For his eleventh birthday, Naruto's parents had unlocked a set of additional jutsu for him in the Tome. Two were 'untyped', the body flicker jutsu chosen as a safe starting point for learning to use chakra to enhance movement speed and a more potent genjutsu release than the basic one mentioned in the academy textbooks. The rest were tied into chakra natures as useful starting points before developing control over the natures further. Each of the five basic natures had a basic 'fire a ball of the element' jutsu and a paperwork clone variant that would leave the element behind when dispelled instead of the remaining chakra returning to the user, but another jutsu of each type was also included.
For fire, a jutsu that allowed minor control of existing fires, useful for strengthening them or putting them out as appropriate. For wind, a jutsu that generates wind flows from your palms for various purposes. For lightning, a blinding flash jutsu that could be toned down to 'flash bulb for pictures' levels. For earth, an underground movement jutsu that his parents admitted was actually a generalized combination of several related jutsu. For water, a mist-creation jutsu that they thought would work especially well with him able to use the byakugan to negate most of the downsides.
Naruto expected to have all of the new jutsu down without hand seals needed by the end of the year, but only because he could abuse the crap out of paperwork clones for training with them all. Hinata was also going to be working on getting all of the non-clone ones down, but that was going to take her far longer.
Old Man Hokage's gift had been ramen and an official copy of the shuriken shadow clone jutsu, the latter of which at least gave Naruto a justification for knowing it. The Hyuga clan had given notes on how they'd constructed their four-bucket storage seals, but no actual formulae. Jiraiya hadn't shown up in person, but had sent different notes for how he constructed multiple-bucket storage seals. That was in addition to the next set of sealing books in general as well as a bundle of ryo 'to buy some nice clothes with'.
Hinata had bought him nice clothes, Hanabi had found a fox plush that ended up in his bedroom, and Hoshi had somehow obtained an entire large box full of metal sealing tags and related supplies. Naruto preferred working in metal for smaller storage seals as it made them much harder to damage, but had been having trouble finding appropriately-sized tags for them. The foxes supposedly didn't work with metal in that way though, and Hoshi wasn't willing to admit where the box had come from.
Danzo was getting more and more frustrated as time went on. He'd kept running into timing problems with confronting Shisui to obtain the man's eyes, and then the option of claiming those eyes for better use had been removed by Jiraiya. The loss of so many Uchiha to flames instead of ending the coup through less physically destructive violence had also made it impossible to covertly collect a large number of sharingan eyes, leaving him without a bargaining chip for working with Orochimaru.
Hiruzen disbanding Root was unfortunate, but expected and planned for. Even if it had made keeping supplies up a challenge. The bigger problem was the lack of access to a number of information sources that being an official Anbu-level group had allowed. There were things being done to the village in the name of security that Danzo wasn't being informed of and that he had no suitable moles in place to find out the details for and he didn't like that. At least none of them looked to be affecting Root's hidden tunnels under the walls...or at least not yet.
And all of that paled in comparison to finding out that they'd had the fabled paperwork jutsu available all along, only for it to be the shadow clone jutsu. Some of his old injuries and a couple of mistakes made when first implanting one of the few sharingan he'd gotten his hands on rendered him incapable of using that jutsu as the clones dispelled before even finishing forming, things that he'd hoped Orochimaru could rectify. But the man was insistent on getting access to sharingan eyes over anything else for payment.
Out of pure spite, Danzo was doing his best to ensure that the secret of the paperwork jutsu did not reach the snake or any of the man's agents in the village in general.
For Hinata's birthday near the end of December, Naruto had given her a pair of chakra blade daggers with arm holders. The blades could be removed and used normally or left in the arm holders and triggered to spring forward with chakra to add a sudden stab to a Gentle Fist strike. He'd gotten matching holders that could be strapped to his own arms and accept the Uzumaki daggers for his own use.
Hiashi had questioned the gift, and Naruto had explained the benefits of chakra blades when it came to cutting chakra-reinforced materials. His thought process on the custom-ordered holders was also covered, including that Hyuga trained to use more chakra points than normal and thus shouldn't have problems with the triggers and that if someone was using chakra-reinforced armor to block the Gentle Fist then the blades would be a quick way to start putting literal holes in it. With long sleeves most enemies would also be unlikely to notice the slim mechanisms before it was too late.
The biggest hurdle to implementing something similar for the entire clan was the cost of chakra blades. Most of the benefits of the system relied on them and they didn't come cheap.
Despite that, Hinata felt that the most important 'gift' she'd received was one of the paperwork clone jutsu scrolls deciding that she had enough chakra to read it. She could only manage a single clone, and didn't have enough chakra to use any of the elemental variants, but being able to make even one was an accomplishment.
On the training front, by then Naruto had managed to use clones to get all of the jutsu his parents had provided working without hand seals and Hinata had the body flicker jutsu and all five elemental balls down similarly while working on the other five non-clone jutsu. She was working on the genjutsu release, and he wasn't sure if it worked at all because neither of them had much in the way of more advanced genjutsu to test against. They'd also learned that with minimal practice the byakugan could also tell what kind of chakra had been used to make a paperwork clone, which would be useful from a teamwork point of view.
Naruto and Hinata were working on getting the communication jutsu that he'd been given down. The instructions were horrid and even his parents were having trouble understanding them. He'd figured out how to piggy-back on the link between him and his clones a month ago by accident, but actually forming the link to another person was proving to be far more difficult. There was a 'latch onto the chakra of your target' step that just didn't want to work.
"Ow," a voice called from across the compound, causing both of them to freeze. There weren't any clones practicing over there.
A moment later Naruto had asked a clone to body-flicker over, the clone being more expendable if this was a threat. It wasn't long before it sent a message back, having found a young boy. Naked. With a fox tail. And a star-like marking on his forehead. Naruto sighed and headed over himself, signaling to Hinata to wait where she was, noting that Hoshi wasn't in the little semi-nest-thing he liked to stay in when not training himself on the way. And yes, there was a young boy that had Hoshi's star marking on his forehead.
"Okay," Naruto said. "What gives?"
"Walking on two legs is hard," Hoshi said, trying to stand up again.
"How do you have two legs?"
"Um, because you shapeshift all the time. My line of foxes gets one ability from copying the most-used ability of the one we stay with and another based on what that person is weakest in. We think that I'm probably going to be good at throwing illusions when that kicks in because you have such a hard time with putting them somewhere you aren't."
"Oh. Why didn't anyone tell me that?"
"I was supposed to once I could speak, but I forgot." He then beamed. "Akamaru is going to be so jealous!"
"You haven't even told Akamaru that you can talk."
Hoshi pouted at that. "...oh. Right. Secrets."
"Besides, you know that the Inuzuka have jutsu that let their ninken take human form."
"But Kiba doesn't know them yet and this isn't just taking your form."
Naruto sighed. "Well, you need to learn to hide your tail before going out like this. And I need to dig out some clothing for you if you want to run around in human form."
Half an hour later Hoshi had figured out how to hide his tail, was dressed, and was trying to learn how to walk on two legs with the help of a couple of clones. The little guy wasn't going to be ready to even watch a fight in this form for a while.
It was the day after the January graduation exam and Naruto was confused. So was Hinata, for that matter. Unlike some of the civilian-born in general, they'd not had any problems with the all-day exam the day before. Two girls had even been sent home halfway through the day, their performance being that bad, and rumor had it that a civilian-born boy had been told to not return today before going home. Everyone else seemed like they'd at least barely scraped by with a pass.
But for some reason Naruto and Hinata were in a classroom with a bunch of students a year older than them today, including Neji. Who seemed just as shocked to see the two of them in the room, but didn't make any move to speak with them.
"Good morning," a teacher Naruto didn't recognize greeted them. "Let me make sure everyone who should be here is, then we can continue."
Neji looked satisfied at that...up until Hinata's name was called. Naruto's coming up at the end of the list was less of a surprise.
With that done, the teacher nodded. "Most of you are likely already aware why you are here. Uzumaki and the Hyuga heiress are the likely exceptions. Congratulations, you've all passed your graduation exams and have permission to graduate! Today you will get your forehead protectors and instructions for getting your registration photos taken. In two days you'll return here for team assignments. Luckily, we have our two early graduates to get our numbers up and don't need to hold a student back until a team slot opens up."
Each of them was given a forehead protector and a selection of cloth colors to put it on, a sheet with instructions for completing their registrations, and a copy of their graduation evaluations. Neji was congratulated for being rookie of the year, two girls had apparently tied for kunoichi of the year, and a boy in green spandex had been the 'dead last' of the year. Comments were made that he'd only made it that far because a jounin had vouched for him.
"Can we take the shortcut?" Hinata asked after they'd stepped outside of the academy, their former class likely completely unaware of what had happened.
"Er, sure," Naruto agreed, concentrating on sending a signal to one of the clones back at the compound. They didn't normally do this unless they were leaving the Hyuga compound, but today was weird all around.
"Shortcut?" Neji asked, coming up behind them. "And how in the world did you two graduate early?"
He didn't get his answers as the contacted clone summoned both of them and Hoshi to the compound, leaving Neji alone back at the academy. Likely quite confused. The summoning had taken enough chakra for the clone to pop immediately upon their arrival, but that was okay and fairly standard for a clone summoning Naruto in general.
"Neji had a good point asking how we graduated early," Hinata admitted. "I thought that the clan requested no early graduations at all outside of wartime."
"Old Man Hokage letting me graduate early is a little weird too," Naruto agreed. "But you heard that teacher. They didn't have enough people for teams and we filled in the extra slots. And I don't think I want to go through another year of learning nothing more in the academy itself anyway. But I think we're probably going to be split up into two teams with older students."
"Shit. I hadn't even thought of that. Having only one person a year younger per team makes sense."
They took a few minutes to review their evaluations. Notes included that they were obviously holding back to not be at the top of the class, were in better physical shape than most of their peers, and that Naruto in particular had to have the chakra control of a jounin or better to handle the academy jutsu with what was known about his reserves. And apparently they'd been on the 'graduate early if permission is granted' list for over a year.
"Maybe we should go check in with your father and Old Man Hokage." Looking down at his sheet, he nodded. "In that order, we can probably finish up the registration stuff today if this wasn't a mistake."
She nodded, and ten minutes later they'd left the compound. Hoshi had opted to hang back and practice walking as a human some more with the clones.
They'd been told that both of them had been given permission to graduate early in part because Hiashi and Old Man Hokage both knew that the two were holding back. A lot, to the point where there was an assumption that they could probably take on any of those who they'd just graduated with. Hinata wasn't sure about that, especially when it came to Neji, but only voiced that to Naruto after they'd left her father's presence.
More important to them was the assurance from the old man that they were actually going to be paired up together as only having one team with unbalanced ages was better than having two. But he'd obviously been hiding something else from them in the process of telling them that otherwise teams hadn't been finalized, before asking that they be more open with their actual capabilities with their teammates. Naruto's parents agreed with that, provided that they passed the test their sensei gave them.
What that test would be was apparently a crapshoot. Some tested for teamwork, others for basic skills the academy didn't, a few did the absolute minimum to be considered a 'test', and at least one jounin from their time as genin was known for testing skills that no academy graduate should ever have as a form of protest. Civilian-born supposedly tended to get rougher tests than clan-born on average, but that could just be because the clan-born were usually better trained.
The two spent the next day ensuring that they had all of their supplies ready, just in case. Including a selection of clothing for different body types and picking up extra food to top up all of their storage seals. Both were also permitted to take a filled camping tag of their own from the Hyuga supply, Hiashi insisting that Naruto take one for himself when they were getting Hinata's. They'd run into Neji at the same time, and he'd pointedly ignored them at that point.
"Some teams are still in rotation," the teacher, who Naruto still didn't know the name of, said to the group. "So the numbering is going to seem a little odd."
Team numbering ended up ranging from six to twenty-three with a couple of gaps. Hinata, Naruto, and a girl named Tenten were assigned to Team Eighteen. Said girl had been one of the two tied for kunoichi of the year and was obviously disappointed to not be on Team Nine with Neji, but didn't hold Naruto or Hinata at fault for that.
"At least there were enough graduates for me to be on a team at all," Tenten said after they'd gathered to eat lunch together before their jounin sensei showed up that afternoon. "I hear that who gets held back can be random in those situations, and you two have to be good if you graduated a year early."
"We honestly mostly practice with each other," Naruto admitted, Hinata nodding her agreement. "So we aren't fully certain how we actually stack up to others."
"That's...honestly better than me. I've mostly trained alone when not sparring in the academy. So, I figure that Hinata here is going to be a taijutsu specialist because that's what all Hyuga start with. I work with weapons of all kinds, but to do so I've picked up some sealing. What about you Naruto?"
He scratched the back of his head. "I'm a little more of a generalist, I think. Infiltration, tracking, combat at probably any range. If we survive as a team then we might want to chat about sealing as I'm working my way through that too."
"...that sounds impossibly broad."
"Naruto trains harder than anyone else I've seen," Hinata defended. "He's better at taijutsu than I am too."
"Only because you never want to hurt anyone," Naruto countered. "But I'm probably weakest in genjutsu. Hinata's also got a better handle on some of the fiddly medic-nin stuff than I do thanks to my chakra reserves making those more difficult for me."
Tenten stared at him. "Infiltration without genjutsu? Seriously?"
"I cheat."
"You have abilities most don't," Hinata countered. "That doesn't mean you cheat."
"And what about the nin-fox?" Tenten asked, gesturing to Hoshi.
"Ah," Naruto said. "Hoshi isn't quite a nin-fox, even if he'd like to be some day. He's actually a summon fox."
"You have a summoning contract?"
"Yep."
"How? Where did you get it?"
"The foxes found me."
Tenten's mood plummeted at that. "Oh."
"My father has been looking for a potential contract for the clan as well," Hinata said. "But there are only so many summoning clans, and most already have summoners."
The older girl nodded and took another bite of her almost-forgotten lunch.
"So you three already talked to each other," Kurenai-sensei said after she and Anko-sensei had fetched the three, done some very basic introductions, and dragged them to a training ground. "Anko and I are both special jounin and were assigned you three as a pair, partially due to our inexperience and partially for covering specialities."
"The Hokage did bribe me with promotion to full jounin if we did well," Anko-sensei admitted. "I might not have agreed otherwise."
"I'm a genjutsu specialist and Anko is a close- to mid-range combat specialist. She was asked to help me as she's got a summoning contract like Naruto here does, but also because she wants to work with an infiltration specialist. To that end, part of our test is simple enough."
Anko-sensei produced a slip of paper and some ryo. "Buy my order of dango and get it back here without any of those we've tasked with watching for you spotting you doing so."
Naruto took the slip and the ryo, glad that he'd left some paperwork clones back at the compound instead of just having Yoko active. It didn't take long to use the communication jutsu to tell one to grab some of the ryo in the apartment and head out to buy the order in disguise, then swap to a different disguise before swinging by the training ground. "Okay then. What else?"
"...aren't you going to go make the purchase?"
"It's handled."
Kurenai-sensei raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "Okay then. Next is testing each of your combat abilities. All three of you should have decent close-range skills, so we'll be testing each of you individually. I'll start with Hinata."
"And I'll take Buns," Anko-sensei said. "Blondie will have to wait."
What followed was Naruto and Hoshi watching forty-five minutes of taijutsu with the occasional use of kunai or shuriken...or senbon and a couple of katar in Anko's case. In the middle of this a clone had slipped in using the transparency jutsu and masked chakra to drop off the dango and change. At the forty-five minute mark both sensei broke off and declared that Hinata and Tenten had passed.
"Okay Blondie," Anko-sensei said. "You're up."
"Before or after you have your dango?" Naruto asked, holding the bag up.
Both women blinked, and Anko-sensei stormed up to him to grab the bag. She checked and found that it was the correct order, and even had the receipt attached with today's date on it. "...what? How? You didn't go anywhere!"
"Here's your change," he added, holding it out.
"Keep it." She then turned to Kurenai-sensei. "Did he leave a clone behind in hopes that we'd not get to him before he returned?"
"Not that I noticed," Kurenai-sensei replied. "We'll need to see if any of the watchers noticed him."
Anko-sensei scowled and pulled out a small radio. An earpiece was put in her ear before she had a quick conversation, then waited a few minutes before getting an answer back. She thanked whoever she'd been talking to before turning the radio off and putting it away. "They didn't see any of the three. In fact, they haven't seen a single shinobi or kunoichi approach the stand since lunch."
"Interesting. Do you want to test him or eat your dango?"
"Give me a minute to eat and then I'll test him."
Nearly an hour later they'd finished and he'd gotten a pass as well.
"How many styles does he know?" Kurenai-sensei asked as Anko-sensei produced a bottle of water from somewhere.
"I spotted at least four," Anko-sensei replied. "The academy style, Gentle Fist, whirling fists, and a fourth I feel like I should know but couldn't place."
"Right." Kurenai-sensei turned towards the three genin. "Okay, you've got one more challenge to overcome. Come with me."
They followed her to the edge of a lake that the training ground bordered, Anko-sensei trailing behind them. A few hand seals triggered a set of targets to suddenly burst from the water at various distances.
"Each of you has to hit one of the close range targets and one of the medium range targets from the shore," Anko-sensei said. "Assuming you manage that, at least one of you has to hit one of the long range targets without getting wet."
"Is this an accuracy test or are barrages permitted?" Naruto asked.
"We'd prefer accuracy," Kurenai-sensei answered.
"She prefers accuracy," Anko-sensei corrected. "I think I want to see what you call a barrage."
"I'll go last then," Naruto said, waving both of the two girls ahead of him.
Tenten took the lead and easily struck her two targets, and made an attempt at the long range targets. Her kunai fell short and her shuriken were blown off target by the wind. Hinata then hit her two closer targets, but didn't attempt to hit the longer range ones at all. Naruto then took care of his close targets, before turning to the two sensei.
"So," he said. "All that's left is for one of us to hit one of the long range targets and we pass?"
"Yes," Kurenai-sensei said. "So long as you don't get wet."
"But you each want to see me hit them in a different way."
"Get on with it," Anko-sensei said, obviously impatient.
Nodding, he turned to the water. Sure, he could just water-walk closer, but since they were going to pass anyway then showing off a bit felt appropriate. A kunai-shaped spell-bullet was fired at one of the long range targets, ignoring the wind and striking it dead center before exploding. Hinata was grinning, Hoshi snickering, and the other three were staring in shock. He then pulled a real kunai out and prepared a shuriken shadow clone jutsu, which worked just as well on other projectiles. Throwing the kunai hard enough to get it approximately where the targets were, he pushed far more chakra into the jutsu than needed and caused the single kunai to become thousands.
The hail of kunai blotted out the Sun, striking a good third of the lake and sinking the remaining long range targets. A wave came back at the shore, Naruto backing away from the shore with Hinata and Hoshi while the other three just stared across the lake. All three ended up with soaked feet, which snapped them out of their surprise.
"I was expecting one of you to water-walk when we didn't specify that you had to hit those from the shore," Kurenai-sensei finally said. "I didn't expect impossibly accurate exploding kunai or...whatever we want to call more kunai than the shinobi armory likely has in stock."
"It was definitely awesome though," Anko-sensei said.
"TEACH ME!" Tenten said, suddenly on her knees in front of Naruto. "PLEASE!"
Naruto scratched the back of his head. "I don't think you have enough chakra for that one."
"Um," Hinata said. "She could manage it in smaller numbers, I think. But you were given the scroll by the Hokage, did he say you could teach others?"
"Even if he did I don't want to see Buns collapse from exhaustion trying it," Anko-sensei interjected. "We'll test her chakra levels later. For now I think that the reports on Blondie's skills are criminally incorrect."
"If we head back to the Uzumaki compound we can go over things," Naruto offered. "That should be private enough."
Naruto and Hinata had shown off everything except for the Tome itself, the 'nets' on people's cores, Hinata's chakra chains, and his byakugan. They had included the Knight Armor and flight spells, and he'd not originally expected to show his fox features but Kurenai-sensei and Anko-sensei were both already aware of them. Mentioning the possibility of cross-signing contracts for all of them had come up, as had the idea of applying the shapeshifting seal to others for maximum confusion when encountering enemies in the field. The latter had caused Anko-sensei to scowl, because she thought that her 'hickey' was going to keep that from working.
His parents were apparently aware of what she was talking about and 'working on a solution'.
"We need to report about your success tomorrow," Kurenai-sensei said. "After that we can explore some of the options in more detail. I'd already wanted a week or two before we started on missions anyway, unless any of you have financial needs that mean we need to start on missions sooner?"
"I'm good for at least three months," Tenten said.
"My clan is still taking care of most of my expenses," Hinata admitted.
"I've got the Uzumaki clan income to keep me going," Naruto added. Not mentioned was the pile of ryo from various things he'd sold to the village, or Hyuga clan, or more recently the Akimichi clan. He could probably include the donations to the shrine, for that matter, but had been keeping those separate and using them exclusively for Yoko and the shrine itself.
"Right," Kurenai-sensei said. "How about we meet here in two days with supplies to hang around for a week? Better than camping out elsewhere nearby from a privacy point of view and I can ensure that nobody worries about us by putting us down as doing extended training no matter what the actual outcome of things is."
There was general agreement there, and Naruto made sure that the three newcomers could get back into the compound on their own for now before they split up.
Kurenai waited as the Hokage went through the teams to get the reports from the jounin-sensei present. Some of them had passed, others hadn't. Gai was...overly enthusiastic about his team passing, but he'd be overly enthusiastic regardless. Team Eighteen had been skipped over initially, but that had been expected as well. She and Anko had been informed that there would be more scrutiny on them for multiple reasons. Early graduates, the two being the only special jounin in the group this year, a pair of them instead of a single sensei.
Those jounin who hadn't passed their teams were sent off, and they'd been warned of that ahead of time too, before Team Eighteen's status was to be verbally reported. Most obviously didn't want to leave, but hadn't passed their teams. The departing jounin also all knew that being sent away meant that the written report indicated a pass, but a lot of things never made it into the written reports. In this case, cross-training with other teams needed to be brought up. In theory, because of the two early graduates possibly needing to 'catch up' to their older peers.
Kurenai wanted to break out into laughter every time she thought about that. If anything, Tenten had to catch up to Hinata in several ways and Naruto was in a class of his own. For that matter, the boy was likely to end up with his two teammates vying for his affection later, as Hinata was obviously smitten with him already and Tenten's reaction to kunai blotting out the Sun alone had shown her interest.
"So now we get down to Team Eighteen," the Hokage said, focusing on Kurenai and Anko.
"They passed with flying colors," Anko said. "Weirdest overall skill set and disparity I've ever heard of though."
"Definitely a lot of catching up to do though," Kurenai agreed.
The Hokage smirked, obviously realizing what they weren't saying. "I see. What would your recommendation for accelerating that 'catching up' be?"
Anko snorted. "Blondie is in an infiltration category of his own. Kurenai and I need some serious work if we're to serve as backup for him. White-eyes is too timid for that kind of work right now, but otherwise far ahead of others."
"Getting at least to her level is going to be a challenge for us and the oldest of the kids," Kurenai added.
Yep. That surprised the jounin in the room, but not the Hokage who nodded. "I suspected as much. What would you recommend for mission loads?"
Grinning, Anko took the lead there. "Once past D-ranks Blondie and White-eyes easily have tracking and scouting down, as well as infiltration if anything suitable to their ages is available. They have plans for helping get teammates up to speed that we'll be evaluating. They can also pull support roles and have started on field medic-nin training, Blondie learning from Hana Inuzuka and then passing lessons on to White-eyes. Probably want to split Blondie off if you need him for heavy assault unless the goal is to have the rest of the team hold a fallback position."
"Hinata is a little too timid right now though," Kurenai continued. "Reluctant to risk causing injuries to allies, but aware of the problem. Anko and I may also need to at least read up on elemental releases since Hinata and Naruto are individually already capable of using at least one jutsu of each element."
"That sounds approximately as I expected," the Hokage admitted. "Naruto has been effectively infiltrating the village itself for years with very few noticing his infiltration identities, bringing Hinata along with him more recently, and even I can't use the shuriken shadow clone jutsu to blot out the Sun like he did during your test."
"...blot out the Sun?" Gai asked.
"Yes. Kurenai, would you care to show the others what you saw?"
Grinning, she wove a quick genjutsu, skipping the exploding spell-bullet kunai and going straight to the cloned one.
There was a moment of silence after the illusion ended, and the Hokage nodded. "It looks far less impressive from that angle."
Gai blinked a couple of times. "Perhaps it would be best if the rest of us had time to...stabilize our teams before beginning cross training? Or at least ensure that they each have a member that can create a protective earth dome."
Anko nodded. "That's not a bad idea. Blondie and Buns are both budding sealmasters but probably wouldn't start pulling out explosive tags in a friendly spar."
Kurenai thought that the other sensei were going to be treating their team as 'team not to be thought about' for a while.
