Chapter 13
DECEMBER- 20 MONTHS-
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Naruto sat at her desk bored out of her mind. She and the rest of her classmates were all taking their written genin exam paper. Some would argue that this was a very early age to graduate from the academy, most of them being 7 as was her physical age, however they were in war and needed as many people out as they could get.
It gave her some consolation that this written exam was a lot harder than the three she had taken in her own time and also questioned how a person would react in dangerous situations. Majority of the questions had essay like answers so the exam was double the time to the ones in her time.
This of course did nothing to deter her from finishing as quickly as possible, being in paperwork work mode and trying to get it done as soon as humanly possible.
She took a look around the room and she saw majority of the class hard at work with all their attention on their test papers except one person… Tadase Nara. Unlike Shikamaru he was awake during the exam however he had long since finished it, preferring to get it done quickly in order to take a nap, which he was trying to do.
It made her shake her head with a small smile on her face, it was nice to know that even during war, certain quirks never changed.
After ten minutes of boredom she crossed her legs and began meditating. She had been in this era for eighteen months and they were eighteen every interesting months.
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(Flashback)
Jiraiya and Naruto were at home, Naruto trying to draw some seals on her arm whereas Jiraiya was brushing up on his fuinjutsu. Apparently, having a seven year old be better than him at the craft was insulting to his pride despite her reminding him that she mentally twenty-one no.
That did little to appease him so she reminded him she was the daughter of two fuinjutsu masters, bearing the blood of Konoha no Kiiro Senko and Akai Chishio no Habanero, which did make him feel better.
She was halfway through her seals when he asked a question, "If you wanted to seal a bijuu in a person, how what type of seal would you use?"
She paused for a moment then carried on, "It would depend on the bijuu that will be sealed away. I hold the nine tails so having the eight trigrams seal was the best choice. If I were to seal Shukaku I'd use a two point seal with a mind separator that gives Shukaku his own space to talk without you having to hear him- unless you opened the seal."
There was silence after that as Jiraiya thought about it and ripped the page out of his book and Naruto assumed he was going to put it on his failed pile but instead he put it in front of her on the table, "I need help." He grudgingly mumbled.
She looked over at the seal with furrowed brows and put down her brush for the moment. The seal was fancy, something she never really cared for but the fanciness made it less chakra intensive- something she didn't need to mind given her bottomless reserves of chakra.
Yet, looking at the seal, something seemed off. This wasn't a bijuu sealing type like they had been discussing, "This is a seal for… sealing away memories- or chakra?" she wasn't too sure, she would have to fully dissect it to find out however Jiraiya nodded.
"Both. Chakra remembers as does the body so if you seal away part of a person's chakra and their memory- it'd be a great help for infiltration."
She furrowed her bros at the logic, "If you get rid of their memories, how will they complete the infiltration?"
"That's what I want help with. I can only make a memory eraser seal- I want a suppression or a block instead. This way, if they are questioned the seal can be activated and they will forget for a certain amount of time."
They carried on discussing seals for several hours, going from this seal to many other till they ended up once again at a bijuu seal. the eight trigrams.
Nodding to herself she raised a brow and stood up, "You know if you want to study the eight trigram seal, you have an active one right here."
She lifted the bottom on her shirt up to reveal her stomach before channelling chakra to the seal, making it appear. Jiraiya looked up at her seal before going back to his scroll, "We may have a full version of the seal, but right now I am helping Minato with this. I will need full reports of my progress and not just an end result or he will get very suspicious. And on another note; your training seems to be going very well. You have excellent chakra control for a child your age and are able to absorb extra chakra from nature as well. However I wouldn't try to merge the two till you turn at least 10. That's my minimum for you becoming a sage again."
"You know… Even though I'm in this body I can sort of use old man six paths sage powers."
Jiraiya pointed his brush at her, a stern look in his eyes causing them to harden, "Absolutely not. Sage mode takes a lot out of a person and it can stunt your growth if not handled carefully. 10 years old Naruto. Or I'll seal your chakra points from absorbing nature's chakra." With that he went back to work, muttering about blondes and recklessness.
"You mutter a lot more in this time than you did when I was travelling with you as a teenager." That seemed to be Jiraiya's last straw as he glared at her and released a small amount of KI. Naruto chose the best course of action: to not annoy him further.
(END OF FLASHBACK)
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The day after the two of them went to dinner with Kushina, Minato and team Minato together and that was a terrible combination when they were discussing seals. They had gone on for over an hour before the four of them even remembered there was dinner to be eaten.
Sheepishly they looked at the three other members of team Minato who looked murderous before they apologised profusely and got on with dinner. Dinner talk of course consisted of even more fuinjutsu talk much to the others annoyance to which they had changed the subject to kekkei-genkai.
The topic started off by Kushina offering to help Naruto to attempt to create her chakra chains and even though Naruto thought it wasn't possible for her, she decided to give it a shot
On the subject of kekkei-genkai- a certain Uchiha had been placed next to her during the exam and was causing her sharingan eye to activate continuously. Despite all her hard chakra work, getting control over her eye was taking its toll on her.
Looking over at him, she saw he was looking directly at her, hand raised as their sensei was standing next to them giving them a waiting look and by the looks of it, she was holding back her irritation.
Grinning nervously she handed over her test paper to Shisui who gave it to their sensei and she sat back at her desk, watching them. She half expected them to be released for having completed the exam early however no such luck.
Just as she was about to give up hope on being allowed out of the exam room their sensei announced they could leave and the three people who completed the exam left together. Tadase left to presumably watch some clouds on top of the school roof or their training fields as they still had the second and third part of the exams to complete.
This left Shisui and Naruto, including her hidden twitching eye to go on together or their own ways.
Her eye hadn't been a bother after she had spent some time with him however it had been acting up ever since he had been doing chakra exercises.
In her original time line Shisui had gained the sharingan when he was roughly 7 as he had unlocked the mangekyou when he was 8. That would most likely not happen this time round though. Her mere presence was enough to cause several changes and she was at a loss at time whether they were for better or worse.
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The ninjutsu part of her exam had been to make a bunshin, expel a genjutsu, perform a kawarimi, perform a henge and walk up tree as much as you could. She managed all of them with little problem and was tied with Shisui on two thirds up the tree- only she made kage-bunshin instead of ordinary bunshin. No matter how many chakra exercises she went through, there was no getting past the chakra of the nine tails, who enjoyed messing around her reserves time to time.
Taijutsu had been a bit of a problem as she was smaller than everyone in her class and her muscles weren't as developed as theirs were. Despite this she managed to make it to third tied with their Akimichi classmate. Shisui had been the first in taijutsu as well.
Her classmates here seemed to take shinobi life a lot more serious than her own had and she was very happy over that little fact. It meant the likelihood of them dying was a lot less than her own generations had been.
As they walked outside, Naruto was in the mind-set that she would go home alone and see Jiraiya there and make lunch with him before heading off to Minato's apartment and staying there for the night.
However that didn't seem to be the current case as a very bored and very irritated Kakashi stood leaning against the wall of the gate, surrounded by a bunch of girls.
Sighing she tried to dodge being seen by the elder however she had no such luck. She saw him take a quick whiff of the air and immediately moved his head to where she was, making his way through the throngs of girls and over to Naruto, Shisui and Iruka.
She hadn't been paying very much attention to what Iruka had been saying when she had seen Kakashi however she knew it was about how hard the exam was, yet had stated his thanks to his two friends in helping him to study for it beforehand.
Before long Kakashi had reached them, ignored the other two and looked her dead in the eye, "Sensei and Lord Jiraiya have been summoned to Mount Myoboku for some reason. Mikoto-san is staying in the hospital with Itachi over night so you're staying at my place tonight."
Whilst Kakashi meant only good things when he said that, the fangirls surrounding them who had heard only paid attention to the fact that a girl was staying at Kakashi's home the night. No one seemed to pay heed to the fact she was seven nor to the fact that Kakashi was only ten turning eleven.
Sighing she allowed herself to be dragged by the wrist away to wherever Kakashi seemed to be taking her. Of course she made sure to drag Shisui with her who gave a dumbfounded Iruka a tentative wave back with a shrug, as if saying 'what ya' gonna do?'
Together the three of them made their way over to Kakashi's family's training grounds which weren't far from the Hatake estate which was no longer in use.
Kakashi promptly turned around and looked at them, boredom on his face, "Do you two want to read a fuinjutsu book with me?" she asked when neither of them moved, simply staring directly at her.
Nodding the three of them took out brushes, ink and a book each before studying a simple sealing book. Well it wasn't that simple, she was currently studying her own seal; the eight trigrams and she was going to get as much feedback from outside parties who held no bias on it.
Shisui wasn't terrible at fuinjutsu but he wasn't good at it either. His calligraphy writing was good for someone of his age group, most likely due to strict teachings from the Uchiha clan similar to the Hyuuga clan.
She broke down the seal for them and answered all their questions and asked a few of her own about the seal and they did so to the best of their abilities. It was hard not to reveal which bijuu she was jinchuriki to however she managed.
Thinking of jinchuriki she slipped into her mindscape. 'Kurama.' She murmured to the nine tails, who was resting on eight of his tails, the ninth stretched out to her and she allowed it to wrap around her torso only to have Kurama place her a top of his.
'What is it Naruto?'
'I was wondering about mum… she's a jinchuiki but I want to know what happened to her?' it came out as a question as she wasn't sure how to word it however she managed to word it appropriately enough for him to understand her.
'Hmm… we have been in the past for over a year now and you only ask me this question now?'
His question caused her to blush a feint pink. 'You were asleep for a long time and when you woke up I had other things on my mind dattebayo!'
'What a lovely daughter.' He chuckled humourlessly and answered her, 'Well… when we arrived here there were two versions of me of course so during my temporary hibernation your seal proved to be dominant and forced the nine tails within her to merge with me. It is another reason why I did not awake sooner, I was trying to make sure I did not damage your chakra system even more.
'Of course she is still my jinchuriki and only part of my chakra returned, however Kushina is still able to draw upon my chakra as you are able to do. Slowly through time most of my chakra will end up inside of you and I suspect if Obito attack the night of your birth then I will completely merge in with you instead of being pulled out.'
Naruto nodded her head in understanding. It made sense, the two of them had done nothing to draw out the other Kurama so there should have been no reason for the two to merge, it did unsettle her though, that she would at some point in time have two versions of Kurama's chakra within her.
'Don't think about it too much brat, even as hokage thinking hard didn't suit you.'
'Teme! I was a hunter nin for years! Thinking was part of the job!'
'Hmm… which job did you prefer? Your job within the dark recess of the elemental nations or the one that put much spotlight on you?'
She took a moment to think about it. Back when she was a Hunter no one know her identity, no one knew what she did and hardly anyone could tell her what to do or how to do it. Where-as, as the hokage her actions were there for everyone to see, however everyone acknowledged everything she had done.
Her answer was clear, 'My hunter job. No one knew the most wanted was me and no one told me how to do my job. Working alone had its perks and I very much miss working alone.' She sighed wistfully as she thought back to her hunter days.
Hardly anyone had known she was a hunter, the only ones knowing were the hunter commander, Lady Tsunade, Jiraiya and Kakashi sensei. She suspected Captain Yamato might have known as well however he never said anything.
It was dirty work, being a hunter and one had to have seen the darkest parts of the world in order to have become a hunter. No one had known she had made chunin and jonin except for the previously mentioned as well as Neji and Shikamaru. She had gone through the formalities again when she became hokage of course however those had been on the spot promotions which everyone had known about.
After the Sasuke retrieval mission she had made chunin and a few months later she had made jonin.
Under Jiraiya's insistence Tsunade had cracked and allowed Naruto to become a hunter nin, of course she had to undergo the hunter test and she passed with flying colours. Nothing quite says controlled insanity more than Naruto's screwed up life.
She made her way back to normal time and was very pleased that it had only been a few seconds outside of her mind.
Shaking her head, she went back to work with the other two males, taking out some other materials to study as well.
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A week later and Naruto found herself running on rooftops around Konoha, trying to get away from a screaming Anko armed with kunai yelling she was going to skewer the blonde.
In retaliation Naruto simply stuck her tongue out and ran faster. There was a mix of emotions from the onlookers. The civilian populace were looking astonishingly at them where as the ninja populace had fond looks on their faces.
You didn't get to say many children acting like children due to the war and it made them happy to see, even if one of them was threatening to decapitate the other, laughter was in the air and hopefully it will be contagious.
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