Uzumaki Naruto's POV
I liked that test, I thought as I lazily hopped between Konoha's trees. At the very least, I scored a free meal this morning, and I'm gonna be eating for free again tonight.
But that was an evening problem. I'd handed my bento to my teammates—the rice balls wouldn't have lasted them long anyway. And, honestly, they weren't as hopeless as they'd seemed at first.
Right now I was heading toward another training ground, where Hinata's team was supposed to be taking a similar test. I was curious what kind of jonin they had. And whether I could help my old acquaintances and squeeze their sensei for some cash too.
I showed up right on time. Half‑assedly hiding myself in the thick foliage and suppressing my chakra to a bare minimum, I saw Team 8 standing in the middle of a clearing in front of a jonin I didn't recognize. They looked tired, but not exhausted. The test was clearly wrapping up.
I studied their faces. From left to right, from where I was: Hinata in a cream‑colored jacket with fur along the bottom and a hood; Shino in a gray jacket with a high collar and his usual black glasses; and Kiba, also in a gray jacket, but with fur on the hood, which was up. Most importantly, on Inuzuka's head there was a small white mutt with long brown‑tipped ears just sprawled out. Aside from the dog, everyone was dressed in standard shinobi gear.
"…and that is precisely why," their jonin was saying in a calm, even voice, "you failed the main objective, but passed the test."
He was a black‑haired man who looked to be around thirty, but he was pretty short—about a meter and a half, taller only than the dog among us. He wore standard Konoha shinobi clothes.
I pricked up my ears.
"I gave you a simple objective, on the surface: find and give me this scroll," he said, showing them a small scroll he'd just pulled from behind his back. "But besides this one, there was another identical scroll here. I didn't hide it, didn't use any techniques, didn't set any traps. I just left it in plain sight, on that stump over there. You, however, split up and spent three hours combing the forest. Kiba, you used your nose to find me and take the scroll. Shino, your kikaichū searched for my chakra. Hinata, I assume you were scanning the area with your Byakugan to find me. You were all looking for an enemy, not the objective."
He paused, sweeping his gaze over them.
…Guess every genin team has its own weird habits.
"A shinobi's objective isn't always a fight. Sometimes it's more important to complete the mission with minimal cost by showing some observation and brains. You acted according to a standard combat template. But," his voice warmed, "after some time, when you realized you couldn't find me, you didn't start arguing. You regrouped, exchanged information and worked out a single search strategy, splitting the area into sectors. You started acting like a team. And that was the real goal of this test. Compared to mutual understanding, skills are much easier to build up. Sometimes so much so that genin become hopeless… But you showed that you have a foundation, which means you can become real ninja. Congratulations, you passed."
A test not about pushing back against brute force, but about attention and thinking outside the box. Yeah, just what sensors need. The second half of his speech seemed a bit over the top to me, but whatever.
At that moment Kiba, who'd been listening closely, suddenly twitched his nose and snapped his head in my direction.
"Naruto?" he asked the empty space, surprised.
Next to him, Hinata, hearing my name, instantly activated her Byakugan without any hand seals. The veins around her eyes bulged and in a heartbeat she found me in the leaves.
Well, no point hiding anymore. With a light sigh, I kicked off from the branch and a moment later landed beside them.
"Hey," I waved at them and then, putting on an awkward face, scratched the back of my head. "Sorry for eavesdropping. Didn't mean to butt in. But seriously—congrats on passing."
I hadn't used any scent‑masking powder and had just slapped together some quick camouflage. No surprise they found me.
"Naruto‑kun!" Hinata blushed a little, deactivating her dōjutsu.
"I knew it was you, ha‑ha! You can't fool my nose!" Kiba declared proudly, and little Akamaru on his head barked in agreement. Shino just gave me a silent nod in greeting.
"Uzumaki Naruto," the jonin instructor stepped forward, looking me over with curiosity. I felt his chakra shift into a sensory mode to get a better read on me. But apparently, not feeling anything bad, he simply introduced himself: "I'm Yamashiro Aoba. Former vice‑captain of Ro in ANBU."
"Oh, so you know Kakashi," I noted. I'd seen in some papers that Hatake had been captain of that team.
"Kakashi‑taichō," he corrected me, with a hint of respect in his voice. "Yes, we served together. I heard from some acquaintances that he had an… interesting spar. Thank you."
"For what?" I raised an eyebrow.
"He hasn't been that… alive in a long time. Looks like you shook him up pretty well. Please, keep an eye on my senpai. Sometimes he gets too lost in his own head," Aoba asked.
Alive, huh?.. It's not like that's exactly how he seemed to me. But I guess I hadn't seen enough of Hatake to compare him to the past.
"No problem," I nodded. "And yeah, if you ever feel like working out, swing by the training ground. I can keep you company."
Aoba smirked.
"I'll pass. I'm a sensor, not a fighter. Taijutsu's not my field."
"Sensors can be good fighters too," I pointed out. "But if you don't want to, I won't force you."
I turned to his team.
"By the way, our sensei is treating us to dinner to celebrate."
The three genin looked at their instructor with silent hope. Aoba hesitated for a second, looked at their pleading faces, then at me, and sighed.
"Well, I guess we've earned a little celebration too. My treat."
"Woof!" Akamaru yapped happily, and Kiba threw a triumphant fist in the air. I just smiled in satisfaction, catching Hinata's grateful look.
Managed to take another jonin for a ride financially.
After that, I invited Hinata, with a couple of quick hand gestures so she wouldn't get embarrassed in front of the others, to celebrate separately sometime—and got her agreement. We said our goodbyes and their team headed off one way while I went the other.
The evening at the Akimichi clan's barbecue place turned out… pricey. For Kakashi, of course. He sat there with the face of a martyr while Sasuke, Sakura and I methodically shoveled down meat by the kilo.
As the one who ate the most, I was completely satisfied. Pigging out on someone else's dime after a successful operation—what could be better?
Team Seven was officially formed. And in a couple of days, according to Kakashi, our first D‑rank mission was waiting for us. Well, we'd see what that was like.
Our first mission as Team Seven turned out to be a real piece of crap. Maybe the height of humiliation, specially designed to break any ambitious shinobi's spirit.
"Help with cleaning a large merchant warehouse." The title already stank, even if it sounded harmless. In reality, it meant diving into a den of century‑old dust, rotting crates and rats the size of small cats, brazen from never getting punished.
Felt like a certain gray‑haired geezer had picked out the absolute worst thing he could for us.
Sasuke, wearing the expression of an aristocrat forced to muck out stables, silently hauled heavy crates from one end of the warehouse to the other. His face was unreadable, but I saw his eyebrows twitch every time another cloud of dust settled on his dark hair.
Sakura, to my pleasant surprise, didn't whine. This time she took on the role of organizer, trying to systematize the chaos—deciding what to toss and what to put on the shelves. And of course, she was doing that work herself at the same time.
Meanwhile, our valiant sensei, Hatake Kakashi, had found the cleanest corner, sat down on an upturned crate, pulled out his little orange book and dove into reading, occasionally giving out "valuable" instructions: "Sasuke‑kun, don't drop that so hard, it might be fragile. Sakura‑chan, that corner needs a more thorough wipe‑down."
I watched this little show while working for exactly five minutes. Five minutes during which Kakashi didn't move an inch.
Apparently the rats weren't the only ones who'd gotten too bold around here, I thought. The sensei gets his cut of the mission pay. And I was going to make sure he earned every last ryō of it.
I walked up to him without a word. Just stood next to him and stared. Piercing. Judging. Without blinking.
At first, he tried to ignore me, pretending to be completely absorbed in the plot.
Soon his one visible eye started to twitch. He turned a page. Then another, a little too fast.
Finally, he snapped. With the most tragic sigh he could muster, Kakashi shut the book with a loud clap, stuffed it back into his pouch and got to his feet.
"Alright, alright, I get it," he muttered, grabbing a nearby mop with the air of a great martyr. "No respect for veterans."
He just kept grumbling.
Only by almost nightfall was the mission finished. The four of us, tired and covered in a layer of grime, were walking along a path in the evening park toward our homes.
Sasuke and Sakura were silent, digesting their first official "combat" experience. I was thinking how boring and, more importantly, useless this mission had been. Next time I was definitely sending a clone.
But for now, I had other plans.
I stopped.
"Mission complete," I said, turning to Kakashi. "Now for training. What's on the program?"
"Program?" Kakashi's eye curved in a lazy smile. "Today's program is rest. You're all dismissed."
With that, he was about to vanish in a Body Flicker. But at that exact moment a kunai with a Flying Raijin formula wrapped around it slammed into the ground right in front of his foot.
"You're not going anywhere, 'sensei'," I said, already standing in front of him. "We wasted a lot of time today. But I can see you're not tired at all," I went on, not letting him get a word in. "And we're genin, full of energy. The earlier we start training, the faster we'll get stronger. Let's give today at least some meaning."
Kakashi realized that caving again would be a bad idea—otherwise they might make him work his ass off next time too. His tone got firmer.
"No. I've decided there won't be any training today. Besides, your teammates are tired." He nodded toward Sasuke and Sakura, who were watching our argument in surprise.
"Fine," I agreed, way too easily from his point of view. "They don't have to train if they don't want to. But training your genin is a jonin's duty. You're obligated to train me."
"I'm in charge here, Naruto," Kakashi tried to lean on authority. "And I said no. As a genin, you follow your commander's orders."
I went silent for a second. I knew something cold and nasty flashed in my eyes. Then I just snorted.
"I see. So you're not going to give me what I'm owed willingly. In that case…"
I took a short breath.
"I'll take it by force."
Without giving him even a fraction of a second to prepare, I lunged forward. My chakra‑boosted body blurred with speed. The goal wasn't to maim Hatake. Just… call it convincing him.
Kakashi threw up a block on reflex, his Sharingan already spinning, reading my movements. He caught on fast that I wasn't kidding. And he was forced to actually fight, just so he wouldn't get his ass kicked in front of his own students.
Sasuke and Sakura froze off to the side, watching in complete shock as their teammate, a fresh Academy graduate, attacked a jonin without a hint of hesitation… in close quarters… And even after several seconds still wasn't planted face‑first into the ground. No, it actually looked like the two of us were fighting on equal terms.
After a bit, we drifted deeper into the park.
A short exchange of blows, I grab him by the vest.
A flash—and we appear at a training ground far outside Konoha.
At the same time. Hokage Residence. Sarutobi Hiruzen's POV
The well‑lit, all‑too‑familiar office.
The Third Hokage stared into his crystal ball with a stoic expression. In it, his ward, Naruto, was methodically beating the crap out of an elite jonin… Not that that had been rare lately. But this time Hatake, apparently, wasn't exactly thrilled about taking hits to everything Uzumaki could reach.
With a sigh, the old man just shook his head, dispelled the Telescope Technique and set the ball aside.
This wasn't the worst thing Uzumaki had done. Besides, once he found out what mission Kakashi had picked, Hiruzen could even understand the kid. Though, technically, the latter was already an adult shinobi…
Eh… how time flies…
Back to Naruto. Sarutobi remembered the Mizuki incident. Hiruzen hadn't immediately found out that the chunin had been tortured, even if… in that way. But the report about it had almost driven him into a white‑hot rage… He hadn't expected that from Naruto… though he probably should have.
But Hiruzen had promised to look after him. And that care included spiritual guidance, too. Torture… wasn't something the old man wanted to be teaching Naruto. What if the boy later went on to do something much worse? How would he be able to look his parents in the eyes in the Pure Land?
At the time, all wound up before his next meeting with his ward, the Hokage had decided to try a certain device people had recommended to him more than once. For calming down—nerves never helped anyone.
And so, after heating the right side and doing bubble‑bubble‑bubble‑bubble‑bubble for a couple of minutes, the old man realized that actually, everything was fine. Why stress? Naruto hadn't killed anyone—in a way, he'd even interrogated him gently. He'd shown mercy. Not every criminal ends up with the Yamanaka; that privilege costs good money. More often, they had to pay a particular specialist from Ibiki's Torture and Interrogation unit and find everything out the old‑fashioned way. Hiruzen didn't approve of that, but in essence, Mizuki could have ended up much worse. Right now he was just sitting in prison, his nipples probably healed by now.
Naruto, on the other hand… He was a medic, and unfortunately he'd had to do things that could mess with your head even more.
Sarutobi was slowly admitting that because of how close they were, he'd started to coddle Naruto too much. That was why the old man had gone for that little, let's say, trick with access to secret techniques. Hiruzen had wanted to protect the child for just a few more years from the darkness outside the Leaf's walls. And it had worked.
But now he was a shinobi… A shinobi who could stand up for himself. Careful enough not to stick his nose where he'd get killed. And Hiruzen shouldn't get in his way on the path to whatever he was aiming for.
Another sigh echoed in the office.
The old man glanced over the finished paperwork and drummed his fingers on the desk.
When Sarutobi raised his eyes, they caught on Tobirama's portrait. The image of their last mission with the Second, which had ended in the latter's death… and in a forced retreat for Hiruzen's team and Danzo's team, immediately flashed through his mind. Their commander had held the enemy back while they'd had no choice but to run.
Slowly, his thoughts shifted to Danzo, and Sarutobi's expression darkened.
On the night of the Uchiha massacre, when the Hokage came for yet another round of negotiations, all he found were houses full of corpses and blood. The former Sharingan wielders had had their dōjutsu torn out… When ANBU carried out the investigation, Hiruzen compared it with earlier intel and came to an almost certain conclusion that Danzo was involved. They had been in the Uchiha district together that night, and the Third had chosen to take the risk and lean on the elder… And the bastard had had the nerve not only to admit it, but to start convincing Sarutobi that what he'd done—sending Itachi to wipe out his own clan—was all for Konoha's sake.
They had a brief but extremely unpleasant argument which ended with Shimura no longer being an elder, and Root being disbanded… at least, the part he'd officially disbanded for the Hokage's benefit. The old man suspected that Root hadn't been completely shut down, and that his long‑time, paranoid rival still had a few secret bases where some operatives remained. But in any case, Danzo's power had been chopped down hard, and his "take‑the‑initiative" crap that led to so many deaths posed much less of a threat to the Leaf. Which meant Hiruzen could afford to stop paying attention to it.
He believed that his long‑time… not friend, but good and trusted acquaintance, had realized his mistake and would change.
That night hadn't ended there. Later, while Hiruzen was dealing with the many consequences of the massacre, its perpetrator had shown up at his residence… Another lost shinobi in whom, despite everything, the Will of Fire hadn't gone out.
They talked on the roof of the residence, away from other shinobi's eyes.
Itachi really was sorry for what he'd done. But he was convinced that with that act he'd saved the most lives… Sarutobi thought otherwise, but what was done was done.
Their conversation once again confirmed Danzo's guilt: he was the one who had convinced Itachi a coup was inevitable and given him an ultimatum—either Itachi destroyed the Uchiha and could spare his brother… or every last Uchiha would be wiped out.
Unfortunately, in Hiruzen's opinion, this not‑very‑far‑sighted, overly sharp, but strong child had gone along with it and done everything by the script. Thinking he was doing good, he took a step into darkness…
Maybe that was exactly what had pushed Sarutobi to shelter Naruto even more. The boy was even younger, but—small problem here—if anything, even stronger than Itachi. If the blond ever went outside the village and listened to someone like Danzo, how many bodies would they have to dig out from under the rubble this time? So—better to train him and keep him away from shady types for a while. Until he started showing a lot more common sense than that same Itachi.
But back to the Uchiha. The first thing they'd discussed back then was the older brother's access to Sasuke. Hiruzen had promised, and of course kept his promise, that Konoha's barrier wouldn't be changed and Itachi would be able to visit his little brother. And that Sasuke would graduate from the Academy and become a Leaf shinobi.
Then the darker details had started…
It turned out that Itachi hadn't carried out the massacre alone, but with another Uchiha who called himself "Madara."
Back then both of them had agreed it was quite possible this "Madara" wasn't the same Madara who had once fought Hashirama. But given his power and the fact he had a Mangekyō Sharingan, they were almost sure he'd been behind the Kyūbi attack.
Itachi couldn't help but hate him. Basically, this "Madara" had led the clan to this coup, and had then personally taken part in the slaughter. But he was also too dangerous. He could do even more damage to the Leaf. That was why Itachi had agreed to his offer and joined a certain organization—Akatsuki.
Hiruzen had heard of that organization before, but it hadn't been very influential and operated mostly in the Land of Rain. Now though, with this apparently new shadow leader, "Madara," it had started transforming into something else entirely.
That transformation, as they figured, would take many years. But Itachi had become a spy inside that organization—a member who, when he got the chance, would erase the clan's last mistake: "Madara."
With those memories swirling, Hiruzen once again felt like smoking.
He focused his gaze on his own now‑wrinkled hands. And sighed.
Already not young at all… Sarutobi understood that the world kept moving forward. But his aging body was binding him more and more, not letting him act.
Soon enough, the old man felt, his end would come…
A successor. He'd thought about that for a long, very long time. He'd often even catch himself thinking he'd almost finished raising one… But that one was still too young.
Yagura's age hadn't stopped him from becoming the Kage of the Mist… Hiruzen's thoughts drifted. But that hadn't ended well either…
The old man remembered reading the report on the failed coup led by one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist—Momochi Zabuza. Karatachi's policies had been very harsh, and the old man regretted that their neighbors hadn't managed to topple the tyrant. But he couldn't help them.
Sarutobi shook his head.
A successor… He went back to that thought. A more suitable candidate had, after all, recently started to come back…
Finally picking up his pipe, Hiruzen puffed out smoke and started thinking about the future.
Author's Note: The really attentive among you might have noticed that Itachi knew about "Madara" and directly suspected him of the Kyūbi attack. And that, in theory, he could have ratted "Madara" out to his clan and the Konoha leadership as a trump card to smooth things over between the two sides. But he didn't. Just like the transmigrator‑Naruto didn't. Just like the Itachi from the original story didn't. Why? I won't tell you, because I don't exactly know myself. Canon is canon. Still, don't forget the possible consequences of doing that. There was a decent chance the coup could have been settled. But that would have been followed by, well, consequences. A confrontation between the village and a Mangekyō user who, most likely, had already managed to do a lot of damage to the Leaf. Maybe Itachi and the transmigrator in this story allowed for that and decided it was worse than how things originally played out. As in, the massacre was preferable. Maybe not. Who knows. Any conspiracy theorists among you? I'd be interested to hear your takes.
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