some people talking so I went to investigate. What I found was... unexpecting, yeah that is the word. Two people, certainly ninjas with the clothes they wore, were walking around the compound as if they owned the place."

"What did you do?" Naruto asked the clone while he dressed himself.

"I had the second clone keep an eye on them while I came here to warn you."

Naruto sighed as he heard that. "Couldn't you find what they were after before waking me up?" He asked his clone who shrugged.

"I don't know boss. It could be anything they want; hell they could even be lost. But I didn't want to take the chance."

Naruto nodded before dispelling the clone. He waited for a few moments before he sorted through the information the clone possessed. With the face of the intruders, he changed in his phantom form and flew toward the position he could feel his second clone was.

Before long he reached the clone. The latter was hiding in a side alley watching the two walking ninjas. He materialized in the real world and dispelled the clone. From the clone's observation he learned that the two ninjas were going to a very specific place and seemed to know the compound like the back of their hand.

'Are they the last owners of this compound? Or they somehow got the map of this place?' Naruto wondered as he quickly elaborated a strategy to take them out.

Hibiki and Kentaro were both ninjas. They belonged to the same clan. They wore a simple Chuunin outfit with a sword on their back. For a few years they served under Konoha and did their best to bring glory to their clan. Unfortunately an incident resulted in the clan losing prestige and become a laughing stock among the other clans. Angered by that, they left the village, leaving behind their compound. Because of their hasty departure, they weren't able to secure an important part of their heirloom. This heirloom was the reason behind their presence this day.

They had walked inside their late compound and weren't surprised to see the desolation of the furniture. Knowing what they were after and being on a busy schedule, they immediately went after their target. They expected the place to be bare of any living beings. So when they felt several weapons fly at them from behind, they were shocked.

Fortunately they weren't chosen for this mission for nothing. Like an experienced team, Hibiki and Kentaro quickly overcame their shock and dodged the shurikens while taking guarding stance, their back on each other. A good thing they did as four clones of Naruto ran at them from each side.

Kentaro reached for his sword and swung at one of the clones that easily dodged while the other clone closed the gap and punched Kentaro. The punch had the effect of separating the duo as they each fought against two clones.

Hibiki seeing what happened to his comrade surprised the clones he was dealing with by charging at them. The clone surprised ducked under Hibiki's first strike. An upward kick waited for him though and he was destroyed leaving only one clone to deal with Hibiki. But this one was prepared as he rotated on himself using chakra as a support and accelerating his speed.

A mini tornado was formed and advanced on Hibiki. Undeterred, the latter copied the clone's move and rotated too. The two tornado met halfway through, kunai against sword. Seeing no openings, the two jumped backward, the clone launching the kunai he was holding while Hibiki retrieved one from his pouch and threw it two.

The clone seeing the weapon used his recent training in tree climbing and changed the property of his chakra to the sticking one before planting his foot on the kunai. He did a front flip and launched the weapon back to a surprised Hibiki. The latter used his sword to parry to two kunais. Then he launched his sword up in the sky while he went through handseals.

The clone saw Hibiki reach for the ground before earth spikes butchered him.

Meanwhile the original looked at the fight with a shocked look on his face. What he had just seen was simply incredible. Kentaro had been dealt with quiet easily as the man never got the chance to use whatever skills he possessed and was knocked out. What shocked Naruto was that Hibiki caught his clone in an illusion. His clone had been standing there for a moment before he exploded, giving Naruto the memories of the supposed fight he had with Hibiki.

Knowing that he had to act quickly before Hibiki chose to flee, he went through a few handseals.

"_Katon Gokyaku no jutsu_"

A huge fireball moved toward the surprised Hibiki who hadn't sensed anyone where Naruto stood. A scream of pain later and Hibiki was burned by the attack.

Naruto moved toward the impact zone to see the intruder with third degrees burn over his body. He kneeled to finish the job when he felt a kunai on his throat.

"Who are you?" Hibiki growled as he asked the question to a wide-eyed Naruto. The latter looked at the burned body only to see it disappear leaving behind a log.

"A substitution with an illusion to cover it?"

Hibiki looked smugly at Naruto. "Indeed. You may have surprised me when you attacked from behind but it will take more than that to kill me."

Naruto looked at Hibiki by the corner of his right eye. "You must be happy to have caught me."

"Damn right I am! And I am going to enjoy extracting information from you." Hibiki replied as he pressed his kunai further on Naruto's neck. "Now who the hell are you?"

"The one who is going to kill you?"

"What..."

He never finished that question as the Naruto he held exploded, killing him instantly.

A few meters away, Naruto stood above a building overlooking the fight. He had known, once he saw his clone get caught in that illusion, that he couldn't afford to fight the man by himself. It was too risky. Even though he knew how to dispel low-level illusion thanks to his improved chakra control and Mizuki's memories, he couldn't be sure his opponent wouldn't know any high level ones.

Sighing, he created several clones to remove any traces of the recent fight. Then he looked behind him at the unconscious man. Knowing he had to know who they were in case others were planning on coming too, he changed in his phantom form and absorbed his memories.

**###### End Flashback ****######**

What he learned from the man was very interesting. The man belonged to the Kurama clan and had been living in hiding like the rest of their clan for a while now. Apparently the death of the clan head had been a hard blow for the clan, especially as it seemed to be an inside job. Only their leader seemed to know who killed the clan head. The few members left from the Kurama clan were waiting for their chance to avenge the death of their head, as it seemed Konoha was protecting the killer. At least that is what their leader said.

In order to reach their goal, they send the two-man team to retrieve an heirloom they were forced to leave behind when they fled, the Kurama library. It was supposed to hold several scrolls to teach their clan in the art of Genjutsu. The place was hidden in an underground facility inside the compound. Having absorbed Kentaro's memories, Naruto now knew where the place was and intended to retrieve all of the books in there before the leader of the Kurama clan send another team to discover what happened to Hibiki and Kentaro.

Another thing that came to his mind after the fight was learning Genjutsu and sword fighting. The first one because he recognized the threat the art held over any ninjas. It didn't matter if you were extremely powerful or not, young or experienced. If you couldn't trust your senses then you were as good as dead. You wouldn't even know what killed you. Moreover, the art wasn't reliant on physical attributes, something that would help him solve the problem of waiting for a while before becoming powerful physically.

_'If I master the art of illusion, I will not only be able to deal with stronger opponent, but I will do it quickly and efficiently. Not to mention that most ninjas underestimate its value._' He had thought when he contemplated on learning Genjutsu.

Sword fighting or Kenjutsu was simply a way for him to compensate his lack of reach and strength for now. He didn't know where it would take him, but he was willing to try. After all he had all the time in the world in a way. He was willing to use a few clones to learn it and see where it would take him.

Finally he was interested in knowing what really happened to the Kurama clan. If it helped him get useful information he was all for it.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

I hope this chapter was pleasant to read. Now review if you have something to comment on or question you want answered.

Next chapter: First Ally


	4. Chapter 3: First ally

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Bleach. It is respectively the propriety of Kishimoto and Tite Kubo.

Hello everyone. I present the third chapter of Clash of Realms. Like promised, I am working on increasing my update rate. I will try to update one of my stories every two weeks from now on. Truth is, I finished this chapter on wednesday and I tried to finish the second chapter of my other story _Shinigami_ to update the two at the same time but I couldn't get the time needed to work on it. And next week I will be pretty busy so don't expect an update (for any of my stories) until two weeks at least. Sorry about that.

Enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong><span>Chapter 3:<span> First ally**

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>TWO WEEKS LATER<em>**

* * *

><p>Two weeks after his encounter with the members of the Kurama clan, Naruto emerged again from one of his strenuous training program. It was one of his more brutal training to date and his improvement proved just how focused he was on his growth. The focus this time was on the illusionary aspect of the ninja arts.<p>

This became possible with the raid of the Kurama clan library. It was done immediately after his encounter with the two Kurama ninja. The library was kept locked in an underground facility of the compound, under several layers of protection. One of the defenses was the requirement of Kurama's blood to even be able to see the facility. Naruto bypassed it by using the blood he stole from the dead ninjas.

Though the protection didn't stop there as there were several traps and illusions put in place to further keep the library safe. Once again, the intruders' knowledge of the place came in handy as they, and by extension Naruto, knew where every traps was set and how to get through them. The traps bypassed, Naruto was able to enter the library and inside it, he found a real treasure of knowledge pertaining the Genjutsu art. It even contained the history of the Kurama clan and the methods they used to attain their fame. The library contained scrolls describing the art of illusion from beginner level to mastery.

His objectives reached, he gathered every scroll stored in the library before moving them to his hidden place in the restricted part of the forest of death. He left nothing behind knowing that other members of the Kurama clan would be dispatched to find out what happened to the first team sent and accomplish their mission to retrieve the scrolls in the library. He had a good laugh imagining the face of the team upon discovering the scrolls missing. The last thing he did in the compound though, was to erase every traces of his presence, as not to alert anyone investigating the compound later on.

With the knowledge needed to learn Genjutsu, he went about establishing a schedule to reach his goal. From his reading, he learned that training in Genjutsu consisted in learning to manipulate each of the human senses. After the user mastered manipulating more than two senses, the next step was to combine the manipulation of two or more senses simultaneously. The more senses that were manipulated, the stronger the Genjutsu was.

With that in mind, he focused for the last two weeks on manipulating the sense of sight by using 25 clones.

That is not to say he neglected his other trainings. He mastered the water walking training and was now able to fight on any liquid surface. He also learned how to skate on a liquid to increase his speed. Currently he was starting the next chakra control exercise, which was Kunai and senbon balancing to further enhance his control.

The next part of his training was Fuinjutsu and he used an hundred clones to help him on this subject. Thanks to the amount of clones and their dedication, he learned every association between each seal. He even had the time to come up with a few seals that solely helped him in his house construction. Those seals were the _water filtering seal_ which gave him proper drinking water; the _water heating seal_, which warmed his water whenever he needed to take a bath; the _powering seal_ which already existed and served as a battery for the different appliances in a house; same with the _storage seal_ that he was able to recreate.

Additionally he trained in swordsmanship by using books on the subject. He knew he would never reach proficient level only using books – that weren't even good to begin with – but at least it gave him a basic understanding of the art. Finally he kept working physically by himself, all the while increasing his weights by a good amount. Currently he didn't know at which level he stood but that would be remedied soon enough with the mission he would do later this afternoon.

At the moment, Naruto was in his phantom form flying toward the hokage tower with one objective in mind: find out the truth about the Kurama clan issue and use it to his own interest if possible.

* * *

><p><strong>UNKNOWN AREA –<strong>

* * *

><p>While Naruto was starting his self assigned mission, others were being given one. In this case, it was a team of four ninjas kneeling in front of another seemingly more aged one. The room they were in was dimly lighted further enhancing the creepy atmosphere. Considering the amount of books around, it was safe to say they were in a study room.<p>

The leader looked at the kneeling ninjas with his fingers crossed under his chin. "It is my understanding that you lost contact with Hibiki and Kentaro?"

One of the kneeling ninjas nodded in confirmation. "Yes Unkai – sama. They were supposed to be back a week ago but we haven't gotten a hold of them since then. Investigations were launched but no trace of them was found."

"Any suggestions?" The newly named Unkai asked his subordinates.

"Ideas of desertion have been scratched as the two were too loyal to the clan. We are guessing they encountered some resistance along the way. The nature of the resistance is still to be determined, sir." The same ninja spoke again as he seemed to be the spokesperson of the team.

Unkai narrowed his eyes at that as he tried to find a reason for this situation. _'It has been a long time since we lost someone. Every mission we took was completed without a hitch. And the day we take a mission involving Konoha, issues arise! Konoha really will be the end of our clan.'_ While he was frustrated by the situation, he never let his subordinates see how much it affected him. It wouldn't do for them to lose their confidence after all.

"For the moment, we will assume you are correct and something went wrong during the mission, specifically in Konoha. This is why the four of you will go there to assess the situation and take over Hibiki's and Kentaro's mission."

"Understood Unkai – sama." The kneeling ninjas saluted their leader and were about to leave the room when they were stopped by Unkai's voice.

"Also I don't have to remind you all that Konoha must not know of your presence. If we want our attack to work, we will need the element of surprise."

"Hai!" The ninjas confirmed their understanding before moving out again, leaving behind a contemplating Unkai.

"Soon Sarutobi, soon the Kurama clan will deny you of your prize." He spoke to no one in particular knowing he was alone.

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>WITH NARUTO –<em>**

* * *

><p>It was midday when Naruto moved out of his training ground. In his phantom form, he flew above the forest, ignoring the beast that lived in the place. Before long he had the town in sight and found a quiet place to transform back in his normal form. With that done, he used his considerable skills in stealth to suppress his energy and erase his presence before moving toward the town square of the village.<p>

Along the way, he came across several hidden ninjas, but easily slipped through them. _'I am still good in stealth.'_ He congratulated himself as he ascended an alley. At the end of the alley he could see villagers walking around. Not wanting to be seen, he scaled the walls until he was on the rooftop and slowly moved forward, only stopping when he could see the town square and the people walking by.

He looked at the bystanders with a smirk. _'What better way to get back at the villagers than pranking them with my newfound skills' _The devious smile would have made everyone cringe in fright. One of the reasons Naruto went out of his training facility was to test his skills in Genjutsu. While training, he used it on his clones, but he wanted to try it on others. Obviously he couldn't use it against someone that would recognize him. He didn't want people to know he was learning Genjutsu after all.

His first target found, he concentrated his chakra and went through a few handseals all the while keeping his target in sight. As the jutsu initiated, he could feel his chakra surreptitiously moving toward his target before entering his body. Once he had a foothold of the target's chakra system, he quickly went about altering his perception.

The target, who was a man, looked on his left, only to see people stepping aside and forming a line. At first he didn't understand what was going on until he saw at the end of the newly created path a cat. This wouldn't have been a strange sight if it wasn't for the fact that the cat stood on his feet and was wearing sunglasses. Then the cat pointed at him with his shining claws, before making a gesture of cutting his own neck, while grinning savagely.

"HAaaaaa..." The man ran away screaming like a banshee all the while mouthing _a killer cat was after him_.

He stupidly ran around the place ignoring the voices urging him to stop running. The only thing he could see was him running in a direct line never stopping but he never seemed to outrun the cat.

While the man was seeing this, the truth was that he was running circle around the place; strangely enough he seemed to dodge any bystanders easily, thus not causing any damages. The villagers looked at him in shock and murmured.

"Is he crazy..."

"Someone do something, he has lost it..."

"What cat killer?"

Naruto looked at this and softly laughed at the villagers running heedlessly. To spice things up, he ensnared several others villagers, and had them run from several other animals like dogs, oversized bugs and the like. Before long the town square was in chaos.

The goal of this exercise wasn't to simply get back at the villagers but to increase his understanding of the illusion art. Normally when ensnaring someone in a Genjutsu, the victim became motionless, but from the study of the Kurama clan, it was only by design. Users chose this method to avoid the victim randomly attacking and maybe touching them by mistake. It was easily possible to allow the user to move his body even in reality without him knowing. That is what he was currently training on: keep in track the virtual world he created while correctly directing the victim in the real world.

Using this, he could easily direct someone to a trap without their knowing and that was only the tip of the iceberg.

As he was enjoying the villagers making a fool of themselves, Naruto noticed several incoming chakra signatures. _'Anbu! I have to remove traces of my presence and get out of here.'_ He thought and quickly removed his chakra from his victim and absorbed it back to his body, not wanting someone to recognize him using his chakra residue. Then he stealthily fled the area with his next course of action in mind.

* * *

><p>Half an hour later, Naruto was stealthily moving again toward his next goal. After one month had passed since, the graduation, he wanted to see just how his fellow graduates faired. Being estranged from them, his only solution to get the information he wanted was to spy on them. And what better way to do so by testing his abilities and see how much his fellows had improved.<p>

Naruto abruptly stopped just in front of training ground seventeen's entrance. _'If I remember right, team 8 is training here. Now to see what they are up to.'_ He grinned as he focused inward and used the ability that allowed him to prank everyone in this village. Gradually, Naruto's energy output was reduced to nothing, becoming virtually invisible to any chakra sensor.

Ready for his spying session, he moved through the foliage surrounding the training ground until he reached the edge of the clearing. From his spot he could see Kiba striking a log post while his dog Akamaru stood beside him, observing his master at work. He took his time to observe Kiba's movements and narrowed his eyes.

_'Is he deliberately going so slow or is it me that have improved that much?'_ He wasn't one to brag, but looking at Kiba's movements was like looking at a snail and that troubled him a lot. A month ago he considered Kiba to be fast for their age group. Such improvement – in his case – or lack of – in Kiba's – was strange to him. He rationalized though by reminding himself that unlike Kiba, he fully concentrated on his physical training, leaving his clones to do the rest.

"That is good Shino. But you have to replace yourself faster if you want to fool anyone."

Naruto heard from the other side of the clearing and turned his head to look at the speaker. He saw a woman with black hairs and red eyes standing in front of two identical Shino. _'Kurenai Yuhi, Jounin from Konoha specializing in Genjutsu.'_ Naruto thought as he looked at the woman, giving pointer to her student.

Once again, he analyzed Shino's actions and his technique, trying to find any interesting or unusual ability. As he looked at the boy, he saw him use an handseal before switching with his clone silently and without the traditional puff of smoke. He widened his eyes though when he noticed Shino use only one handseal to do the technique.

"Good. You have reduced the number of handseals needed to one. Keep working on it until you can do it without handseal and at a moment notice. It will be a great help with your fighting style." Kurenai congratulated her student, proud of her team progress.

Shino only nodded as usual, not finding the need to talk on this matter.

In the foliage Naruto narrowed his eyes at Shino and decided to keep that in mind for later use. For the time being, he looked at the last member of team 8, Hinata, and saw her standing on water. He could see her going through complex Katas, mainly with her hands. Sometimes she would accelerate to a blurring speed before slowing down again, always keeping control of her body.

Hinata's hands speed was what troubled Naruto the most as despite his obvious improvement in the speed department, he only saw a blur. _'The Jyuken is just as dangerous as I thought it would be. With a hand speed that great, it is almost impossible to avoid a strike from it. I will have to find a way against that later on.'_ He thought just before he decided he had seen enough.

Without broadcasting his presence, he backtracked until he was out of the training ground and moved toward team 10 training ground.

An hour or so later, he had spied on all the team that graduated this year, including his own team. He was disappointed to see team 10 comfortably sitting and playing Shogi. When he spied on his team, he only saw Sasuke and Sakura apparently waiting for their sensei. Deciding not to waste time like his teammates were doing, he decided to advance his schedule and move onto his next mission of the day: _discover what happened between Konoha and the Kurama clan_.

To do so, he transformed in his phantom form and flew toward the hokage tower. He knew that it was the only place that would have information on what seemed to be sensitive matter. After all, they never even heard of the Kurama clan in the academy. Obviously the higher ups didn't want the next generation to learn about them.

Luckily, no village could properly function without recording important events. While dangerous for the village, the benefits outweighed the risks. After all, no one is immortal or safe to being killed. What would happen if the only person that knew something vital to the village was killed and he never recorded that something? The village would perish. At least with a record of it, someone else could continue his work.

Reaching the room he was after was no big deal for him. Normally he wouldn't have gotten even 100 meters from the room with the amount of seals protection and guards surrounding the place, but his special powers came into play. The room he was in contained Konoha whole knowledge of its clans, no matter how big or small the clan was.

Naruto made a beeline to the shelves containing information on the Kurama clan and created several clones to read the information stored here.

An hour or so later, he had reviewed every bits of information on the clan and was now sporting a grin so large it threatened to split his mouth. _'To think that they would go so far... Now I understand where that man took his hobby from.'_ He thought as he contemplated on his next course of action.

_'On one hand I could do nothing and leave the Kurama clan to take care of it but there is a risk they will be too late to prevent Konoha from gaining a dangerous weapon. On the other hand, I could delay their research by freeing her and in the process gaining an ally. But either way I won't be able to stop their research until I know where the facility is.'_

After debating with himself, he finally made his choice and proceeded to act on it. As he was about to transform back and get out of the room, he saw in the corner of his eyes a clan name that made him stop dead on track.

Because the clan name was Uzumaki.

* * *

><p><strong>HOKAGE'S OFFICE –<strong>

* * *

><p>Once again, Sarutobi was in his office holding a private meeting. In front of him was the same camouflaged ninja that was there a month ago. Sarutobi looked at him with pride. The one before him was his right-handed man, a ninja in charge of dealing with operations too secretive to be known by the public. No one knew of his existence. As the Sandaime hokage, and a public figure, he couldn't be associated to covert operations the like the ninja in front of him took part in. The idea of having a right-handed man came to him during desperate times, but he never once regretted his decision.<p>

"Let's get directly to the point, shall we?" The figure nodded to Sarutobi to show his compliance. "Was your mission a success this time?"

"It was. I was finally able to get the location of the Kurama clan settlement." Sarutobi smiled as he heard the good news. "Of course I went there by myself to confirm it."

"And…"

"The information is indeed accurate." The agent replied showing no inflection in his voice.

"Unfortunately I have a good and a bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?"

Sarutobi's narrowed eyes were enough for the agent to rethink his decision to play such a game with his master. He sighed while muttering under his breath _'you are no fun!_'

"The bad news is that the Kurama clan, somehow, discovered the existence of the _Research and Development (RD) facility_."

The widening of Sarutobi's eyes was proof enough that it was indeed terrible news. Countermeasures rushed through his mind as he thought of the possible consequences of such thing. _'The RD facility is the most secret organization of this village, even Danzo's Root force is less secretive than that facility. How did they discover it? Do we have a leak?'_

"I trust that you will take care of this... impairment soon?" Sarutobi coldly inquired his right-handed man.

"It is already in process. Fortunately, only its existence was compromised. The nature of the work done there is still unknown to them."

Sarutobi nodded before gesturing the agent to continue his report.

"The good news is something we have been waiting for a long time now. While observing their settlement, I was able to overhear a meeting between their leader and a team of four ninjas. The meeting was about a missing ninja duo they sent earlier in Konoha to retrieve the content of their library." The agent stopped at the last word knowing it will have an effect on Sarutobi. And it did, as the aged man widely smirked as if he just won a lottery ticket.

"As I am certain you have already guessed, the team has been sent here to investigate on the missing ninjas and retrieve the library..."

"Finally!" The agent wasn't surprised by Sarutobi's reaction. "I thought they gave up on retrieving their library." He looked at his agent with the utmost seriousness. "You know what you have to do then."

"I know. If my estimation is right, they will reach Konoha tonight. Assuming they want to fulfill their mission as fast as possible, they will infiltrate their old compound tonight. I will be there to ambush them and retrieve the content of their library."

Sarutobi grinned at that, already salivating at the idea of getting his hands on the Kurama knowledge on Genjutsu. After several years of extensive study, the team from the RD facility had concluded the Kurama clan didn't possess any bloodline, despite their members claiming otherwise. This revelation was such a big deal because the members of the clan were famous for their extremely strong illusionary techniques. So strong in fact that the Uchiha, at one point in time, greatly feared them and considered them their rivals. By spreading the rumors that their abilities stemmed from their bloodline, it stopped outsiders from seeking their coveted knowledge.

"For all this years we had the most advanced illusionary techniques right under our noses and we never once suspected it. They were certainly devious to think of such simple plan to protect their techniques." Sarutobi commented.

"You have to admit it was a pretty believable story. What with the unusual abilities displayed by their heir Yakumo?"

"The girl is nothing more than a defect, a genetic anomaly. Her abilities, while godly, are not from her ancestry." Sarutobi answered dismissively to a frowning ninja, not that it could be seen with his face hidden.

_'For a defect she is pretty powerful. You underestimate people too much Sarutobi.'_ He thought but took care of not voicing his thoughts on the matter. It wouldn't do to antagonize his master after all.

"I heard there was a commotion in the town square" He abruptly changed the subject.

"News travel fast I see. It was only a few villagers who claimed seeing animals trying to kill them." Sarutobi replied smiling at the silliness of the story. "The matter was investigated but nothing was found. An illusion attack was ruled out as there was no chakra residue left."

The agent nodded trusting his superior to handle such matter.

"Did you find the boy yet?" Sarutobi suddenly asked the ninja who seemed surprised by the question.

"Not at all. Like I said already, he is still in the village but his exact position is beyond me. If you really want to find his lodging, your best bet would be to have someone follow him the next time he visits you."

Sarutobi simply nodded, not having expected much in the first place.

"If that is all then I will take my leave. I have to prepare for tonight."

"You do that."

The cloaked ninja nodded before seemingly disappearing in the shadow as if he wasn't even there in the first place.

Finally alone in his room, Sarutobi crossed his fingers under his chin as he thought on the future. _'My power is not what it was in my prime. Learning those advanced Genjutsu techniques should get me back on top of the food chain. All those years of waiting...'_ He thought with a satisfied smile on his face.

* * *

><p><strong>OUTSKIRT OF KONOHA –<strong>

* * *

><p>Far away from town, but still inside Konoha, was a house. The house was watched day and night by several anbu with only one thing in mind: <em>never let anyone get in or out of the house<em>. Only two people were allowed inside and they were the Sandaime hokage and his right hand. Even the anbu didn't know what was inside. Obviously curious ninjas tried their luck at finding what was so important inside the home but the seals surrounding the place never let them go any closer than twenty meters.

Despite their devotion to their work, they couldn't know that their mission, at the time, was compromised. And they would never find out anyway.

Inside the room, Naruto in his phantom state observed the girl sitting in front of a painting of Konoha. The several paintings and the painting tools dispersed in the room indicated she was the author and Naruto had to admit she was quiet good at it. _'Although most of them are a little too macabre for my taste'_ He thought as he decided to make his presence known.

The girl abruptly turned around as she sensed someone behind her. Surprise was clearly visible on her face as she looked at the man – _'no, boy'_ she corrected herself – that materialized in her room.

"Who are you?" She dully asked

"At this point in time, my name would do you no good. So let's just assume for the duration of this conversation that I am your benefactor." Naruto mysteriously smiled as he replied.

"Last time I heard, a benefactor was someone who provided help. Has the world changed that much since my confinement?"

"Your point is..."

"You obviously went out of your way to reach this place and you claim to be an help of a sort, yet you have done nothing in that direction." The girl elaborated to a calmly looking Naruto.

"What if that is exactly what I am here for?"

"You will excuse my skepticism then, but I think you will agree with me that no one is that kind."

"Sometimes you have to give to receive even more."

"Sometimes the gift isn't worth the price."

The two teens' gazes met, trying to find each other end game. After a while, Naruto smiled.

"You are indeed just like your profile said. I have a feeling I will enjoy this partnership very much."

"You intrigue me."

"And why is that?" Naruto wondered.

"You speak as if you are certain to get me to do whatever you want from me, yet we don't know each other." The girl casually answered as she sat on a chair, facing the still standing Naruto who simply smiled at the obvious psychological attack. _'She is trying to get the reins of this conversation, not bad.'_ He thought before speaking again.

"Sometimes the offer is too enticing to be dismissed."

"Yet it never secures one's loyalty." She shot back as Naruto dismissed her reply.

"A concern I am perfectly willing to ignore."

"You are a fool then." She scoffed.

"Better be a fool and achieve your goal than be a coward, don't you think."

"There is a difference between taking a calculated risk and gambling."

"In your mind it is a gamble but can you really say it without knowing all the facts?" Naruto genially asked the teen who shrugged.

"The facts don't matter when I am involved. Reality is just an illusion made believable for the sake of the populace. You apparently read my profile, you should know that then."

"I do." Naruto conceded. "Then again, not everyone is born with the ability to supplant reality, Yakumo Kurama."

For the first time since the start of their chat, the teen narrowed her eyes.

"You have me at a disadvantage. You know my name but I don't know yours."

"Would knowing who you are dealing with, assuage your growing worry?" Naruto smirked as he said that. In a few words he had taken back the reins of the conversation and they both knew it.

"It would at least make me fully consider whatever proposition you have in mind." She replied impassively, having regained control of her emotions.

"So you are considering it then. How... amusing."

Seeing Yakumo waiting for him to talk, he explained himself. "You have no doubt concluded that I know much about you. What you don't know is that I also know exactly why you are kept here, hidden from the world at large."

Yakumo widened her eyes at that as she had long since given hope on finding what Konoha wanted from her. To learn that someone else knew of her predicament and could answer all of her questions gave her hope again.

"And I suppose this information has a price."

"This information? Not at all. I can freely tell you what is going on. What is important is the action you will take to get your life back, unless I was mistaken and you like your current situation?"

"No! Go on, I am listening." She almost jumped from her sit at that, displaying her interest.

"Very well. The story is simple really. You see, when you first displayed your... ability, people became curious. Never before had a member of your clan possessed that kind of power. So the higher up assigned you a personal sensei. I am sure you remember her name."

"Kurenai Yuhi!" Yakumo snarled as she said that.

"Right." Naruto continued ignoring the teen obvious hate. "This was done in the hope that you would quickly develop your talent. At the time, it was suspicious as you weren't even out of the academy. So they had to provide a good reason for that. I am sure you never noticed and assimilated it to your bloodline developing, but it was around that time your stamina started to decrease until you could do nothing but the simplest of physical task."

Yakumo widened her eyes as she caught on to what Naruto was implying. "Are you saying my physical disease wasn't a result of my bloodline?"

"That is what I am saying. It was the result of a toxin, according to the files I read about you."

Yakumo trembled at that, as she saw her already pathetic life crash down even more.

"Once they forced you to rely on Genjutsu and thus forced you to develop your ability, you made tremendous progress. So much so that something happened with your sensei. I don't know what as it wasn't mentioned but she decided your abilities were becoming too dangerous. The higher ups agreed with her, so they decided to seal your powers. Unfortunately, you overheard their conversation and lost control of your power. The story doesn't finish here but if you want to learn what happened next, you will have to do it by yourself."

"What? You said you would explain everything to me."

"What is the point of knowing everything if you cannot do anything about it?" Naruto cut her off. "And it isn't relevant to what you have to know right now. What you don't know is that Konoha never gave up on acquiring your power. Apparently there is a facility designed for research. Its initials are _RD_, nothing more than that. This facility is currently working on replicating your power by using you. The reason they keep you alive is because you are an experiment to them. Several times they tested your ability without your knowledge."

With the influx of information, Yakumo was simply too shocked to speak and Naruto could see that.

"You told me earlier that my offer wouldn't secure your loyalty?" Yakumo looked at him as if to say something but he cut her off with a hand gesture. "What you don't understand is that your loyalty isn't my priority right now. By helping you, I am denying Konoha a weapon. So in the end whatever happens next, I win. Now I would like to say that this chat was interesting and all but I have other duties to attend to. What I want right now is to know this: what do you want?"

Naruto said with such finality, Yakumo understood that her next words would greatly define her future. But she didn't take too much time to reach her decision, as she knew what she wanted even before learning this.

"I want revenge."

Naruto smirked as he heard her response.

* * *

><p><strong>UNKNOWN AREA –<strong>

* * *

><p>In a dark place, resided a silhouette, a human silhouette to be exact. All around the place, were hundred of torches that dimly lighted the piece. The only thing noticeable beside the human shape was the throne-like chair that could be seen. The shape was resting on the throne without a care in the world. Or maybe he gave off that impression because his eyes were closed.<p>

A moment later, another shape came into the area slowly moving toward the throne. Once the shape was distinguishable, its likeness to animal species was a given considering its small size and the fact that it seemed to be on all fours on the ground. Just before the animal could open his mouth though, the resting silhouette opened his eyes, looking directly at the animal.

The simple act of opening his eyes caused many reactions from the animal and all around the room. The first and most noticeable one, was the shuddering experienced by said animal. The other visible one was the fact that the air around the silhouette seemed to be distorted tremendously. It was like the space beside him was being bended, distorted or even contorted. Simply put, it was frightening.

The silhouette with icy blue eyes looked directly at the animal that shuddered in fright. "Why have you come in this room?" he asked in a strangely mechanical voice.

_'My god, even his voice has changed. He isn't the same as before. Does the burden carried by being like him is the cause of his drastic change?'_ thought the animal in fright before answering.

"The target seems to have awakened." It said direct to the point, not seeing any needs to divert from the subject and knowing that his master would understand.

"I see." The figure replied slowly while closing his eyes as if in deep meditation. A moment later, he opened them again, looking directly at the animal.

"Activate the next phase of the plan. You must discover the ability he gained at all cost, understood?" he said forcefully to the creature that nodded in understanding.

"Also..." the figure began again, before rummaging through his pocket, looking for something. Once he found it, he removed his hand from said pocket. On it, was a crystal ball the size of a thumb attached to a necklace. On the ball, you could see hundred of tiny looking scribbling, with lines and kanji on it. "Take this with you. It will allow you to know when he is using his ability. I don't have to remind you that it must not fall in unknown hands?" he finished while launching the necklace at the creature that immediately caught it and put it on its neck after nodding at the warning given. Because it was a warning. It means that should he lose it, he was as good as dead.

Immediately after that, the silhouette closed his eyes again. Taking this as being dismissed, the creature puffed in white smoke, clearly indicating that it was a summoned animal, but for what specie, that remained to be seen. Once the animal was gone, the silhouette opened his eyes again in deep thought.

_'It seems that it happened despite everything I did to stop him from awakening. Fortunately I took this possibility into account. But it all depends on being able to ascertain the ability he gained before it is too late. If only I wasn't that soft before, I wouldn't have made that mistake in the first place.'_ he thought before closing his eyes again.

For better or for worse, things were moving in the shadow and soon chaos would erupt in the elemental countries.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

For those that read the first version of this story, you will notice that unlike before, I won't simply enumerate the things on which Naruto worked and detail his progress. This time, I will insert as much interaction as possible to develop the important character and avoid the boring aspect of reading a flat text.

How was the chat between Naruto and Yakumo? Please tell me what you think as it help me improve on my dialog's writing skills.

To be continued...


	5. Chapter 4: Reunion

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Bleach. It is respectively the propriety of Kishimoto and Tite Kubo.

Hello everyone, I am back with the fourth chapter of Clash of Realms. I know some of you want to shot me for taking so long before updating but I had little time to work on my stories.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4:<strong>** Reunion**

* * *

><p>Infiltrating Konoha has never been an easy task, even at the high of the shinobi wars. While the village appeared unprotected, it had a fearsome reputation as one of the most difficult place to infiltrate.<p>

Foreign ninjas have tried in vain to pass through the several warning systems of the village but none succeeded. It remained impregnable for a simple reason: _none knew just how the village was defended_.

Of course, there existed people who could get inside the village without alerting the residents, but most of them could do so because they knew the defenses of the village. People like Orochimaru the snake sannin could bypass the village's protections like a breeze.

Truthfully, the main defense system wasn't hard to bypass. It consisted of a barrier surrounding Konoha. The barrier acted as a warning system capable of detecting anyone entering the premises of the village. It was created during the second shinobi world war and later, perfected by the several sealing masters that had lived in Konoha.

When the four men team from the Kurama clan infiltrated the village, they easily bypassed the security system, and even the main defense, because they were aware of it and the methods to go through it.

The task done, they moved toward their old compound, the darkness acting as an ally. They swiftly moved through darkened alleys, not bothered in the least by the lack of light. Whenever they encountered a patrol, they hid behind a wall and laid low until says patrol was gone. Then they started back their trek.

Finally after dodging and sneaking past anbu, they reached their destination. They solemnly stood in front of the gate leading to their old compound.

"'Been a while, hasn't it?" One of them uttered softly. Images of all the good moments he had in this place flooded his mind.

"Yeah it has. But don't get too emotional on us. We gotta keep moving, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah. As if I am the only one feeling sappy."

"Guys, stay focused on the mission." Another broke in their conversation, focalizing the ire of the two speakers on him.

"Talk about mood killer!"

They looked at each other for a while before exploding in laughter. They had known each other for so long that they perfectly understood their partners feeling.

Gaining back their composure, they entered the compound and immediately moved toward their target. The priority was retrieving the library content, and then they would look for clues to determine what happened to the team sent earlier.

As they disappeared inside the compound, they never noticed another figure materializing from thin air, behind them. The person wore a large dark cloak that hides his features quite well.

Thirty minutes later, and the four men team were finally in front of the famous Kurama library. They had bypassed all the traps and defense mechanisms quite easily.

Yet, they never expected what they would find or better yet, what they wouldn't find, as they pushed open the door leading to the library. Instead of shelves full of books and scrolls, they found empty ones.

"You're sure this is the room? Because I ain't seeing nothing here!"

One of them spoke in disbelief. The tension was palpable in the room. But quickly, it led to confusion. Where were the books? Did they mix up the location of the library? Did someone beat them to it and found the library first?

Taking the rein of the situation, the apparent leader issued orders to his subordinates.

"Hiroo, sweep through the chamber to find anything amiss. I don't care if you have to break down the shelves, just find something."

The mentioned executed himself and started inspecting the pieces, leaving nothing unturned.

"Akio, you are the sensor. Search for any chakra residue in the room… No, make it the whole compound. Alert me if you find anything."

Like the other one, Akio moved to the center of the piece before shutting his eyes and focusing inward. Sensory ability being a mental technique, he needed all the concentration he could get.

While the two above mentioned were hard at work, the last two ninjas left the chamber to inspect the vicinities. They knew they were at the right place, but it wouldn't hurt to check again.

After a while, the team gathered again. Given by their somber looks, the leader correctly assumed the news weren't good.

"Hiroo?"

"Nothing found sempai. Not even a fingerprint was left behind. Whoever did this was thorough and didn't make any mistakes…"

"Not one that can easily be found anyway!" the leader interrupted with a hard voice. They were on a tight schedule after all.

"Exactly." Hiroo continued, a little stumped at his leader's interruption. Still, he had nothing more to add and Akio took that as his clue to speak up.

"I have searched high and low for any traces of chakra, but like you expected, nothing. The chamber is clean of any chakra beside our own. I also checked the outside area, but got the same results."

"So let me get this straight, we've lost the library, our clan most valued commodity, and we have no fucking clue who the hell took it?"

"Pretty much." The last member of the team added noncommittally. The leader immediately glared at him. Sighing in dismay, he looked toward the only entrance to the chamber, already fearing Unkai's reaction.

"Nothing much to be done here. We've to move out to our next objective. Who knows, maybe those two would point us to the culprits."

As one, they ran outside the library and retraced their footsteps. Without hassle, they found their way out and quickly emerged from the underground facility.

The first member of the team to walk out of the facility was met with a very bad surprise. At the same time he pushed open the door leading outside the facility, a violent torrent of flames shot at him. It was like the flames had been pressured in a chamber and roared to life upon the piece being opened. His teammates could only watch in shock as their partner was roasted alive on the spot.

Panic ensued as they were completely caught off guard. They rushed toward the door and with difficulty, closed it, barring entry to the hungry flames.

"What the fuck happened?" The leader roared. He angrily faced Akio who looked as shocked as the others. "You said there wasn't a fucking life out there, were you lying?"

"Of course not." Akio fired back. "I stand to my earlier assessment. There is no fucking life out there, or whatever it is, it cannot be sensed."

"What do you mean cannot be sensed? Unless you were daydreaming, a fucking Katon jutsu just tried to roast us."

He turned to Hiroo and shot him a contemptuous look. "I don't know, OK? I do NOT sense anyone out there. They must be able to hide themselves. How should I know that?"

"Both of you shut up. We have to get out of here and fast. Whoever it is must be after the library, not that we have it" The leader muttered the last part, as they fled the area, looking for another exit. Before going though, they left behind, several traps in case their pursuers broke in.

Adrenaline rushing through their veins, they made it to the next exit at record speed and proceeded with caution. Instead of using the door, they jumped through the window and rolled on the ground before standing up in a defensive position.

They swept through the area looking for dangers. Their eyes darted left to right, analyzing every nook.

"Area secured, sempai." Akio softly intoned while keeping his guard up.

As if attracted by the sound of his voice, a blur rushed him and before any of them could react, he felt pain on the back of his heart. Darkness slowly crept to his vision. He'd never know what happened to him, as he felt dead on the ground.

The team leader and Hiroo saw in slow motion as Akio felt face first on the ground, revealing behind him a cloaked figure whose eyes seemed as cold as the pits of hell.

Before their very eyes, the figure seemed to shimmer and vanish, further shocking them.

"Ghost…" Hiroo trembled as he uttered the word. He had only heard of it once, a monster of the highest level.

The leader seemed to have come to the same conclusion if his shaking body was any indication. How could he not tremble in the presence of an S-ranked ninja, one that was so feared, mothers used him as a fairy monster to discipline their children.

'_What is she doing here?_' He desperately thought while signaling his partner to create a distraction.

Despite the situation, they set aside their fears in favor of finding a way out. Because this wasn't a fight to win anymore, but a fight to survive.

Hiroo went through hand seals at a face pace before concentrating on his surrounding. Just like that, he cast a high area illusion, making them seems frozen in place. His task done, he signaled his leader who immediately took over, and proceeded to extend the reach of the illusion, gradually covering the whole compound.

He was confident that he would at least confuse their assailant and maybe disorient her long enough for them to flee. His hopes were dashed though when a net-like pattern ran straight through his illusion, leaving behind a grid made of small squares.

Hiroo and he could only look in dismay as the illusion they wove was split in thousands of little cubes, which dissipated, leaving nothing behind.

A crunching noise forced the leader to turn around and face Hiroo, but the sight that met him was of his partner falling to the ground, his neck obviously broken by the figure behind him.

"A little disappointing, I suppose" He heard the low voice of his would be killer and couldn't help but feel like a trapped mouse.

"Why… Why are you after us?" He voiced his question to the figure that looked at him with amusement.

"You? Sadly you are mistaken, I am not after you but rather after what your clan possess."

Something seemed to click inside the leader mind as he heard what the figure said. Every puzzle seemed to be resolved in front of his eyes.

"I see. From the start we were doomed to fail then. Who would have thought the infamous Ghost was in the employ of the Hokage. We thought for so long that you had a vendetta against us when in fact you were just working for Sarutobi."

The figure gave an appraising look before shrugging. "I never said I held a grudge against your clan. It was you who came to that silly conclusion in the first place."

The leader didn't seem to be listening to the figure though as he looked at the sky. "How ironic, I always thought women were too weak, too frail for the work of a ninja, but here I am, beaten by a woman. The heaven must be laughing at me right now."

If the cloaked woman wasn't so serious, she would have sweat dropped at her target monologue. Yet she wasn't prepared by what he said next.

"Unfortunately for you, you are too late. The library is gone. At least I will have the last laugh."

The short moment of shock was enough for the leader to trigger a device he held on his chest. The cloaked figure could only snarl in anger at the spreading scripts that covered her target's body.

'_A suicide seal! Fuck!_'

She resigned herself and escaped the blasting range, knowing she had lost a valuable source of information. She appeared several meters away and walked toward the facility containing the library.

"At least they showed me the location of the library. Still I wonder what he meant by the library being gone."

She muttered to herself as she moved toward her price.

* * *

><p>Later that night, the cloaked woman was again in the Hokage's office. In front of her, Sarutobi sat, idly playing with his pipe, as he listened to his right hand report.<p>

"… Unfortunately, I made an oversight. I didn't want to take any risks, so I killed them all, except the leader. I figured with only one alive, it would be easier to control the situation…"

"But he killed himself!"

She stammered a little at her leader's remark. "…Yes. I didn't foresee his use of a suicide seal, that is all." She tried to justify herself but Sarutobi didn't seem to listen to her.

"You said earlier that you had waited for the group to retrieve the library before making your moves. So even if they all died, you already had the library's location. So why is it that you come before me, empty handed?"

Despite Sarutobi's emotionless voice, she could easily discern trace of anger in it. Suffice to say that she wasn't eager to face his wrath.

"I did get the library's location and I went there myself. But it was empty, no scrolls, no books, nothing. I first thought, the group was able to somehow send it to the Kurama clan but that can be possible. There was no evidence of a fifth person, also no jutsu residue was present, so they couldn't have somehow teleported it away."

"Then where is _my_ library?" Sarutobi scowled as he questioned her. This was the first time he was angry at his subordinate. '_She has never failed me before. Why did it have to happen on this mission?'_

The cloaked woman didn't miss her master words use but she gave no reactions whatsoever. Inwardly though, she scowled at the man. 'His_ library? How arrogant of you to think that it belongs to you._'

"Someone must have beaten us to it. I will do my best to find out who it is and retrieve it, Sarutobi – sama."

The mentioned further scowled at her, not in the least satisfied by her answer. With a gesture of his hand, he dismissed her.

Without missing a beat, the cloaked ninja moved out of the chamber, leaving behind a frustrated Hokage. She would investigate the old Kurama compound for next few days but she wouldn't find anything.

Just like that, another avenue of power was barred to Sarutobi, further hampering his goals.

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>1 MONTH LATER –<em>**

* * *

><p>Two month had passed since the next generation of ninjas had graduated. After being separated in several team of four, they were now being trained by their respective Jounin leader.<p>

Kakashi was one of them and was in charge of training Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto – although the last one wasn't really a true member of the team –.

The day had been long, and Kakashi was currently going back to his home. Without much care of his surrounding – or at least it appeared so –, he walked the crowded alley with his favorite book on hand. The fact that he could read a book and safely walk at the same time was a testament to his skills.

Normally, such sight would have offended the passer-by, but they had long since gotten accustomed to it. Instead, they gave him a wide berth, not that it bothered Kakashi.

The walk to his home was unusually quick but it attributed it to the interesting book he was reading. Before long, he stood in front of a rather casual house. There was only one level to it but it seemed spacious enough for only one person.

Like a used wheel, he proceeded to his house, following the same ritual as always. First, he checked the area for any break in evidences. Once he found none, he put his hand on the door and pushed chakra through his hand. The usual sight of a complex sealing script appeared on the door. The script was green, which was a telltale that it hadn't been breached.

Satisfied that his security wasn't compromised, he gently pushed open the door. The piece inside was dark, not surprising as the only light came from the newly opened door. After locking the door behind him, he switched the lights on.

The lounge was neat just like he left it in the morning. Removing his jacket, he went to hang it on the coat rack when he noticed the door leading to his bedroom, wide open.

'_This door was closed this morning!_' Alarmed that somebody had infiltrated his house, he cautiously moved toward the bedroom.

"I wouldn't go there if I were you" A cold yet melodious voice was heard coming from everywhere at once, unsettling Kakashi.

"Who are you?"

"Hatake Kakashi, better known has Sharingan no Kakashi. I must say your security system was quite advanced."

The voice came again, yet Kakashi couldn't pinpoint where it hailed from.

"Why don't you show yourself, I'd be happy to explain how it works to you." A soft laughter was heard once he said that.

"My dear… even in danger, you still find a way to make fun of the situation. Unfortunately, I am not here for a lesson in security."

"Why are you here then? Are you from Iwa?"

A mocking laughter was heard again. "My, my… Nothing like that. Let's just said that my master has need of you."

"And who is that master of yours? Better yet, why don't you lead me to him, I'd be happy to meet him."

Unlike before, the voice wasn't playful, if nothing else, it was hard, as it said. "And pray tell what make you think he has need of you _alive._"

Kakashi's eyes widened just a little as he did a somersault just in time to avoid a rain of shurikens coming from his back. Before he touched ground again, several blurs zigzagged around him before charging him head on.

'_Amateurs!_' Kakashi thought as he easily ducked under the charging ninja and rose with an uppercut, hitting his attacker's chin.

He lost his footing though, when his hand passed through the ninja and he felt searing pain on his back. Gritting his teeth, he numbed the pain and disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving his attacker dumbfounded.

Not for long though as the moment he appeared back, he heard the sound of a whizzing kunai on his back. Having no time to avoid it, he used his own kunai to parry the flying weapon. But like before, the kunai passed through him, leaving him dumbfounded.

'_Genjutsu?_' Not taking any chance anymore, he gripped his eye patch and removed it, freeing his hidden Sharingan eye.

Once again, he felt something coming from his back. As he turned around, he met a humongous fireball coming at him.

This time though, he didn't react and let the attack engulf him and like before he felt nothing as the illusion vanished. Focusing his eyesight beyond the vanishing flame, he searched for his attacker, having concluded he was hiding under an illusion.

'_There!_' He exclaimed as he saw a veil of chakra hiding a human shape. Using his Sharingan, he broke out of the illusion and looked at his assailant with a triumphant look.

But the sight that met him wasn't something he expected. Planted on the wall in front of him, was a squared paper with scripts at its edges. In the middle of it, an endless spiral seemed to rotate, hypnotically ensnaring him.

Before long, he found that he couldn't move his body. Even his toes seemed stuck.

"Tut tut tut… How disappointing." He heard the same cold voice behind him. He tried to move with all his might but it felt like a stranger in his own body. He couldn't stop gazing at the strange paper.

"You got so used to that precious eye of yours that you had to use it even to counter simple illusions. Then again, I was counting on you to do just that, so I must thank you I guess, for making my job easier."

That was the last thing he heard before he felt a blow on the back of his neck and everything went dark.

Standing above him with a large cloak covering his body, the human shape removed his hood, revealing Naruto smirking face.

"Now let's see what secrets you've got."

His grin would have been contagious if there was anyone present. With practical easy, he transformed in his phantom form and eagerly dived inside his victim's body. Already he was salivating at the prospect of learning Kakashi considerable knowledge.

Unlike the first time, he wasn't blindly diving in. He knew quite well the way his ability worked, for having tested it on unsuspecting civilians. The first thing he did was to go for Kakashi's memories. It was better that way as it could give him an idea of any special ability his target may possess.

The moment he thought about it, he found himself in a room filled with floating windows, each one representing a memory. From his experience, he knew them to be sorted by date. Without wasting any time, he proceeded to see each ones of the memories, from Kakashi's birth to the current day.

The images passed in front of his mind like a fast-forwarded video. The only time he slowed it down was when he found something interesting. Whenever he found a training session or a skill Kakashi was learning, he saved the memory in his own mind, for later review.

He saw Kakashi's childhood, his not so happy academy days. He saw Kakashi's father death and much more. He saw Kakashi's growing to the powerful shinobi he was today. He even saw the conversation Kakashi had with Sarutobi, about someone capable of permanently dealing with him.

The scene was an alarming one, but not enough to worry him. After all, he knew that his blackmail would hold only for so long. Of course he would be prepared for such thing when the time comes. This was hardly a setback to him.

No, what intrigued him the most was a scene he saw of Kakashi and his late father the yondaime hokage.

**============ Memory scene ============**

"You're there, Kakashi?"

Naruto heard before his blurry sight focused in front of him, to see a legend standing there.

"Sorry about that. I got lost there." He heard himself says, but he was quickly reminded that he was viewing the memory from Kakashi's point of view.

Minato looked at him with worry before dismissing it and continuing his lecture. "As I was saying, now that you have mastered the second step, the only thing left to do is to master the third and last one. Now look carefully."

Naruto could feel Kakashi's intense gaze as the latter observed his sensei demonstration. He could only watch in wonder as a mesmerizing ball of chakra formed above the yondaime's palm.

"The last step is rather simple. You only have to contain the rotating force in a sphere of chakra. If you do that, you won't waste any of the ball's power."

Like a switch turned off, the ball disappeared, leaving the yondaime empty handed. "Your turn." He smiled at Naruto… or was it Kakashi?

'_This is confusing_' Naruto thought.

Following his mentor's advice, he got into position and outstretched his right hand, his palm facing the sky. Then he gathered chakra on it, slowly rotating and shaping the energy into a ball.

Then came the hard part, containing this maelstrom of power. At first it seemed like Kakashi succeeded, but everything went south very fast. The failure of the chakra shell induced a chain reaction resulting in a violent explosion.

That is when things became interesting to Naruto. One moment he, or Kakashi, was at the center of the explosion, the next he was an hundred or so meters away from it, with nothing but a scratch to remember it.

He coughed in shock as he regained his senses. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, prompting him to look at its owner. Surprised a little, he saw the Yondaime Hokage standing beside him with a smile on his face.

"You're alright there?"

He couldn't even find his words to express the shock he was currently feeling. "How?" That was the only word that came out of his mouth. Lame, yes, but he could be excused after such a close encounter with death.

The yondaime just patted him on the head like one would do to a child. "That was my new jutsu, _Hiraishin no jutsu_. You like?"

Kakashi shot him with a look that clearly said 'of course I like it, who wouldn't?' Still he kept his mouth shut, opting to leave his sensei to come up with his own conclusion.

"I used the Summoning jutsu as a basis to create it. With it, I can teleport to any of my special kunais whenever I want. That was how I saved you back there."

Kakashi looked at his mentor in amazement, wondering just how far the latter would grow. If he correctly guessed the use of the newly created technique, then he could safely say that his sensei was quickly becoming one of the most powerful ninjas to ever set foot on the elemental countries.

**============ End memory scene ============**

Naruto replayed the scene several times before moving to the next. He didn't know why but it seemed important to him, as if it was one piece of an unknown puzzle he had to solve. Putting it at the back of his mind, he continued his task until he had viewed and stored every bit of skills and knowledge Kakashi possessed.

The task done, he once again switched place and found himself standing in front of a complex double helix shape, which he attributed to Kakashi's DNA. Knowing what he had to do, he put himself to work by analyzing every part of the DNA, trying to find a special ability Kakashi may possess. He had an indication of one, after looking through his victim's memories, but he didn't know exactly where it was situated in the helix form in front of him.

He didn't know for how long he stayed there but he didn't care. Then again, time had a different meaning in this place, so he wasn't really worried by Kakashi waking up during the process. But his work was rewarded when he discovered several hidden instructions in a strand of Kakashi's DNA.

After analyzing it, he found exactly what it stood for. Apparently, Kakashi possessed a bloodline, completely different from the Sharingan. Amazed by it, he quickly copied the DNA sequences for further analysis before he would implement it on himself.

His task done, he withdrew from Kakashi's body and departed from the latter's house. Of course, he didn't forget to retrieve the special sealing script he used to capture Kakashi. Also, this time he didn't bother removing any traces of his presence, except anything that could be used to identify him, like chakra residue, prints and the likes.

He wanted Kakashi to know that someone attacked him. After all that was the reason he implied to be working for someone else, someone that apparently needed something from Kakashi.

'_This should keep them busy for a while, trying to find whoever is after one of their top ninjas._' He smirked at the thought.

Lately, he had noticed several anbu teams trying to locate him and that was beginning to bother him. An attack like this one should be enough to shift the village focus on someone else, leaving him be for a while.

As he flew toward his hideout, he recalled everything that happened during the last month. His main objectives had been Genjutsu and Seals and thanks to his dedication and his clones, he reached a level he wouldn't have thought possible a few months back.

Mindful of mastering everything he learned, he used about an hundred clones solely to learn and master casting hearing and smell based illusion. He only switched sense when he had mastered the previous one.

And the results were encouraging if he were to consider his short fight with Kakashi. He had known he couldn't compare to Kakashi in a direct fight, so he used subterfuge and careful planning to get him. The illusions he wove around Kakashi were very advanced despite only affecting one sense. Instead of blocking any movements from Kakashi, he forced the latter to deal with both realities, the illusionary and the real one, further confusing the jounin.

And knowing Kakashi would discover he was under Genjutsu, he used that as a bait to force Kakashi to turn his gaze upon a seal he created.

Another point to add to his growing skills, his phenomenal improvement in the Sealing arts. This came as a surprise to him as he didn't expect to reach such level so fast.

With an hundred clones, he had trained himself to the ground until he mastered many existing seals. With his growing understanding and knowledge of the art, he also came up with several of his own seals. One of those being the seal used against Kakashi: _the paralysis seal_.

It worked by creating a hypnotic effect on anyone gazing at the center of his script. Once the target is looking at it, he cannot remove his gaze from it. Until a time limit has passed or the seal is removed from his line of sight, the target will stay paralyzed.

Another seal he created was the _human walking storage seal_. This one made him very proud of himself as no one ever created it, or at least no one he knew of. The seal worked like a sealing scroll thus allowing its user to store objects in his body, specifically in a linked artificial dimension. Also unlike the scroll, the amount of things that could be stored was unlimited.

Those two inventions were the starting point to his discovery frenzy. Days after days, he was making breakthrough in the sealing arts. It was like he was possessed by a never-ending desire to improve his understanding of the sealing concepts.

His arrival at his hideout pushed him out of his reminiscing phase. As he got inside the cave, he was met with a welcoming sight: his own house.

Indeed, he had finished building his housing and was rather proud of his accomplishment. Then again, having the knowledge of a master builder demanded no less than a grand house.

Despite his longing for his bed, he refrained from doing so until he had established a new training schedule for the following month. Why a month? Because he had witnessed a meeting between Kakashi and Sarutobi indicating that his sensei would hold a match among his team to determine Naruto's progress – if there was any –.

Obviously, the power-that-be would be happy if he were to turn up with no improvement on his part. But they will be in for a shock! Naruto repeated in his mind, a growing smirk adorning his lips.

'_Let's see, I still have to learn how to cast illusion manipulating the last two human senses, before going to the next level. So I think I'll keep using the same amount of clones for that.'_

As he thought, he wrote it on a paper so he wouldn't forget his decisions.

'_Same with the sealing arts, except I will have to focus on creating new seals this time. Seals that'll help with my training, maybe? That is definitely something to consider._'

'_And last, I must train the new bloodline I acquired. The faster I get it done, the more unpredictable I will become. After all, no one expect me to have such bloodline anyway._'

He salivated at the prospect of learning about the _white chakra,_ as dubbed by the Hatake clan.

His general schedule established, he tiredly went to sleep, dreaming of crushing his enemies.

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA – <em>TRAINING GROUND 7 – <em>**1 MONTH LATER –

* * *

><p>As usual, Sasuke and Sakura were standing in training ground seven, waiting for their sensei to come. Much had changed for them ever since they graduated from the academy. Only four month since their then, yet they weren't the same anymore. Especially Sakura, whose unfortunate encounter with Naruto, left deep scars in her psyche.<p>

Both genins had greatly improved under the tutelage of their jounin sensei, Kakashi. At least they believed so. After all, they had no standard to compare with, as they rarely met with the other genins these days.

The first thing their sensei taught them was the importance of great chakra control. He had argued that a ninja with great control over his chakra could pretty much learn any jutsu, provided it wasn't a bloodline one. That is why the first thing they learned from Kakashi was to climb trees without their hands.

Once they had it figured, he had them do it every day to increase their pool of chakra. The end result was that Sakura, someone who had a very low chakra supply, found herself having the reserve one would expect on a genin.

But that wasn't the only thing they learned. Four months was a long time after all. Kakashi taught Sasuke several Ninjutsu techniques. Of course none of those were higher than C-Ranked ones. When he asked for more powerful jutsu, he was rebutted by his sensei. The latter explained that he wouldn't be learning higher ones until he had a basic understanding of nature manipulation. In the meantime, Sasuke focused on his close range abilities, like his Taijutsu.

When it came to Sakura, Kakashi taught her some basic illusion techniques. This was in the hope that the girl would develop an interest to the subtle art that was illusion.

He couldn't force someone to learn something if they weren't interested in it after all. Unfortunately, Sakura had yet to show such interest.

The two had been waiting for a while now, but they weren't worried as it had become an habit of their sensei to be late.

"Yo!" A deep masculine voice was heard in the clearing.

"You're LATE." Sakura's voice was loud, forcing the two males to cringe in distaste. "Four months since you're our sensei, but you're still late?" She continued clearly annoyed by her sensei's behavior.

"Sorry Sakura – chan. But you know me, I got lost on the road of life again." Seeing the murderous look she sent him, he raised his hands in surrender. "This time I swear it's the truth."

Sasuke snorted in his direction, not believing him at all.

Like a switch, Kakashi's expression went from amused to serious in an instant. This in turn signaled his students to stop fooling around, which they did and gathered around him.

"I know we were supposed to complete another D-rank mission today, but there has been a change of plan." He looked at his students, half expecting to be interrupted but they stayed quiet.

"We'll hold a sparing match today, with the last member of this team."

He needed not to add more to see his female pupil flinch in fright. She still had nightmare of Naruto coming at night and killing her family and her. There was nothing he could do about it and could only hope that in time, she would learn how to deal with it.

The physical damage done to her by Naruto had been extensive, but fortunately, ninja treatment was advanced enough to heal her. There wasn't even a scar to remember the incident.

Sakura looked at her sensei, hoping he didn't see her plight. But the look he gave her was enough to know that he saw everything.

"Do not worry Sakura. You won't be the one facing him, and don't forget I am here too. If anything happens, I'll definitely save you."

Kakashi smiled genially at Sakura but it wasn't enough to reassure her.

Meanwhile, Sasuke, after analyzing Kakashi's speech, concluded he would be the one facing Naruto. And he voiced his thoughts to his sensei who confirmed it. As usual of him, he stayed silent, opting to mentally prepare himself. _Not that I'll need it against the like of him_! He silently added to himself.

Before Kakashi could further explain the situation, they heard footsteps at the far end of the clearing, prompting them to turn around and look at the intruder.

There, a young boy confidently walked in their direction. His blond hairs were a dead give away to his identity. _Uzumaki!_ They simultaneously thought while observing him closing the distance. Once again his garments surprised them: black pant reaching his ankle; white muscular shirt covered by a grey jacket; Black fingerless glove on his hands were a new addition.

'_I never sensed him until he was in the clearing. How is he doing that?_' Kakashi wondered. He knew the boy was a legend when it came to stealth. Still it was frustrating nonetheless.

Deciding to be at least polite he greeted the boy. "I see you received Hokage – sama message?"

"Difficult not to, with him spreading the rumors around the village."

The response was sarcastic and was a reminder to their failure to locate him, but Kakashi ignored it.

"As you are probably wondering, this meeting is to evaluate your level…"

"Hoping to find a weakness to exploit?"

"No! Nothing like that." He quickly replied trying not to give the wrong impression to Naruto. "The team will soon undertake C-rank mission and I wanted to know what to expect of you."

"Cut the crap, would you?" The words cut like a sharp knife. Even though the words were directed at Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura felt it. The former was clenching his fist in anger. Since the start of the conversation, Naruto had been ignoring him, something he wasn't used to.

"You and Sarutobi need not to take me for a fool. We both know the only purpose of this test is to determine how much of a threat I am."

The genins widened their eyes at Naruto's words. They knew something fishy was going on between their teammate and the village but they thought it was more along disputes.

'_Just what is going on here? Does he represent such a threat to the village as a whole?_' Sakura thought, clearly frightened by it.

"You know, I really wanted to do this, if only to reel you up even more. But seeing the opponent you chose for me, I lost all interest. I think I'd best take my leave now."

As Naruto said that, he turned his back on them, intent on leaving the area. The quick shuffling of feet behind him made him react automatically. He raised his right hand and stopped a leg that would have smacked his head.

Nonchalantly, he launched the owner of the leg backward. The latter gained his balance back and safely landed on the ground beside Kakashi.

"You have changed, Sasuke. And not in a good way." Naruto emotionlessly added as he whirled around to face Sasuke's still crouched form.

"You think because you blocked my kick, you have reached my level?" The voice was smug, yet it fitted Sasuke in a strange way.

Kakashi observed the interaction with surprise etched on his face; surprised that Naruto correctly guessed the village intention. Surprised by Naruto's quick reaction despite behind unaware of Sasuke's attack. And finally surprised that Sasuke initiated the battle. _Usually he is more in control of his emotions. Does he feel threatened by Naruto that much?_

"You're quieter now. Did my attack hurt you?" Sasuke sarcastically asked an emotionless Naruto. His blank eyes seemed to see through Sasuke, something the latter found scary. Yet he wouldn't back down.

"Your refusal to partake in this spar is proof enough that you are afraid. Frankly I am disappointed. In the academy you were more courageous than that."

If he expected any reactions from Naruto, he got none. For his efforts, Naruto simply sized him, as if evaluating his threat level before discarding him as nothing but trash.

"Do you want to die that much?" The question seemed innocent, but a chill went up everyone spine at that moment.

"Because unlike your brother, I won't spare you!"

Something broke inside Sasuke's mind as he heard that. The silence in the clearing was so unbearable Sakura seemed to shrunk back, further distancing herself from the obvious predators.

Blindly Sasuke charged Naruto. He was so angry he didn't care what happened anymore. The only thing in his mind was to make Naruto eat his words.

On the sideline, Kakashi observed everything with particular interest. The spar wasn't supposed to happen like that but in the end it'd serve its purpose.

He looked up just as Sasuke reached Naruto and threw a perfectly balanced punch. '_Despite his anger, his technique hasn't dropped. Impressive.'_ Naruto thought, waiting for the last possible moment before sidestepping the punch.

Not deterred, Sasuke followed with a series of punches and kicks. It was a blurry sight as the two moved at high speed, at least for genins. Yet Naruto easily dodged everything that was thrown at him.

_'He didn't improve his speed at all._' Naruto remarked, while continuing his observation. Like a few months back with Kiba, he felt like Sasuke was moving at a snail pace. He could see the latter forcing himself to reach this speed while to him it was nothing.

'_Why can't I touch him? Have I slacked that much? What is going on?_' Sasuke questioned himself, wondering how Naruto could have improved so much.

Having enough, he jumped backward to gain some space before flying through handseals. A moment later, he put his fingers across his mouth.

"_Katon Hosenka no jutsu_" Like magic, Sasuke spat several small ball made of fire.

As the attack closed on him, Naruto retrieved a kunai from his pocket and charged it with white chakra. Then he threw the weapon at one of the fireball. A sound of hitting metal later, and an explosion occurred. The explosion took out the other fireball too, forcing Sasuke to cover himself from the blast.

Although it happened fast, Kakashi was able to see the whole process, making him narrow his eyes. '_I am pretty sure no explosive tag was attached to the weapon, so how did he produce that explosion?_'

Discreetly, he reached for his eye patch and lowered it just enough for him to use his Sharingan eye.

This didn't go unnoticed by Naruto who smiled once he saw it. The whole purpose of this was to show off the bloodline he stole from Kakashi. He knew it was stupid to give away such ability but considering how much he had in store, he wasn't above sacrificing one like that. '_This will also help me create my second identity._'

He was interrupted when he heard Sasuke's yell. "_Suiton teppodama_"

This time, balls made of water were launched at him. Sighing in dismay, he easily moved around the attack. Enraged, Sasuke jumped in the sky moving through handseals again.

"_Katon Gokyaku no jutsu_" He exhaled a huge fireball in Naruto direction.

This was a mistake though, as by staying in mid-air, he couldn't dodge anymore. Without hesitation, Naruto retrieved another kunai and a shuriken. He charged the two with white chakra again, then he launched the shuriken at the fireball.

Upon making contact with it, it violently exploded. Once again the blast reached Sasuke who was forced to cover his face with his arms, as he fell on the ground.

But that wasn't the end of it. With careful aim, Naruto threw the kunai at his forehead, clearly intent on killing the boy.

On the sidelines, Kakashi widened his eyes upon recognizing Naruto's white chakra. _'My bloodline… How can he have it?_' He decided to think about it later as he had to save his pupil first.

With unseen speed, he blurred toward Sasuke, before pushing the boy out of harm way, letting the kunai fly by them.

Everyone saw the weapon pierce through several thick trees before stopping on a boulder, shocking the two genins, especially Sasuke who looked at Naruto in fright.

'_He really aimed for the kill!_' He knew it was hypocritical to think that when he himself tried to burn him to death not long ago, but at the back of his mind, he thought the two weren't serious about their threat.

Naruto, smirking at Sasuke, broke the silence again.

"You should thank your lucky stars. It seems it wasn't your day." Then he sized the three ninjas in front of him, before turning around. Despite the distance though, they clearly heard him mutter _weak_ as he moved away.

"How do you have my clan's bloodline?" Kakashi's voice struck him like an enraged bull. For anyone else, it would have prompted them to answer truthfully in the hope of escaping whatever danger lurked behind the voice. But Naruto couldn't care less.

"That is for me to know, and you to never find out."

That was the last they heard of him as he vanished in the wind, as if he was never there in the first place.

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><p><strong>Author's<strong> **Note:**

I hope you liked this chapter. You can review to either ask any questions you may have or just for the heck of it.

Next time I will explain what the hatake clan bloodline does exactly.


	6. Chapter 5: Up we go

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Bleach. It is respectively the propriety of Kishimoto and Tite Kubo.

Hello everyone, I am back with the fifth chapter of Clash of Realms. Unlike before, I wrote this one rather quickly, in two days to be exact. It must be because I am hoping to quickly reach a particularly interesting scene I have in mind. But don't worry guy, I won't rush it and I'll take my time to explain well everything you need to know about the story.

I thank you all for reviewing my stories and hope you'll keep doing it. It pushes me to write quickly and give you the next installment of the story.

Now to answer some reviews (for those I haven't answered in PM).

**You-Lack-BadAssery: **I haven't forgotten about your idea, and something the like was supposed to happen, but later on in the story. Concerning Yakumo's bloodline, Naruto won't be taking it for a reason that will be explained in future chapters.

**Guest:** There are many "guest" lol, but I hope they will recognize each themselves. Naruto can't just get up and leave the village like that. Remember he has never put foot outside Konoha. That is a very big step we are talking about. Of course he'll leave the village in the future, but he won't be going out there without being prepared for it. Concerning allies in the village, I explained it in the previous chapter (at least I think so). In this story, either people hated his guts or they didn't care enough to risk their own reputation by associating themselves with him.

Another "guest" said that Naruto was an arrogant moron. I don't think so. I portrayed him as someone who appeared either emotionless or quick witted in combat. In several of his conversation, you can see a little of his old habits. I'm trying to display the slow change of personality. If you think of him as an arrogant moron, either I didn't do a good job in doing so, or you simply didn't read it well enough.

**Darth Xion:** Don"t worry, I won't change Naruto's mind about the village. For your other questions, see for the next chapters and you'll have your answers.

**Lednacek:** Naruto didn't just destroy the ramen stand. He destroyed it with its owner still inside the building. I hope that answer your question. While some writers don't like to kill off characters like that, I have no qualms about killing anyone. Naruto won't be a man of words but a man of actions. You do something against you, he doesn't warn you, he doesn't threaten you, he just ERASE you plain simple. That is the Naruto I am aiming for. So don't be surprised later on when he will really get down to business. Also I didn't detail more Naruto's training because I want to keep a little suspense on his abilities. If you already knew everything he could do, then what would be the point?

**Oraman Asturi:** Everything I do is for a reason. Something may happen in the future that you won't like but remember, I do not do thing just for the heck of it. Also, I never said Minato used the Shiki Fuuin. If you read that part again, you will notice that I said the Shiki Fuuin wasn't completed and Minato used another seal to stop the nine tailed fox.

For those I haven't mentioned, thanks for the reviews and be reassured I read them. Also, forgive me for any spelling errors as I don't have any beta and am doing my best to correct any mistakes during second readings.

Now, up we go with the next chapter (like the title).

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><p><strong>Chapter 4:<strong>** Up we go**

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><p>Sakura was waiting in the hospital hall. She seemed out of place with people moving around with a sense of purpose. Her head lowered, she gazed intently at a wide door where she could see patients going through. Everytime it was opened, she would look up in anticipation, only to be disappointed to see none she knew of.<p>

Finally, the door opened and out came Kakashi. He looked for a while until he spotted Sakura, then he made his way toward her.

"How is he?" She quickly asked.

"Calm down Sakura. More fear than harm was done. Sasuke will be up in two days time from what the doctor said."

"Two days?"

"Yeah! That is the time it'll take for his burns to heal. Other than that, everything will be fine. Now I have to go, we'll meet in two days time."

He smiled at his student before whirling around and moving out of the hall, leaving behind a somewhat reassured Sakura.

Once outside the building he wasted no time and disappeared in a swirl of leaves, his destination clear in his mind.

In the Hokage's office, Sarutobi was dealing once again with his paperwork. He was smoking quietly in his room, while working at the same time. He had no scheduled meeting for the whole day, so it was understandable for him to be surprised when his secretary announced Kakashi's arrival.

With a crisp voice he asked the secretary to send the famous ninja in. Already he was dreading the news, as Kakashi wasn't expected until late at night.

Without knocking, the door to his office was opened and Kakashi stepped in. Not forgetting his manners, he saluted Sarutobi hastily before going down to business.

"Sarutobi – sama, I bear some bad news."

'_Why am I not surprised?_' Sarutobi wondered before motioning for Kakashi to elaborate.

"As per my orders, I conducted a test to determine Naruto's threat level. In order to do so, I had him spar with Sasuke."

At Sarutobi raised eyebrow, he explained itself. "I chose Sasuke as a measuring stick so to say, to better evaluate his progress."

"Go on!" Sarutobi gestured, idly smoking.

"As you can imagine by my flustered state, it didn't go as planned. Taking into account Naruto's improvement during the week leading to the team assignment, I expected the two boys to be at roughly the same level. But that wasn't the case."

Now Sarutobi was interested. He hadn't seen or heard anything from the Jinchuuriki for a long time now, and he was wondering what the boy was up to. No pranks or anything of the sort, not even an attack on the villagers – something he had feared would happen –. Clearly he had misread Naruto greatly.

"Naruto easily dispatched Sasuke. No easily isn't the right word. More like crushed him. During the fight he displayed technique and experience one would expect from a Chuunin." Kakashi said gravely to a stunned Sarutobi.

He had expected progress but nothing of this kind.

"You aren't making any mistakes, are you? The boy was barely a genin three months ago. You can't go from genin to Chuunin in such a short time."

"That is what I thought too, but there is no denying it. Somehow, he was able to improve that much."

"How could that be?" He looked furiously at his subordinate. "He has no tutor, no one we know of anyway. He was deficient in almost every aspect of the ninja lifestyle. How can someone goes from weakest of his classmates to such prodigy?"

Of course, if he knew how much Naruto abused the Kage Bunshin training method, he would easily believe it to be possible. Unfortunately, he had no clues and wouldn't for a long time.

"That is not all, Hokage – sama."

"There is more?" By now, Sarutobi was close to blowing a gasket.

"Somehow, he is able to use the _white chakra_, the Hatake's bloodline."

"I am sorry, what did you say?"

Sarutobi feigned not hearing Kakashi words. The information was simply too shocking to be true. But the latter didn't have time for this.

"You correctly heard me. Naruto Uzumaki is able to use the fucking white chakra. With all do respect Hokage – sama, what the fuck is going on here?"

The way Kakashi's voice rose, Sarutobi knew the boy was close to exploding. It was only is great self-control that allowed him to stay calm. '_No wonder he is that angry, especially knowing that he himself cannot use the bloodline, despite having it in his body._' He looked at Kakashi who seemed to scream himself horse.

"Last I remember, the boy has no familial connection with the Hatake clan. I am the only one left, and if that is not enough, he has our bloodline. Have the village been experimenting on my bloodline?"

At this point he was too angry to worry about respecting his elders. This was a blow to his pride. Seeing a brat he considered beneath him, able to use something he had longed for years. '_Curse you father! Curse you to hell._' He thought about his father.

He was the one that put him in this situation, the one that took away his pride as a Hatake. And all this for favoring the village over his father, but this was another story.

"Kakashi, I can assure you, I am as shocked as you are to hear this. Rest assured, I'll get to the bottom of this." Sarutobi quickly replied, not wanting to deal with a pissed off Jounin.

"What about the investigation on the one who attacked me last month. Were they able to dig up whom that man was working for? Or why he was after me?"

"I am afraid not. We have no lead to him. The real question is why you were left alive. I have a full team in charge of the investigation. If they find anything, you'll be the first to be informed."

Kakashi too angry to speak anymore just scoffed at his leader's words. He knew what they really were, empty words. He whirled around and left Sarutobi's office.

Sarutobi could only look at one of his top jounin in disappointment. "Even after all this years you are still angry about what your father did to you. Although you are not as blameless as you might think."

He said to no one in his office, before closing his eyes tiredly. He knew Naruto would be causing him problem but not in this way. He expected the boy to kill a few civilians, reveling in his new sense of power. This in turn would have made him careless, thinking nothing could happen to him.

But if the boy was training, that meant he was well aware that his blackmail wouldn't eternally hold. Thus he was slowly preparing himself for the inevitable confrontation with the village.

Still, he was still confident enough that the boy wouldn't be much more of a threat in three month's time. Exactly the time needed for his right hand to finish the seal. Now he only had to wait until then before making his move and dealing with the nuisance.

* * *

><p><strong>WITH NARUTO –<strong>

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><p>While Kakashi was debriefing with his leader, Naruto was going to a meeting of a whole different kind. As he flew above Konoha, he saw in the distance, an isolated manor. He adjusted his flight path in that direction.<p>

A moment later, he reached his destination. Two guards were standing at the entrance. Ignoring them, he flew through the wall passing through several pieces until he stopped just in front of a door.

With but a thought, he materialized back in the real world then pushed open the door. He stepped in, not bothering to announce his presence, knowing he was expected.

"You are late."

"Not by much. Then again, I had an unexpected mission to fulfill." He replied to the sitting girl inside the room. The girl was none other than Yakumo, the Kurama clan heir.

"I'm not interrupting something, am I?" He wondered curiously as he saw Yakumo diligently painting. The question made her stop and she looked at Naruto, a glare on her otherwise unexpressive face.

"Are you mocking me?"

"How so?" He asked innocently.

"You know very well I can't do much in my sequestered state. Obviously you wouldn't be interrupting me."

"I'd be underestimating your imagination if I thought you couldn't find something useful to do in your situation."

Yakumo looked at him with a smile. It seemed forced but he thought it was better than a scowl.

"I see you mastered the art of insulting people while stroking their ego at the same time."

"Why, thank you!"

"It wasn't a compliment!" She yelled at him but he simply smirked, glad he was able to grate her nerves.

"Why don't you get to the point? For the past month you have been visiting me quite frequently. Is this another one of your visit or is there something more?"

Naruto lost his smirk as he was remembered the reasons of his presence here. Like she said, he had been meeting her frequently for the past month. His reasons being that he needed to learn more about Yakumo and her bloodline, make more tests to devise a way around her problem.

And today he was here with the response she had been waiting for.

"There is more to this meeting, indeed."

She looked expectantly at him, prompting him to talk.

"I have a good and a bad news for you. Which one should I tell you first?"

"Just get on with it."

He knew he was sometimes annoying but he couldn't help it. Having no social interaction could do that.

"The good news then. I have designed a way for you to deal with your Ido problem."

"You did?" She asked more surprised than anything. She had hoped he would find a cure of a kind to her, but not so fast. Still she waited for him to elaborate.

"I did. After you explained when the monster first appeared I had my suspicions. The tests I did next were enough to confirm it. The monster in your mind is nothing more than a creation of your power, a way for your body to cope with it."

"How so?"

"Simple put, your power was too great for your mind to handle. To protect itself, it created a personality of a sort – and yes the Ido isn't really a monster but a split personality – that could handle the power you had."

"That seems too easy to be true. What proofs do you have?"

"Remember the seals I used on you?"

"Yes, how could I forget that? You made me strip to do it."

Naruto loudly laughed at that. He was quite aware he was completely out of character but sometimes it felt good to just let himself enjoy his life.

"What's so funny?" She glared at him, her hands on her hips.

"The fact that it wasn't really necessary for you to be naked. I was joking when I said that."

"What?"

He laughed even more seeing her incredulous look. After a while, he calmed himself though.

"Anyway, the seals were used to run several diagnostics on you, mostly to examine your whole body. It is a nifty seal I came up with."

"Yeah, yeah! I don't care about that." She smirked at him upon seeing him glare at her for interrupting his moment.

"What would you know anyway?" He muttered to himself before continuing his explanations.

"Knowing what was the root of your problem, it was easy to design a measure against." He rummaged through his pocket and retrieved a white scroll.

"This scroll contains a seal that is to be applied on you. The seal has two purposes. First it blocks your special power, thus removing the Ido monster or split personality you have in your mind. The second purpose is to filter your power. It will act as a regulator to your power, giving you access to more and more of your power, based on your progress with it."

"By the way the first purpose is the bad news."

He finished to a stunned Yakumo. Already she could imagine herself being freed from the monster she held at bay in her mind. Needless to say that her choice was quickly made and she had Naruto apply the seal on her.

Two hours later, Naruto left the manor leaving an unconscious Yakumo behind, quite happy of a work well done. '_Only thing left is to find a cure for that toxin in her body. She'll need it if I don't want her to be a crippled._'

* * *

><p>He arrived at his hideout fifteen minutes later. With but a thought, he bypassed the countless detection measures he had set up around the area. Most of them were to keep dangerous animals away. Humans didn't come in this section of the forest, so he had little to fear of someone stumbling on his hideout.<p>

But to be on the safe side, he added some lethal security seals around the cave. They weren't perfect yet, as he had just reached mastery level in the sealing art, but he constantly updated them.

Once inside the cave, he moved to the large training ground he set up. He could see several groups of clones working hard, but he paid them no mind.

Finding a free area was hard, what with the number of clones littering the room. '_I'll need to find another training ground. There are too many clones now._' He was reminded that he could now extend his number of clones to a shocking five hundred.

This seemed to be the highest number of clones he could create and sustain mentally. He had tried to create more, but it seemed the clones became too unpredictable at that stage. So he stopped trying. Still the number was enough for his training purpose so he wasn't complaining.

Coming back to the matter at hands, he sat, cross-legged, on the hard floor and removed his shirt, leaving him bare-chested. His upper body was carved like rock. His muscles were salient and well defined. A contrast of what it had been three months ago.

Channeling chakra to his chest, two seals appeared. They were written in a circular pattern and seemed to form a whirlpool. The number _zero_ was carved in the middle of both seals.

"The gravity and density seal, my most recent creation. It is time for a test run." He said out loud as he slowly channeled chakra to the gravity seal first.

As expected, he felt his body weight increase as the number went from zero to two. This means that his body was now experiencing double time the normal gravity. As he weighted no less than 120 pounds, that meant he was now carrying 120 extra pounds.

This was the same amount he carried when he used the training weights, so he wasn't feeling that much difference. At least he thought so until he tried to stand.

Needless to say he fell hard on his butt, out of breath.

"What the fuck is going on?" He wondered, not understanding why he couldn't handle that much gravity.

He reduced the level of the seal to number _one_ and was able to stand up this time.

"This is strange, despite having no extra pounds, I feel like I am being crushed by my weight."

"That must be because the seal apply the same amount of weight on every parts of your body. Usually, the human body shift his balance to carry our weight, thus some parts of our body do not experience the same weight."

Naruto whirled around to see a clone of his talking to him.

"So what you are saying is that the weights I used before, only trained parts of my body, and not all of it?"

"Exactly. I expect that this feature will tremendously increase our body's sturdiness. After all this gravity seal was made to increase our body denseness, making our bones harder and overall, giving us more strength." The clone explained to a nodding Naruto.

"I know that. The gravity seal was made for strength, while the density seal is solely for speed. Now go back to your training, slacker!"

"Aye, aye!"

After ushering the clone away, he focused back on his task. Slowly he moved around the area, testing his steps like a newly walking baby. After a while, he even started running but quickly stopped, completely exhausted.

"This will take a while. Fortunately, I'll be focusing on physical training, leaving the rest to my clones."

An hour or so later, he sat on the ground, leaning against a boulder. He had finished testing both seal and was happy they seemed to be working fine. The density seal increased the wind pressure around him and constricted his movements. The simple task of lifting his hand demanded tremendous effort on his part. But that was a good thing to him, as he would be continuously training his body.

Taking a well-deserved rest, he chose to observe his clones training. The first group he looked at was the one working on the _white chakra_. So far, he was happy with his progress on that part.

Normally it would've taken him much longer to progress that far, as he had no information on he techniques related to the bloodline. But when he copied the bloodline, he also understood perfectly what the strand of DNA was supposed to accomplish. With that in mind, it was easy to come up with the best training methods to master the bloodline.

The _white chakra_ was a body bloodline, yet it didn't pertain to nature transformation. It gave its user the ability to transform his chakra in a denser form of it, taking a white color as a result. This new energy held two purposes: _sharpness and explosiveness_.

Simply put, the user could blow away or easily pierce through whatever he touched with the chakra. The force of the explosion depended on the amount of chakra used, same with the sharpness.

When used with weapons like Kunai or shurikens, it could turn them into flying bombs or laser like weapons capable of piercing through anything.

That is what he used against Sasuke.

Right now, he could see the group of clones, working on the speed at which he coated the weapons and threw them. He knew that they would find some interesting uses of this power in time, but for now they opted to combine it with weapons.

He looked at another group. This one worked in pair and seemed to be having a lot of fun. This group worked on Genjutsu, specifically on the Kurama secret technique.

He had long since learned how to manipulate all the humans sense, of course only one at a time. Now he was working on the reason behind the Kurama's impossibly strong illusion: _layering the illusions with several others_.

The illusions cast by the Kurama members weren't much stronger than the ones normally cast by others. The difference was the several layers of the same illusion they cast at the same time. Because of this, whenever someone tried to dispel the illusion, they only found themselves in the same environment, making them think they weren't in an illusion in the first place.

Even if they discovered the deception, by the time they had dispelled all the layers, the caster would have destroyed them. The average Kurama elite was able to add 2 layers on his illusions while the most advanced could reach a staggering number of 10 layers.

Even the Sharingan had a hard time coping with all that influx of information. During all their confrontation, a Kurama member never once left alive anyone that discovered their secret, as, if it was widespread, then their advantage would be lost.

Right now, the clones were working on adding one layer to their illusion, but it was a difficult task. Still he knew that in time, he'd do this as easily as he breathed.

His observations done, he went about establishing another program for the next month. He had about 200 more clones available so it was large enough for his endeavors.

"First I have to start working on my elemental manipulation. Wind is first as it is my affinity." He had done the test earlier that day to find which element he was compatible with. Wind had been the one, so he decided to start with it.

Not that he would learn the other elements. It was true that a ninja only possessed one affinity, but by training, one could acquire another one, like the jounin ninjas did.

"Also I'll be focusing on the seal on my stomach next time. I can't have an unknown seal on me like that."

He nodded to himself as he decided to have 100 clones for the elemental training and the 100 left for studying the seal keeping Kyuubi at bay.

* * *

><p><strong>1 MONTH LATER –<strong>

* * *

><p>The Uchiha's compound, or what was left of it after the clan massacre, held a very special room. So special that even among them it was a secret. Only the clan elites could access it. Although the clan head family members were exempt of this rule.<p>

The content of the room was the reason behind the secrecy. Indeed, most if not all secrets pertaining to the clan were stored there. The Uchiha library being one such thing was also stored in that room. It maybe was the most filled library currently existing in the village.

Considering every Uchiha was required to record every technique they ever copied be it from enemy's ninja or even Konoha's own, it wasn't farfetched to assume the library to be the most complete one in fire country.

Thanks to this rule, more than two thousand jutsus were recorded here. It was one of their most guarded secret and for a good reason. If the village had known of its existence, they would stop at nothing to gain access to it. Adding their low standing in the village, it was easy to guess that their refusal would have led them being labeled as traitors.

**Traitor**, a concept with so many different meanings. It was based on the perception of a lone person or even a government. The Uchiha were labeled traitors even before Konoha was built. But that was outsiders' opinion. For an Uchiha, the same concept held an entirely different meaning.

They grew in a clan that stopped at nothing to achieve greatness. For them, stabbing their friends in the back was fair game, as long as they gained something of equal value in return.

Knowing that every Uchiha grew with this concept in mind, it was obvious the alliance between the Senju and them was doomed to fail. There simply existed a too big moral difference between them for it to work. Of course, at the time of the alliance, both clans preferred to hide from the truth, instead of dealing with it.

The only ones who tried to deal with it were the Shodaime Hokage _Hashirama Senju _and his eternal rival _Uchiha Madara_.

The two ninjas had their own way of dealing with it of course. Hashirama simply did everything he could to make his clan Konoha's top dog, knowing the first one to strike, in this case by becoming Hokage, would hold an enormous advantage over the other.

In Madara's case, it was the same idea but they went about it in a completely different way. While Hashirama used political resources, Madara forced his way through brute strength. When it didn't work, he challenged Hashirama for the hokage title. As the history shows, it didn't end very well for him, as the Shodaime, despite facing the legendary nine tails at the same time, bested him.

This defeat marked the end of the Uchiha clan. Of course at the time, they didn't even suspect a thing. And by the time they noticed and tried to counter it, it was too late. They had already lost too much standing compared to the other clans in the village.

But this story is for another time. Right now, sitting inside that special room, was a lone ninja with raven black hairs that many had compared to a duck ass, to the displeasure of the owner. The room was covered in darkness. Not even an ounce of light was visible.

The ninja was none other than the last Uchiha in Konoha, Sasuke Uchiha. He was contemplating what happened since he became a genin, and he didn't like what he saw. He always was a very proud individual. Even before the massacre. He didn't know why, but for him, being mocked or ridiculed was an affront he couldn't let slide. That is the real reason he wanted to surpass Itachi when they were little. He couldn't accept the fact that his own brother was so much more powerful than him. And as if to rub salt into the wound, his father always reminded him of that.

That pushed him to train hard since a very young age, train to be the best. Knowing that he couldn't surpass his brother, not yet anyway, he did his best to be the greater one among his peers. Always pushing beyond whatever limits he stumbled upon.

But when the massacre happened, he did something that he'd never forget: _he ran away; he fled from his brother like a coward_.

This was something he simply couldn't ignore. It was the proof that he had been a coward that day. Knowing that the only way to redeem himself and regain his honor was to face his brother, he vowed to kill him the first chance he got.

That, in fact, was the true reason behind his need for revenge.

He wasn't doing this for his family that was murdered that night.

He wasn't doing this for his clan's honor, if they even had any.

And he certainly wasn't doing this for Konoha.

No! The only reason he was doing this was to regain _his_ honor, nothing more and nothing less.

As he recalled everything that happened since that day, the day he lost everything, he couldn't help but frown in distaste. He saw in his mind, how he trained everyday to reach unprecedented level, for a child his age anyway. He saw the way he became rookie of the year but kept pushing himself to new heights.

But what made him frown was when he saw himself beginning to take his title in class for granted. Flaunting his skills for anyone to see, like an idiot. How he seemingly stopped training as much as before, when no one could challenge him anymore.

Then he relived the teams' placement ceremony. He saw again first hand, just how much Naruto improved, speed wise, in only one week. Something that should have raised alarms to him, but as always since he became arrogant, he shrugged it off, thinking himself untouchable.

During the first few months of his genin days, he saw himself lazing around instead of training. How he learned a few jutsus from his sensei Kakashi, and didn't even bother trying to increase his strength and speed. Then came the wake up call: his humiliating defeat at Naruto's hands.

To be fair, he didn't resent Naruto. Not much. Ok, who was he kidding, he resented him, even hated him, for taking his place as the most powerful genin of their graduating class. But something happened during that battle that made him forget all of his anger towards Naruto, and also awakened his real self again. He couldn't help but remember how it happened.

** Flashback**

Sasuke was quickly falling on the ground thanks to the explosion of his fireball. He felt pain in his arm, probably from the burns he sustained while protecting himself from the explosion. It wasn't long before he was slammed on ground, his back first.

He couldn't help but silently scream because of the pain he was in.

'_A good thing I reinforced my back with so much chakra_' he thought fighting the exhaustion.

But as always, his pride wouldn't allow him to back down, so with great difficulty, he rose from the ground until he stood still. He was shaking, or rather his legs were shaking as he was too tired to hold himself, but he didn't care. He wouldn't give Naruto the satisfaction of seeing him give up. After all, he vowed to never run or give up again, after the massacre.

Anyway, he looked at Naruto in the eyes, glaring at him. It was then that he saw the smirk on his opponent's lips, and like before, he didn't saw Naruto's hand movements, only that his arm was extended as if he just launched a kunai at him. Alarmed by it, he diverted his sight to the fast approaching flying weapon of death, and couldn't stop the gasp that came from his mouth when he saw it.

The kunai was flying fast, too fast to be normal, and just like that, everything around him slowed down. '_Is it the battle awareness I heard so much about? Everything is so clear now? What is happening?_' he thought shocked.

Suddenly he noticed something, it seemed that the kunai was coated with white chakra. '_What is this color? Is this what is making the kunai so much faster than the normal thrown kunai?_' Then as if a fog was lifted from his mind, he finally remembered that something like this was supposed to happen when an Uchiha awakened their legendary dojutsu the _Sharingan_.

After that, it didn't take him long to understand that he just awakened his dojutsu. And just after that he was knocked to ground, enabling him to dodge the kunai.

** End Flashback**

After that event and his stay at the hospital, he quickly went home, and tried to activate his dojutsu by sending chakra to his eyes. At first he didn't succeed, as he needed to find the right amount of chakra. But a few tries later, he had them activated, and couldn't be any happier. His pupils had changed from their onyx black to a red color with a black tomoe in each one.

After that event, he rigorously trained for the next month. But unlike what many would have expected of him by now. He didn't flaunt it to anyone in the village. No! Instead he decided to use it as a trump card. And thus hid it even from his sensei.

During that time He trained in every ninjas art except his dojutsu, as he finally came to the conclusion that he had neglected his training too much. He wanted to attain the level he was supposed to be at, if he had kept training.

And he was satisfied with the result. In just a month, he significantly increased his speed and strength, while at the same time, using the secret library of the Uchiha, to learn more useful jutsu like _Shunshin no jutsu_. He even began his elemental training in the lightning element, which was his affinity.

But coming back to the matter at hands, he was sitting in the secret room that housed all of the Uchiha secrets. He had been sitting there for a good thirty minutes trying to decide on what to do.

When he came inside the room like always, trying to find something new he could learn, he activated his dojutsu just for the kick of it. After all, he hadn't activated it since a long time.

Upon activation, everything seemed fine, but a minute or so later, a shelf appeared in front of him. That shocked the heck of him. But he regained his senses, and looked inside it only to find a lone scroll that seemed ragged by the time. Since then he had sat there, trying to decide what to do, when finally he reached for the scroll, and carefully opened it. After reading the first few lines, he was simply amazed by it.

_To whoever finds this scroll,_

_The first thing I can say is congratulations in finding my masterpiece. This is the work of my life. It took me the better part it to make this scroll for whoever in the future that was worthy of it._

_You must be wondering who I am. That is an easy answer. I am called Hideki Uchiha, and I am for most of the clan, an average ninja. But that is alright, I never sought any forms of recognition anyway, especially not in this era where every well known ninja is a target for the other clans, especially for those bastards the Senju. They always try to make themselves seem as innocents, even though every ninja is everything but innocent. After all, they kill for a living, so what make them innocents._

_But I digress; I am not here to bore you with troublesome stories of this era. What is inside this scroll is simply put my greatest discovery. You see, I've always asked myself why is that most of our ninja activate their Sharingan with more than one tomoes in at least one pupil. Of course there are ninja who activate their dojutsu with only one tomoe in each eye. So I did this research, mostly by using myself as a test subject, and a few other willing Uchiha._

_What I discovered was beyond my wildest dream. Unlike what most of the Uchiha think, the fact that you activated your Sharingan with more than one tomoe in a pupil, doesn't mean that you have a greater potential than those who only had one in each pupil. Quite the opposite in fact. If you have activated your eyes with only one tomoe in each eye, then that means you have the opportunity to reach a mastery of the Sharingan that can rival or even surpass the legendary Mangekyou Sharingan of that wretched Madara and his brother._

_Now, if you are reading this, then that means you satisfy the conditions mentioned above. So be ready to learn the truth about the Sharingan, or rather how to train it properly unlike what the Uchiha do this day …_

After reading this, he became so engrossed in it, that he didn't even notice the time passing quickly outside. He didn't know it at the time, but this scroll would change him into a very dangerous ninja in the near future, and would help him accomplishing his dream.

* * *

><p><strong>WITH NARUTO –<strong>

* * *

><p>While Sasuke was discovering the work of one of his ancestors, Naruto was soaring above the village in his phantom form. Two months after stealing a bloodline, he was hungry for more. That is why he was looking for his next target.<p>

As he flew toward his destination, he recalled the harsh training regiment he went through the past month. His Genjutsu training had gone pretty well, as he was now able to add two layers on all his illusions. An accomplishment he was proud of.

This had the benefit of strengthening his already superb Genjutsu abilities. Still, for the moment he had decided to stop at two layers for now and instead focus on learning how to cast illusion that simultaneously manipulated two senses.

This would be another big step in his improvement and he was happy for it. His main objective was to attain the impossible: cast a Genjutsu that controlled all five senses. From the record he had access to, no one had ever done it. But he didn't have the word impossible in his vocabulary; at least that is what he told himself.

His elemental training also went well, extremely well even. By using 100 clones for thirty days, he had done 3000 days worth of training, which equaled more than 8 years worth of wind manipulation training. Needless to say his understanding of his wind affinity reached a whole new level.

Unfortunately he didn't have jutsus of the wind types, as Kakashi or Mizuki weren't wind natured. And despite Kakashi's enormous knowledge, he didn't have much in the wind department.

Because of this, he focused on wind manipulation and thinking on several way to make use of it. In a way this was a blessing, as most of his techniques didn't require long hand seals. But it took time for him to shape them, something he would need to remedy soon.

His studies of the seal keeping the fox at bay had been heart wrenching to say the least. Only after a week of having an hundred clones trying to decipher it, he had discovered several hidden functions of the seal. Most of them were geared toward controlling the bearer, in other words, him.

His findings had been so alarming that he reassigned the 100 clones devoted on creating new seals, to help the already one hundred clones in the task of deciphering and disabling all the nasty parts of his seal.

Needless to say that two hundreds clones, working on it all day long, made short work of the seal. At least something good came out of this endeavor. By studying that seal, he was able to copy several well thought designs in it, especially a particular seal that worked by compressing the kanji in an unreadable shape.

By trying to come up with solutions against the different parts of the seal, he improved so much that it was scary. While the hidden functions of the seal raised alarms in his mind, he put it at the back of his mind for now.

For a while, he had wondered why his father implemented those functions in the seal, for what purpose. But he didn't have enough information to answer that question, so he simply took it upon himself to fix the "mistakes" that were made.

He was forced back to reality when he reached his target's position. He was in a far away training ground. The area was still inside Konoha, thus well protected from foreigners, but at the same time it was far away from town, allowing his user to go about his training undisturbed.

This was extremely necessary for the user, as he was working on something that was expressly forbidden by his pairs, the main branch of the Hyuuga clan.

This ninja was none other than Neji Hyuuga and Naruto's next target.

For the last week, he had trailed the genin, until he had noted all his habits. He knew everything the boy did every day. Why was he so meticulous for this? Simple, unlike with Kakashi, he couldn't afford to let the village know that another ninja was attacked, especially not one with a bloodline.

If he stole the Byakugan and then the village noticed it, it wouldn't take long for them to put the two attacks together and conclude that he was somehow able to stole bloodlines.

He couldn't have that, so he prepared himself for this mission. He had no room for errors this time.

Below him, he could see Neji working on a Kata he saw one of the main branch member use. Suffice to say that the boy deserved his genius title. To be able to recreate advanced katas like that, after seeing them once, was nothing short of prodigious. He knew he couldn't do the same, not without his army of clones working with him, and that increased his respect for the boy.

Yet it wasn't time for praise, he reminded himself as he materialized in the real world.

The second he did so, Neji noticed him and quickly whirled around looking at him.

"Who are you?" He growled at the masked Naruto who simply smirked at him.

"You have your dojutsu activated, can't you tell who I am with it?" It seemed like a challenge to Neji.

The latter not liking his tone, did just that and focused his Byakugan on Naruto, enhancing the bloodline until he pierced through Naruto's clothes, seeing his chakra system and much more.

But when he tried to see through the mask, he was met with resistance. This shocked him to his core. Never before had the Byakugan failed to see through something, at least he wasn't aware of any failures.

"Seeing your expression, I assume you cannot do so. Very interesting, it seems like the seal work perfectly."

Once again, Naruto mocked Neji with the tone of his voice. Still he wasn't here for pleasantry. Without warnings, he blurred towards Neji and would have round kicked him if the latter hadn't ducked low.

Not understanding what was going on, yet knowing his life was in danger, Neji quickly entered battle mode, focusing entirely on the fight at hands.

People knew that the Byakugan gave the Hyuuga a tremendous advantage in any fight, especially with their Jyuken. But they always overlooked the extreme awareness it granted them. With his bloodline activated, he could see everything around him as if he was up close. Moreover, he was free to design complex battle plans.

While Naruto was still airborne, he reached for the extended leg and poked it with his finger, expulsing chakra through them. He repeated the process on several parts before the body exploded in smoke.

Not bothered by it, he charged out of the smoke toward an empty spot and seemed to fight with an invisible attacker. As the assault increased, Naruto's shape slowly appeared as he dodged the furious blows of his opponent.

Not liking how close he was to Neji, his chakra spiked and the latter jumped backward just in time to dodge a violent wind sphere that surrounded Naruto.

As he landed on the ground Neji narrowed his eyes at his attacker. '_Such incredible shape manipulation, only master of the wind can do such thing, I have heard.'_

He was forced to dodge again though, when the previous wind sphere was transformed in a spear that flew at him at incredible speed.

Upon regaining his focus, he whirled around and palmed the air in front of him. "_Hakke Kusho_" A vacuum shell was launched from his arm toward a disbelieving Naruto who just appeared in the spot, using Shunshin.

With no time to dodge, he took the hit head on and was propelled backward until he slammed on a tree.

Wanting to take advantage of the situation, Neji ran at him, chakra gathering in his palm for a finishing blow. But before he could reach him, another Naruto intercepted him and engaged in Taijutsu battle.

Despite Naruto's huge improvement in the Taijutsu area and his speed, he still wasn't a match for the phenomenal speed Neji hands seemed to move at. When he caught Neji's hands and swept his legs off the ground, the latter while in midair, released chakra from his arm, freeing them from Naruto's hold. He then used the surprise to catch Naruto off guard by poking his knees and legs as he fell on the ground.

Rotating in midair, he landed in a crouched position, on his feet, while Naruto seemed to be falling face forward, having lost control of his legs. But Neji didn't stop there as he rose with an uppercut palm on Naruto's chin.

The power behind the attack was so strong that Naruto flew off the ground before dispelling.

Neji looked at the tree Naruto was before, only to see no one there. '_How does he create those clones so fast? He was able to create that one when he received my attack earlier._' Neji wondered while surveying his surroundings for his attacker.

Not finding him anywhere, he increased the range of his Byakugan until he reached 200 meters away. But what he saw scared him.

Because at the edge of his vision, he could see a dome of chakra take shape. On it, he could see strange scripts he recognized as seals, but he wasn't proficient enough in them to understand their purpose.

He whirled around as he saw Naruto chakra trail fly until it was behind him, where the latter appeared in a swirl of leaves, signaling his use of Shunshin.

"What is the purpose of that barrier you put up?" He immediately asked to a surprised Naruto.

"You can see it? Interesting." He added no more as several clones materialized beside him. With but a gesture, the clones rushed at Neji who was forced to deal with them.

He was forced to focus on the clones else he made a mistake they would capitalize on. This situation didn't please him, as he didn't want to leave someone like his opponent out of sight even for an instant.

After a while, he dispatched the last one of the clones and looked at Naruto only to see something quite frightening. In front of him floated a humongous dragon made of wind. The eyes of the creature seemed to pierce through his soul.

"You are indeed worthy of your tittle of genius, to be able to dispatch my clones like that. But play time is over."

He heard Naruto said before the dragon lurched backward then dived at him, clearly intent on devouring him whole. A strident sound resonated around the area as the dragon moved, certainly because of the friction with the ambient air. Neji thought before rotating on himself, exuding chakra from all his Tenketsus.

"_Kaiten_" a sphere of chakra surrounded Neji protectively.

The two attacks collided and for a second Neji seemed to hold against the onslaught but it was only for a second.

'_Shit, I have not trained with this technique yet._' That was his last thought before the creature went through the chakra sphere like a knife through butter and crushed him to the ground.

Yet, as quickly as the attack landed, Naruto stopped it with a hand gesture.

"No need to damage him much more after all. And he is unconscious anyway."

As he said that, he approached his victim with a smile on his face. Everything had gone as planned. At first he had wanted to go after Hiashi the clan head, but it was too risky. While it would have been interesting with the information he surely would have gained from such important figure's mind, it wasn't worth the risks.

Finally he opted to attack someone that wasn't as protected as the main branch members. And his gambling paid off.

Without preamble, he transformed in his phantom form and dived inside Neji's body. A few moments later, he had every bit of memories and skills Neji possessed, including his prized bloodline the Byakugan.

Still his task wasn't done; first he removed Neji's forehead protector, exposing the _Caged Bird Seal_. His interest on it had been picked when he witnessed the memory of its application on Neji. Being someone always intrigued by seals, he quickly took his brush and a blank scroll then he wrote with dexterity people would kill for.

A minute or so later, the seal he had in mind was complete. After checking to be sure nothing was amiss, he laid it on the ground and put Neji's forehead at the middle of it.

Channeling chakra on the scroll, he smiled when the scripts he wrote was replaced by the seal on Neji's forehead, a copy of it anyway. What he just used was a seal of his own design that could decompress a seal and put it on a scroll. He had used it to decipher the seal on his stomach.

The task done, he rolled the scroll before taking another sealing tag from his pocket and slammed it on Neji's forehead. This one was a memory seal he had found in Kakashi's memory, a design from his father.

The seal replaced short-term memory with something completely random, and then dissolved, leaving no trace of its existence.

His task done, he disabled the seal and fled the area.

A few hours later when Neji would wake up, he would have no memories of having been attacked. His state would worry him, but the false memories supplied would make him think he had a rather rough training session.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's<strong> **Note:**

I hope you liked the chapter. You can review to either ask any questions you may have.

See you soon for the next chapter.


	7. Chapter 6: R and D

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto. It is the propriety of Kishimoto.

Hello everyone, I present you the next chapter of Clash of Realms. Hope you like it.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6: R and D<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA –<strong>

* * *

><p>A few days had gone by since Naruto acquired his new bloodline: the Byakugan. For a day or so, he used the dojutsu not unlike a young child having received a new toy. The effect on his sight was disconcerting to say the least.<p>

He had once believed, like everyone lacking the dojutsu, that the eye allowed its user to see around himself as if he had eyes on the back of the head. But that wasn't the case. The Byakugan didn't really work like an eye, more like a field of vision that could be extended and manipulated at the user discretion.

To put it bluntly, when Naruto activated the dojutsu, it was like a dome was created around him. Its size depended on the proficiency of its user. On the first activation, the dome had a range of 50 meters around himself, wherein he could feel everything. Although he quickly discovered a glaring weakness to said eyes, a blind spot at the back of his neck. It extended until the edge of the vision. Still that wasn't a concern of his for the moment, as he already planned to find a way around it.

While he was far from gaining a modicum of mastery over it, the eyes still proved their usefulness in other areas, such as spying and information gathering. Concealing his eyes when activated was an easy matter with his growing illusion skills. Everyday he dispatched five to seven clones all around the village. The clones' only goal was to learn how to read people with the newly gained eyes and occasionally spy on other ninjas.

Dismissing the thoughts for now, he focused on his own training. Mechanically, he moved through his kata imagining his opponent reacting to his movements. The moves came from the official Anbu fighting style. He might hate Kakashi but even he had to admit the guy knew his stuff. The amount of knowledge he gained from the jounin's mind was staggering to say the least.

He was about to start another kata when a clone materialized behind him in a swirl of leaves. Stopping his movements, he sighed in exasperation.

"Is there a reason you interrupted me?"

The clone just grinned widely at the question. "You won't believe what I just found!"

Not in the mood for any charade, Naruto urged him to get to the point.

"I found it!"

"You found what?" Now intrigued, he looked at his clone as he questioned him.

"I found the facility… The R and D facility we were looking for, I found it!"

Widening his eyes in surprise, Naruto swiftly stood at the ready and narrowed his eyes at the clone.

"You're serious there? Because if it is another one of your jokes…" He left the threat hanging as he thought about what facility the clone was talking about.

For a while now, he had given several of his clones the task of finding the elusive Research and Development facility, but to no avail. Just like his namesake, it was very well hidden from prying eyes. The only information he had on it was that it conducted experiment on Yakumo's bloodline. The fact that it was a closely guarded secret even among the higher ups of the village, was a given. After all, it wouldn't do for the village to be associated to the idea of experimentation on human beings.

"I'm serious boss. I found it by luck when I was working on the Byakugan. You don't believe me? Come with me and you'll see." The clone exclaimed as he tapped his right foot on the ground to make a point.

"I've got a better idea"

"Oh… And that's…" The clone never got to finish as he disappeared in a puff of smoke. The original closed his eyes as he relived everything his clone went through for the day.

Upon opening his eyes, a permanent smile seemed sketched on his face. He couldn't believe his luck. _'He was telling the truth after all… I better get there myself and see what they are up to_.' He thought before giving some instructions to his clones training a few meters away from him. Then he transformed in his phantom form and flew toward the location of the facility.

The flight there didn't take that much time, especially when he knew quite well where the facility was situated. A short while later he finally stopped above a forested area. The surroundings didn't sound appealing and no one could be expected to find such thing in the area.

"The place seems isolated enough. Neither too far nor too close to the village. No wonder no one found out about it. And that is not even including the fact that everything is underground."

He casually said to himself before activating the Byakugan. His sight switched at once, giving him the rush of excitation he associated with the eye technique. Like a god peering at his subjects, he gazed through the trees and soil until he had a perfect view of the underground buildings.

'_No wonder the Hyuga have such a stick up their ass. Gotta admit being able to look through everything is awesome.'_

While deep in thought he still went about doing his business. Disregarding whatever entry system existed for the facility, Naruto simply flew through the ground. '_Being intangible sure has its perks_' He absentmindedly thought. He quickly reached the first underground floor, which seemed deserted to say the least. But he knew better.

The facility had a total of four floors. Each one seemed specialized on a specific area of expertise. Using his Byakugan, he observed in depth the first floor. Every nook, every corner was analyzed and committed to memory.

'_There're only three people on this floor. A little low compared to the other ones!_' He thought curiously as he moved into the room the scientists seemed to be working at. Each one wore a white blouse, though he didn't linger on their physical attributes, just enough to identify them should he sees them outside the facility.

He looked intently as they tested a metal in a strange liquid. Upon soaking the metal in the liquid, fumes rose from it, indicating the liquid or the metal itself was very hot. He could see several kind of machineries that he had no idea of their purpose whatsoever. Still he could correctly guess that they were testing the resistance of the metal.

Further analyzing the rooms in the first floor, he saw plethora of weapons, ranging from kunais, shurikens to sword and the like. He even saw a sword that seemed to vibrate at a high frequency.

'_This floor must be specialized in weapons development. I'll have to absorb the memory of one of the scientists to better understand what they are working on!_' He idly thought as he flew to the second floor. He had seen everything he needed on the first, so he saw no need to linger there.

The first thing he noticed on the second floor was that everything seemed sterilized. There was no speck of dust anywhere on that floor. Knowing that such cleanliness couldn't be normal, he suspected an artificial mean was used to clean the floor. What mean, he had no idea, but he could certainly guess several possibilities.

He counted seven scientists. Each one seemed to work on their own project. Looking around, he saw a room used to store hundred of labeled tube. The few names he recognized indicated they were drugs. Some were used in hospital, while other were common poison.

'_A biological engineering facility I see. I shudder to think what discoveries they have kept hidden from the world at large or whatever poison they have designed and used out there, with none the wiser.'_

Once again, he didn't linger and went down to the third floor. He immediately noticed the difference as he counted over twenty scientists. This time, they seemed to be working on only one project. The giant room they were all working at was a dead give away. Still what he saw in that room stunned him.

A machine the size of a two storied building was being attended to by those scientists. He could hear people barking orders and instructions but he didn't pay attention to that. What he was focused on was the "heart" of the machine that seemed to house a glass container.

The glass was tainted and didn't allow anyone to see what was inside. But thanks to his Byakugan he saw the interior of the container as clear as day. And what he saw inside was nothing short of freaky. A bubbly red stuff seemed to float aimlessly at the center of the container. He had no idea what the thing was, but it looked a little too much like blood for him to dismiss it.

'_Is this the project they are working on using Yakumo's bloodline? Or is it something else?_' He wondered as he observed the workers slowly assemble the machine.

He could see that whatever they were building wouldn't be completed for a while now. He didn't know how long it would take and if there was another one like that existing somewhere else. So his first course of action would be to learn everything he could about the thing.

Unfortunately, stealing the memories of one of the scientists wasn't a viable option for now. What with none of them being isolated. He couldn't afford to let his presence here be discovered by Sarutobi. This was obviously one of his trump card, so it was better to keep his knowledge of it a secret for now.

Oh he would destroy the machine before it was completed, that was for sure. But right now he had other matters to attend to, like the large office that served as the fourth and last floor of the facility.

Flying through the ground, he quickly reached the last floor. Unlike the other floors, which housed several rooms, this one only held two. One where he could see a library of a sort and a worktable. And another room with hundreds of seals covering its walls.

Disregarding the second room for now, he went for the library. Not only was he curious about what it may contain, but he wondered to which it belonged. _Obviously the one in charge of this facility._ He murmured to himself as he passed through the wall and stood in front of the shelves.

Strangely enough, most of the book seemed related to human physiology. There were books on anatomy, bones structure, nervous system and the likes. Skipping through them, he searched for the more esoteric kind of books. After a while he did found something that peeked his interest: _Seals Materialization and Rituals_.

He had no idea what they were despite his growing knowledge in the art. _As far as I can remember, Kakashi know nothing about it_. He thought, searching for information about it. Finding none, he decided to copy the book for himself.

This was done by materializing in the real world and using a basic — although difficult to apply — sealing technique to copy the material on a blank scroll. His task done, he searched the room for anything unusual.

When he found nothing else of importance, he decided to move to the next room, which was protected with several complex sealing scripts. He wasn't ashamed to admit that most of them went over his head. Yet he resolved himself to get better at it. He knew better than anyone the possibilities with sealing technique, and preferred not to be at the mercy of one such technique sometimes in the future.

Still, it was in this room that he found it, the objects that would help solve several mysteries: _The log of all the experiments undertaken in the facility._

"Without a doubt, the information about Yakumo's experimentation will be stored here. Though I don't think it would be a good idea to materialize in that room until I know what those seals are for."

Although disappointed by his impromptu visit, he still counted that as a success. The prospect of someday gaining access to such information was very appealing.

Several minutes later, he left the facility to go back to his training.

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA — RESIDENTIAL AREA — <strong>

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><p>Unlike other ninjas village, Konoha didn't separate its ninja population from the civilian's one. Villages like Kumo, which are strongly militarized, prefer having a residential area for their ninjas and another one for the civilians. To them, a civilian cannot be granted access to their soldier dwellings, less they come upon classified information.<p>

However well thought it seemed, Konoha didn't believe in that. They advocated the mixing of both parts in hope of having the two sides come to an understanding.

Going by such philosophy, we could rightfully assume that Naruto's apartment was situated in a residential area for both civilians and ninjas. But that would be wrong.

Naruto's apartment was situated in a rather isolated area. This new apartment was given to him after his old one was torched by an angry mob a few months ago. From a few yards away, the building looked rather plain. No particular decoration to note. The place seemed deserted with the lack of lives in the surrounding area.

That's the first thing Kakashi noticed while walking toward said building.

While walking, he observed the surroundings, trying to find any clues of Naruto's whereabouts. Upon standing in front of the two stories building's entrance, he pushed open the door. Darkness greeted him as he searched for the light switch.

'_Found!_' He thought before turning on the lights.

A quick sweep of the place was enough before he went upstairs. The way he moved indicated he was familiar with the place. '_This building hasn't been cleaned for a while now. Then again, no one lives here beside Naruto._' He muttered to himself while walking toward Naruto's apartment.

A short-while later and he stood in front of the room's entrance. Knowing Naruto hadn't set foot on the area for a while now, he just opened the door without announcing himself. Once again, he turned on the lights in the room, but wasn't surprised when no light came.

"Of course! The boy never paid for electricity. I'm even surprised the light work in the building. What with no one living here."

Having no other choices, Kakashi opened the stores instead, letting the sun rays brighten the room.

Now that he could perfectly see the place, he noticed with surprise that it was very neat. Everything seemed perfectly ordered and put in position to maximize free space. If it wasn't for the large layers of dust, he would have thought someone lived here.

Still, he wasn't in Naruto's room for this. Ever since he learned that said boy possessed his family's bloodline, he became obsessed. Obsessed with the method Naruto used to activate the bloodline that is. He couldn't care less how Naruto came to possess the bloodline. Neither was he interested in Naruto being a lost member of his clan. Like most in Konoha, he had already made his mind about him and wouldn't change his views anytime soon.

With easy, he summoned four nin dogs and had them snoop through every nook. Their only objective: _to find a clue on the boy whereabouts and any scroll that would indicate the method used to activate the white chakra bloodline._

While the dogs searched the place, he contemplated the situation he found himself in. He had inquired about the investigation on Naruto's case, but was always rebuked by the Hokage. After a while, he became fed up with the situation and decided to take the matter in his capable hands.

First he looked through the records, hoping to find something about Naruto's past. No one — to his knowledge — knew whose clan Naruto belonged to or if the boy was from civilian ancestry. Naruto's past had been well kept from the public after all. The fact that the boy had his bloodline was a clue Kakashi used to start his investigation.

He searched through his family's records but came up empty. If there was a connection he didn't see it. That avenue closed, he resorted to looking through Naruto's life records. And once again he found nothing amiss except maybe several indications that should have alerted people in the ninja academy that the boy was more than he appeared to be.

He was interrupted when one of his dog barked with excitation. Quickly, he zipped through the room until he was standing above the dog. Kneeling beside the animal, he touched the flooring and noticed that it sounded hollow. With a smile, he removed the plate. His eyes brightened at the sight of a wooden safe box.

Throwing caution to the wind, he put the box on the sole table of the piece before lifting up the lid. An action he immediately regretted as the only thing he saw inside was a sizzling paper. Widening his eyes, he immediately switched with a chair close to the window before jumping through it.

He fell on the ground and waited for the explosion… and waited… and waited, but nothing happened. Confused, he sent a clone to the room to see what was going on.

A few minutes later, he felt his clone disperse and got its memories. To say he was angry was too weak a word to describe his actual feeling.

"A fucking prank! That boy is so dead when I see him!" He growled lowly while moving away from the building. His clone had looked inside the box only to find it filled with flakes used for parties and a victory flag with the word "sucker" below it.

Seeing this, the clone couldn't help but sweat drop at the choice of prank. Obviously he saw the hidden meaning of the prank: _the boy could have killed him if it was a real explosive note_.

Naruto's Jinchuuriki status wasn't the only reason ninjas of the village were wary of him. The boy's pranks were another reason for their distrust. Every prank Naruto did was done in such a way that were he to replace the harmless paint by something deadly, the target would have died.

Because of the boy aloof nature, no one knew if it was a warning or just a prank. Still better safe than sorry, so the ninjas chose to tread lightly with him.

After a while of moving on autopilot, Kakashi found himself standing in front of a rather large compound. The huge gate barring entry to everyone, adorned a white wolf on its material. Kakashi looked at the insignia with nostalgia. '_The Hatake symbol…_' he thought morosely.

Once upon a time, the clan was widely known and revered. But today it was just a remnant, nothing more. '_The only surviving member is unable to use his own bloodline. What a joke I am._' He thought as he opened the gate using his blood and chakra to grant himself entry.

It had been a while since he set foot on this ground. After his father suicide, he buried himself in his ninja training in order to become greater than anyone else. He had to, if he wanted to restore his family honors — in his eyes at least —.

Moving through handseals, he summoned once more several nin dogs to search the compound. This time though one of the dogs stayed with him.

"Kakashi-san, it has been a while!"

"That it has, Pakkun. That it has." Kakashi replied to the dog. Leaving the other nin dogs to search through the compound, he proceeded to the main house where is father once resided.

"Have something happened?" Pakkun wondered as he took in his surroundings.

"Why do you ask?"

"The fact that you are back inside this compound after so many years is reason enough, don't you think?" The dog said gruffly.

Still, Kakashi remained tight lipped and kept moving toward his late father's house. It took sometimes but before long he was in front of said building. Without preamble he moved inside.

The first thing he noticed was the scent. A scent he remembered very well. A mix of natural flora usually found deep inside the Forest of Death. _I never got how he was able to bring that odor inside this room_. Kakashi thought tiredly.

Everything here reminded him of the past. A past where he was happy. A past where he had a family. A past where he had a name.

It was also the reason he didn't come by often. He already had his plate full with reminiscing of his genin days. Still, refocusing on the task, he started his search of the dusty room.

"Kakashi….?" Pakkun started softly.

"Ok! Something did happen. Or rather someone!"

"I'm a smart dog but even I need a context to understand, you know!"

Huffing in exasperation, Kakashi continued. "Out there, there is someone able to use the _white chakra_…"

"That's not possible!" The gruff voice of the dog interrupted with a tone of finality.

"I thought so too, but I saw it with my own eyes. That boy can use our bloodline." His angry voice was enough to muffle the sound of the shuffling furnitures. He was searching high and low for anything that he had missed all those years ago.

"Then how did he activates the bloodline. Only another user can activate the dormant white chakra." Pakkun reasoned out loud, trying to find a reasonable explanation to the situation.

"That's the thing I'm looking for. I am an hundred percent sure that there isn't another holder of the white chakra out there. That leaves only one possibility…" He left the end of his sentence hanging, knowing Pakkun would come to the correct conclusion.

"There is a way!" Pakkun exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes! There is a way to activate the bloodline by myself. I think the answer is somewhere here, hidden." With renewed vigor, he searched the room, going so far as to remove plate from the ground.

"Then why would your clan said otherwise?"

The moment he heard the word _clan_, Kakashi abruptly stopped. He looked at the wall in the middle of the room, where a rather plain sword laid. As if acting on impulse, he took the blade from his resting place and weighted it. Silence descended upon the piece as he became absorbed in his thoughts.

Thoughts of his father prowesses in war.

Thoughts of one day emulating him.

Thoughts of the day he found his father dead body.

Thoughts of the shame he had to live with afterwards.

"Haaaaaaaa…." Violently, he swung the sword toward the wall. If he was already shaken by the existence of another white chakra user, the result of his actions were even more mind blowing.

Knowing the reputation and capabilities of his father's sword, he expected the wall to be cleanly cut. What he certainly didn't expect, was the sword itself to broke like a frail glass.

"Are you out of your damn mind Kakashi?" Pakkun yelled at his summoner, shocked by his actions.

But it sounded like a drumming beat to Kakashi. The sound of falling metal seemed more important to him at that moment. Because they were like a piece of puzzle to him. A puzzle that seemed unsolvable even when he came close to the truth.

But in the end what really was the truth? What was he really after?

He came here to find answer on his bloodline, but instead he found even more questions.

And if that wasn't enough, the last incident with the sword opened its own can of trouble. The sword shouldn't have been broken like that. That alone meant one thing?

"This is not the real white fang of my father!" He exclaimed almost drunkenly.

His words reverberated through the room, and Pakkun heard them clearly. Understanding the deep shit Kakashi stumbled upon, the dog nin found it wise to let it master absorb the information without disturbance.

He knew all kind of theories one could get to, with everything that happened but he chose not to think about that for now.

* * *

><p><strong>SOMEWHERE IN HI NO KUNI — <strong>

* * *

><p>"Still nothing?"<p>

"Nothing Unkai-sama. We found no trace of the four man squad sent to Konoha."

The Kurama clan leader looked contemplatively at the ninja before him. Things were spiraling down fast for them. This started with the team he sent to retrieve their clan library 3 months ago.

"First Hibiki and Kentaro mysteriously disappear. Then another four ninjas disappear trying to accomplish what should have been a simple mission. Things aren't going into our favor." Unkai thought out loud with his subordinate standing still in front of him. He dared not to make a comment, not that he had any in the first place.

Unkai uncharacteristically looked at his subordinate once more. "There is something wrong going on in Konoha. Does the intelligence department is sure that our whereabouts and goals haven't been compromised?"

"From their last report, nothing indicates that Konoha is aware of our moves. The only element of notice is the presence in Konoha vicinity of the S-Ranked ninja, the ghost."

"That is indeed a terrible news. We still don't know why she is targeting our clan in the first place. Could she have been hired?"

"It is possible. But we have nothing to check that possibility Unkai-sama."

Unkai leaned on his chair, searching a better position for his back. Old age hasn't been kind on him like so many others. He had seen his power declines with time and like every other ninjas out there, he had been unable to do anything about it. Granted his case wasn't as severe as those like Sarutobi because his main skills revolved around Genjutsu, something that didn't require much in term of physical prowess and chakra capacity.

"No matter, we are too close to stop now even though I get a bad feeling about things going on in Konoha. We have to strike decisively when they are unaware of our objectives. If we wait even more, we'll surely run out of time and Konoha will finishes that weapon of theirs."

"I understand Unkai-sama. Should we proceed as it was planned then?" The ninja in front of Unkai replied while bowing low to show his respect.

"Yes, let's deploy the spy group to Konoha first though. We need as much information as we can glean before the main event. Also have Tori starts operation _Uprooting_."

"At once Unkai-sama."

The Kurama clan leader silently observed his subordinate moving out of his tent to execute his order before going back to his paperwork. He sincerely hoped that things would go smoothly from now on. He wasn't one to believe in nonsense like the greater good, but if there was one thing he couldn't and wouldn't accept, it was Konoha possessing their clan heiress power.

That power was just too much for anyone to handle. _'Brother should have taken my advice and killed that girl when she was born. I knew once I witnessed her power that it would cause great peril to our clan, but as always, he had to be greedy._'

The late Kurama clan leader, Unkai's brother, had been adamant about not only exploiting his daughter unnatural power, but also displaying it to the village in order to increase their fame in the village. Unfortunately he had underestimated the jealousy of their rival clans.

After the emergence of Yakumo's power, and the following revelation about that power being their clan bloodline, their numbers had started to dwindle. Missions gone wrong, accidental deaths, sabotaged materials, these had been some of disasters that seemed to befall their clan members. Obviously they knew it wasn't accidental, unfortunately they couldn't pin it on anyone with lack of proof.

It was also during that time that they finally faced Sarutobi true's visage.

'_The man is a ruthless son of a bitch.' _Unkai thought as he recalled every time he had faced the man.

Every legal avenue they tried to find the guilty parties of their unfortunate accidents was immediately shutdown by the man. It had been a nightmare to be a Kurama member during those time. They had to look over their shoulder even in the village they were supposed to be relatively safe.

Paranoia settled and then tragedy struck in the form of the Kurama clan leader's death. The chaos that ensued afterward was such that they were forced to flee from Konoha, leaving behind the one thing Konoha had been after all along, Yakumo.

"Now the time has come for us to get our revenge. I swear on my life that Konoha will pay dearly for what they did to our clan brother." The current clan leader swore while looking at a picture of him and his brother smiling at whoever took the picture.

* * *

><p>Back in Konoha, Naruto was finally back home. His clones were still training just like he left them, so he didn't bother checking on them. He had full confidence in their professionalism. After all, one of the advantage of the clones was the single track mind they were created with. He didn't need to be behind them all the time to make them work. If he asked them to do something, they will execute themselves without so much as a complaint.<p>

Swiftly moving through the crowd of training clones, he made his way to his house situated at the end of the cave. Opening the welcoming door, he went inside and immediately sat across the table in the kitchen. Retrieving the scroll he had copied from the R&D facility, he laid it on the table before unrolling it.

With particular attention and even some glee, he scrolled down the content of the scroll, committing everything to memory. Sometimes he had to read the information twice as it really was complicated.

The scroll was about sealing materialization and was something developed by the Uzumaki clan apparently. Something he was greatly surprised with. The content of the scroll detailed the process one needed to undergone to be able to materialize a seal they envisioned in their mind, on the palm of their hand. And be able to lay it on any surface.

This technique required not only perfect visualization but also mental prowess to be able to quickly envision a seal with perfect detail on their mind.

"This is really a godsend! Imagine the possibilities with being able to write a seal at will, without having to waste time in using a brush! Not only that, but being able to use it in battle…" Naruto spoke out loud, delighted by having found such technique.

Though he didn't miss the mention that only simple seal or small seal could be materialized in such way, given the need to envision it in one's mind. But even a simple application of the explosive seal with this technique could be very dangerous to anyone he came into contact with.

Without wasting any time, Naruto went back to the training area, specifically where a group of clones working on sealing techniques trained.

"Guys! Stop whatever you are doing for now. I've got something important we need to work on in priority."

"You're serious there? Man don't you see we're killing it here? Go dispel another group of clones" One of the clones complained, quickly followed by others too.

"Yeah? And what new seal did you come up with?" Naruto replied quickly shutting them up.

"Yeah I thought so. We both know that it takes times to come up with a new seal, and what I want you to learn is top priority. So all of you better not complain about it."

He didn't even wait for their reply before he had them dispelled one by one. '_Talk about democratic management_' He thought with a smirk.

The clones dispelled and their chakra absorbed, he created the same amount of clones, which was about two hundreds, with the purpose of working on seal materialization.

His task done, he immediately switched to his phantom form with but one thought in mind: _absorb a medical ninja in order to gain medical knowledge both for himself and to cure Yakumo._

* * *

><p><em>To be continued...<em>

_Preview next chapter: _

_"I've waited so long for this. Waited to see you squirm like the snake you really are. Any last words from that traitorous mouth of yours?"_

_"Listen to me Unkai-san, you don't have to do this..." Sarutobi implored the elder man standing beside him whose body was littered with exploding tags._

_"The time for talk is over. I may go down today but you WILL be going with me."_

_Sarutobi only had time to see the tags lit up before his world went white. A resounding boom was the first thing that civilians around the hokage tower heard as the building was reduced to fast moving brick that flew away in the expanding blast direction, unmercifully taking with him lives like a vengeful god would. _


End file.
