Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hiruzen was in his chair as he waited, he waited for the melody to play as it did for three years already. Every day at the exact same time, a song would play while you could watch the sunset.

Three years and they still hadn’t found out who it was, or where it even came from. It didn’t matter where you were in the village, be it underground or underwater. The sound was always clear and smooth.

At first, they thought it was a Genjutsu made by enemies, but with time they had gotten used to it. While still, a few shinobi searched for the person, most of them had given up. It was like a daily break for everybody, no matter civilian or shinobi.

Most of the time the melodies were sad, desperate and hurtful. They were so emotional and near your heart, you could feel the pain of the player. It left a humbling feeling, how could one be happy while someone was so hurt outside?

A few times the melody was hateful, filled with so much aggression. It made you wonder what this person was going through, just who was it?

A melody, it was gentle.

Hiruzen was surprised, this would be the 7-warm melody in three years. Something good must have happened today. A gentle smile grows on his face, when someone heard how much pain that person was in for three years, then such a small victory like today was enough to bring a smile to everyone's face. 

It made you happy to know that this person also had his special moments in life. Almost everybody in the village thought so, and they all could feel the mysterious player.

Soft

It was so heartwarming to just listen to it, all your worries were gone in an instant. A knock at the door got him out of his inner peace, normally his secretary waited until the melody was over.

“Come in” The door opened and his Anbu captain appeared kneeling.

“Report”

“Butterflies appeared with the melody Hokage-sama” Well that was new, he stood up as he walked to the window. Just like the man said, small groups of butterflies were flying outside. They didn’t seem real thought, they were glowing in all kinds of colors.

This glow was so warm, and they are flying like they had fun, but if you looked closely you could see that they were completely made of chakra. It fascinated him how this person was able to do something like this.

How he could shape such tender beings, with so much detail. The melody ended after four minutes and the butterflies crumbled to light.

“Send a new search team out, we need to find him tomorrow.” Hiruzen said as he sat back down.

Naruto was around three years old when registered that he was much smarter than your average child. He knows that the villagers hated him. He also knew that it had something to do with the Kyuubi since they would be overly aggressive on his birthday.

He used his intelligence to learn from Chunin and Jonin around the village. He observed how Jonin taught the new genin’s chakra control and how they always said that it was one of the most important things as a ninja.

He was four when he mastered three walking, it was difficult to begin, but with time and practice, it started to feel natural. He then broke into the library and took all books regarding chakra control.

At first, it was hard to read, but luck was on his side when the academy explained this topic. With the basic knowledge he had gotten, it was way easier to read them. Time passed and Naruto trained without a break.

He mastered water walking and then the leaf exercise, after a month he did the leaf exercise while hanging upside down. Then he started to circulate small balls over his body with just his chakra.

With time he started to coat his body with chakra, making his kunai sharper. However, these things were learned after two years, he then wanted to challenge himself. He started to make a kunai completely out of chakra.

An idea formed and he started to just make a thread, after another two years he finally understood how it worked. He understood chakra itself, four years of hard work and experiments rewarded him with knowledge.

He didn’t know if he could ever describe it thought, it was so unique and unimaginable. You just have to feel it to understand, his will was connected with his own chakra.

Whatever he thought of, he could build it with chakra. He could move it as he wanted, could color it how he thought looked nice. Around this time, he saw a civilian child play on a piano. The sound was so beautiful that it touched his heart. 

The following night he had broken in to understand the instrument, he had looked through everything to be able to rebuild it. It took him two months of observation to recreate it, but the time was worth it.

He learned fast, way too fast. It was so logical to learn and he could put his bottled-up emotions into it. The first time he played, had him crying for hours, all his emotions put into the music. It was so relieving like a burden was taken from his shoulder.

He left the academy in his second year, the teachers had all sabotaged him and he also didn’t want to be a shinobi under such a Hokage. Hiruzen was too old and yet he didn’t choose a new successor, he was too stubborn to change with the village.

He was ten when he learned that he had the Kyuubi sealed inside him, it was reassuring to know why they hated him. He hadn’t talked with the old man in years, and the Hokage probably didn’t even know that he left the academy.

How dumb they were to drive the Jinchuuriki from them, how they risked the village's power just because of a few feelings. It was just laughable, they were ninjas and yet they couldn’t control their emotions.

At eleven he started a new experiment, strengthening his own body via chakra. However, he didn’t mean like Tsunade, no he meant permanently. He didn’t know when their hatred will reach far enough that they would want to kill him, at least he will be prepared.

He started with this skin, slowly and steadily, inch for inch. He modified his entire skin, mutated it with his will. His will formed the chakra as he wanted, and his chakra formed his skin.

That continued until he had modified his entire body, his skin had turned pale and was resistant enough that a normal blade couldn’t penetrate it. His bones had become as hard as steel and his muscles had become strong enough that he could destroy a rock without chakra.

His eyes though, his blue eyes had turned into the ocean. Deep blue and if you looked into them it felt like it draws you in, he had improved them so that he could see chakra even through walls and wide distances.

His hearing had gotten better, and his smell has gotten sharpened. The most noticeable change however was his hair, it turned white as he completely purified his chakra system. His white hair also fell, instead of its usual spiky structure.

This change had a very positive side effect, nobody recognized him. Gone was his tanned skin and yellow hair, he now looked more like a ghost. It became a habit that he started to wear white clothing.

This change felt so good as he thought that he maybe should learn more medical knowledge, it could help improve his body. It didn’t take long for him to finish reading the books in the library, now that everybody was friendly to him and didn’t hinder his progress.

Soon Medical-Ninjutsu was his second passion, it was so logical and easy to understand. It was his balance for music, one was emotional and intuitive, while the other was logical and clear.

He trained with animals he caught in the forest until he had reached the point where he was satisfied with himself. It was now time to practice with humans, the only option was the hospital, but would they take someone that was this young, well only one way to find out.

Chapter Text

He trained with animals he caught in the forest until he had reached the point where he was satisfied with himself. It was now time to practice with humans, the only option was the hospital, but would they take someone that was this young, well only one way to find out.

“Excuse me” He said to the nurse at the reception.

“Yes, little one” She answered with a smile.

“I would like to help out here, here I even know the healing palm” Naruto said as his hands started to glow deep green. The nurse could only stare at the intensity, she knows that this deep color meant more effectiveness.

For Medical-Ninjutsu you had to first clear your chakra as much as you could and then you would apply the jutsu. Such a deep coloring meant that he could purify his chakra to an absurdly high level.

“Come with me boy” Naruto just nodded as he took the offered hand and followed after the nurse.

“Director could please spare us a little of your time?” She asked as they arrived at the director's office.

“What brings you here?” He asked as he glanced up from his papers.

“Can you show it again” Naruto just nodded as his hands started to glow again, this time even deeper. The doctor’s papers fell off his hands as he stumbled to the two of them.

“Boy, where have you learned this?” He asked gently.

“I learned it myself” The two could only stare at the boy.

“He wanted to help out” The nurse said breaking the silence.

“Of course, of course. Say your name and I will put you down as my apprentice” The doctor said, and Naruto paused. His name, he couldn’t use his real name.

“Ken, I’m not from around here” Naruto said with a small smile.

“Well Ken-kun, I hope we work well together”

The following months were great, he could learn so much and help people by doing so. It was nice to get a thanks for his work, yet he felt so lonely inside. It was nice to be a genius, they called him the white doctor.

He healed people left and right and after half a year he was even allowed to treat life-threatening wounds. Thought, after two years he was sure that he couldn’t learn more by staying here.

“Excuse me, they said that I should come to you with my broken arm” Turning around Naruto saw Shikamaru, the boy had grown. He started to work as his palm glowed green and Shikamaru’s bones started to set themselves.

He wasn’t worried that his old classmate would recognize him, nobody of them did. He was a new person, had his new life and would live happily as he could.

“That’s it, please be more careful” Naruto said as he turned around to finish his papers but froze.

“Thanks, mysteries player” Shikamaru said with a smirk, but it vanished as he looked into Naruto’s eyes. They were deadly as if they could look into your soul, he was pushed into a room.

“How did you know?” Naruto asked as he pressed the boy against the wall, already grasping for air Shikamaru tried to hit him, but his hand got more hurt than Naruto's face did.

“Air” He whispered out and the white-haired boy let him breathe a bit, but his hand still remained on his throat.

“How did you know?” The boy asked again, hands already started squeezing.

“I saw you on the clearing last week” Shikamaru blurred out in fear, he thought that this would go smoother. He just wanted to thank the boy.

“That is not possible, I always make sure that nobody is near me” Naruto hissed out.

“How should I know, I was sleeping soundly when I heard your song and when I opened my eyes, I saw you planning a white violin” Shikamaru said as he tried to remove the hand, but it was a failure.

Naruto in the meantime tried to find out how it was possible, could it be because the boy was asleep?

“Hey, I haven’t told anybody in a whole week. Put a bit of trust in me” Shikamaru said as he still tried to move the arm a little, but it didn’t move at all. Was he this weak?

“I trust nobody, now shut up. I have to think” Naruto hissed in panic.

“Could you think and let me breathe?” He complained as the whitehead didn’t let go at all.

“Try to move and I will finish your life” Naruto said as he let himself fall on the bed.

“How can I come out of this alive?” He asked after 10 minutes of silence.

“I’m thinking about a solution, but I just can’t trust you enough.” The white head hissed out.

“What do I have to do to make you trust me then?” He asked annoyed, even if the guy could kill him it was obvious that he didn’t want to, but he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t do it if he saw no other option.

“I will stay by your side for two weeks to make my judgment. Your academy should have holidays now anyway.” Was this guy for real?

“I’m Ken, better think of a reason for your parents as to why I will be living with you” This guy can’t serious.

“Mom, Dad, I brought a friend with me” That will be two long weeks.

Chapter Text

“Mom, Dad, I brought a friend with me” That will be two long weeks.

The two parents both looked around the corner as they heard their son, Shikamaru brought someone with him?

The boy was the same height as Shikamaru, but what stood out was just how white he was. He was so pale and yet he didn’t look unhealthy, his hair was snow white. Shikaku was sure that he had never seen the boy in Konoha.

However, he had heard of him, the genius medic. He was working at the hospital as an apprentice, it’s said that he is even better than some doctors.

“He will stay with us during the holidays” His son said as a matter of fact and both parents looked at their son in wonder. He was never so pushy or even brought someone to a sleepover, to begin with.

“Good evening, my name is Ken” Naruto said with a small bow.

“Ah, what a cute child you are” Shikamaru’s mother said as she pinched his cheek.

“I didn’t know that Konoha had someone with white hair and such pale skin, you are so cute” His mother ranted as she pressed the living hell out of Naruto, though, he had to say that his mother was right. Naruto was cute as hell with these large blue eyes.

“Come in, your mother isn’t finished with the food yet” His father said as he walked back in.

“Shikamaru why don’t you play a game of Shogi with your friend?” Shikaku said as he got them a board.

“I’m sorry, I have never played that game before. I don’t even know the rules, but I learn while watching” Naruto said as the other two nodded, they will play once to show him how it worked.

Naruto watched the game play out for 30 minutes already as he read the manual in addition. He watched how Shikamaru’s father slowly build up a trap, it was so slow and yet with each move, it became clearer.

“Wait” He said as Shikamaru wanted to move a piece that would finish the trap, he flicked through the manual again to be certain. He then moved a piece to the right and got it upgraded.

“There you go, the trap has a gap now” Naruto said as the other two gaped at him. Shikamaru because he didn’t see the trap. Shikaku on the other hand was fascinated, the boy just learned the game in 30 minutes and saw through his trap.

“You sure that you just learned the game?” Shikaku asked as he moved his piece.

Naruto just hummed as he stopped Shikamaru again to move another piece. Now Shikaku’s front was completely open.

“Well it’s my loss” Shikaku said as he looked at the board, truly fascinating.

“So, Ken-kun, are you a friend from the academy?” Shikaku asked as he cleared the board.

“No, I’m a medic in training. We just talk from time to time when we cloud watch” It was the perfect excuse they had come up with since nobody know where Shikamaru always disappeared to.

“Ahh, I have heard about you. The genius Medic is quite a feat to reach at your age. Didn’t the Hokage ask you to become a Medic-Nin?” Shikamaru stared at Naruto, he didn’t tell him anything about that.

“Yeah he did, but I turned him down”

“Why?” He didn’t know that his father was so curious about Naruto.

“I’m a civilian, I don’t want to risk my life for Shinobi’s” That was also the same lie he had told the Hokage, he just didn’t want someone to be able to command him around.

“That is understandable my boy” Shikamaru’s mother said as she placed the food on the table.

"Well then, I hope you like it"

Three years later.

“You are here again” Ken said as he entered the clearing. It had become their secret place, a clearing that was hard to find. It was his secret hideout for cloud watching before, now it was his most treasured secret.

“You can say if I’m bothering you” Shikamaru answered, they didn’t talk much in these three years. Ken came over for dinner sometimes or to play a game of shogi with his dad once every two weeks. But they never talked about Ken's private life, about his parents or where his skills came from.

“No, it’s fine, I like your presence” This was new to him, the mysterious player the whole village talked about liked his presence. What made him so mysterious you think? Well, it was that after three years nobody could find him.

Every day, at the exact same time, he played a song. It didn’t matter where you were, you could always hear him. For three years straight, no matter if it rained or snowed, the boy would always play.

“And I like your music” The whole village had tried to find out who it was at first, had thought that it was an enemy Genjutsu. With time it showed that nothing bad came from it, the search groups never found them.

The people had gotten used to it, it was their daily break for four minutes. The Hokage had given up on finding the player after half a year.

A soft tone brought him out of his thoughts. Something good must have happened today, Shikamaru could only remember seven times something warm was played. It was rare and amazing, it filled you with hope and happiness.

He watched as a smile spread over the boy’s face while he played the violin. His instrument looked just like a real one, the only difference was that it was made out of chakra.

He had asked once and the answer had really surprised him, Shikamaru know that someone could manipulate chakra to form a chakra scalpel for example. This thought, an instrument that functioned was at a completely new level.

 He stopped his thoughts as the music ended, he saw how the boy whipped away a happy tear. Ken turned to leave again like he always did when he was finished.

“Naruto wait!!!” Shikamaru called out before he could stop himself, the boy froze in his spot as he slowly turned to him. His expression was neutral, but his eyes showed his shock.

“How?” It was a small whisper and yet Shikamaru could hear him clearly.

“I always knew, even if nobody else recognized you. I would never forget your eyes, I didn’t tell anybody since you looked so happy.” Shikamaru said as he sat up against the tree and patted the spot beside him, Naruto just sighed before he moved over to him.

“So, you know all along” Naruto said as he sat himself beside Shikamaru.

“Hmm, I sat beside you in the academy before you dropped out” Shikamaru remarked.

“The instructors didn’t want me there, why bother with them.” Well that made sense, he really didn’t know why almost every adult in the village hated Naruto. It was also the reason why he didn’t tell anyone about his new look.

Suddenly everyone treated the boy with care and respect, instead of hate and fear. They let him buy things in their shops now, or they didn’t chase after him when it was his birthday.

“Does the Hokage know?” He asked, but only got a laugh from Naruto.

“I met him today, he doesn’t even have a clue that I quit the academy” Well that was concerning, someone must be making false reports.

“Why did you meet him?” he asked.

“I got my certification as a medic today and the old man wanted to congratulate me” Naruto said with a small smile.

“Congratulation, so you are a Medic-Nin now?” Again, just a laugh as an answer.

“No, I’m a Medic, not a Medic-Nin. I’m a civilian and therefore am not under the Shinobi order” So that meant Naruto wasn’t under the Hokage’s order any more.

“Would you like to have dinner at my place?” Shikamaru suddenly asked, not even sure why he did it, but he wanted to hang out with Naruto.

“I don’t know, I don’t want your dad to find out. I'm too often at your home, your dad is asking a lot of questions” Naruto said fearful, he didn’t want to be discovered. On the other hand, Shikamaru was the only person that know him. The person who know his name for so long and still didn’t tell anybody.

He didn’t even tell the Hokage after the boundary that was set for his head, who would have thought that a little music could annoy them so much?

“I don’t think that he will find out when even the Hokage couldn’t, I think my father hasn’t even seen you before” Shikamaru said, and he was right.

“Okay, I will come” Naruto said and Shikamaru could only smile.

Chapter Text

“Okay, I will come” Naruto said and Shikamaru could only smile.

Naruto and Shikamaru started to hang out more often in the following two years. Naruto motivated Shikamaru to do more in his training, he even started to teach him chakra control.

Shikamaru on the other hand brought Naruto food every day he played for the village. He also brought Naruto home pretty often, their family always cheered on Naruto when he got promoted in the hospital.

He was now the vise-director of the hospital, what chakra control could do for you. He had a got a good reputation around the village as a genius doctor.

He saved so many lives and at the same time he lost many, the life of a shinobi was so cruel. Most of them didn’t pass the age of 28, which is the reason why most of them married around the of 15 if not earlier.

Though in this time of peace it had gotten better, the lifespan had increased to around 48 years. This generation of parents was the first to pass that age and was actually pulling the life expectancy up, or at least the statistics for it.

Still young, but way better than before. He healed a broken bone as he felt someone approaching him from behind.

“Ken-san” Naruto turned as he heard his new name.

“Yes?” He asked as he turned that man was definitely an anbu.

“Hokage-sama wants to see you now.” Naruto nodded as he finished the treatment and handed the patient over to a nurse.

Coming into the Hokage office he saw Shikamaru's and Might Guy's team, they were all on edge. Was it the mission or the Hokage that made them this nervous?

“You have called” He stated flatly as his face was blank.

“Show some respect, he is---” The anbu started but Naruto interrupted him.

“I’m a civilian and therefore not under his command. If he doesn’t like me in this village then he just has to say so and I will leave” Naruto challenged, he knows that they wouldn’t do that. He was way too valuable to be kicked out.

“It’s no problem” Hiruzen said, stopping his anbu guard.

“I have called you here to ask you for help, Kakashi and his team were attacked and he was seriously injured.” The Hokage said.

“Then why don’t you send a medic-nin, or is it that this village is lazing around and doesn’t produce one?” Naruto asked self-satisfied, he knew that this village had only four medic-nins.

“They are all out on a mission, you are the medic that has the most skills in the ninja field in the hospital. We would like to send you with two escort teams, the pay doesn’t matter” Some in the room stared at the Hokage in shock, the pay doesn’t matter?

Were they this desperate to get him? Well, it was for Kakashi after all, one of their strongest shinobi.

“Fine, I will go” The room breathed out in relief.

“But I have conditions.” Naruto said and the room tensed again, was he sane to say that so bluntly to the Hokage?

“And these are?”

“I want the payment of an S-rank mission and I want to lead this mission until it’s completely over” Asuma and Guy stared at the boy in shock, he, a civilian, wanted to lead shinobi teams, two jonin no less.

“Fine” Asuma gaped at his father, something couldn’t be right here.

“But if your decisions seem unreasonable they will be given back to Asuma” Naruto just nodded as he looked at his team.

“I will get my things from the hospital, we will meet at the gate in an hour to depart”

“Are you all ready?” Naruto asked as he came to the gate as the last person, they just nodded. He had created a clone that would be playing while he was away not to be suspicious. 

“Okay, short introduction before we go. I’m Ken, the hospital's vise-director.” He said with a small smile.

"My name is Might Guy, but many call me the green beast of Konoha" The jonin in a green jumpsuit expressed with way too much enthusiasm.

"Rock Lee, I will be the best taijutsu master ever" The green copy of his sensei said with the same amount of enthusiasm.

"Tenten"

"Neji Hyuuga" Well look at these carefully concealed hate-filled eyes, these beautiful white eyes. 

“Asuma Sarutobi, jonin-sensei” Naruto nodded.

“Ino Yamanaka, genin” The blond girl said, he of course knows all their names.

“Chouji Akimichi”

“I already know Shikamaru, let’s go” Naruto said as he moved out of the door before he started running. Looking behind he saw that they could keep up with him, he started to test them as he put more chakra into his legs.

Asuma wasn’t sure what it was, but something set him off about the boy. His looks, his skills, even the way how he spoke. How can a civilian be so fast and he got even faster every three minutes?

Wave country wasn’t that far away, with this speed they should be able to reach it this noon. Asuma thought that they had to travel at least two days before they could get to Kakashi with a civilian.

“Let us stop here for a break” Naruto said as they entered a forest, the genin just nodded and let themselves fall to the ground.

“What kind of civilian runs for five hours straight” Ino screamed into his face, still panting.

“And what kind of Shinobi can’t do it? Even Shikamaru doesn’t look that exhausted and he always says that he is the most lazy in class” Naruto commented and Asuma had to say that the boy was right.

Shikamaru looked good, he wasn’t as exhausted as the others were and that guy really just lazed around in their training. Interesting, really interesting, he will watch the two of them more closely.

"Well if we can't do this, then we should double the training once we are back" Rock Lee exclaimed.

"So it's true what I hear about you" Naruto said as he came closer to Lee. Suddenly his eyes turned silver as he channeled chakra to his eyes to see the chakra system of the boy.

"Very interesting, an almost completely blocked chakra system with a few big veins that go your arms and legs. No wonder you can't use gen- and ninjutsu." Naruto said.

"That's why I will be the best taijutsu specialist ever" Lee exclaimed once again.

"Hmm, if it's true what I heard about you and your training, then I have no doubt that you will become one. You are very special Lee to not have lost hope to this point, keep training, you will reach a point where you have a breakthrough." Naruto said with a small smile.

"You shouldn't give him false hope doc, he has no talent and struggles needlessly to overcome his shortcomings." Neji said from the side in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Effort is never wasted even if you don't get the results you want, it still teaches you that you have the discipline to work for something you want. And I believe that he can get strong by specializing in just one field, after all, it's exactly what I did. 

I'm here today because I did only learn one thing, I trained for a better part of 10 years in chakra control. I trained every day and challenge myself with something new once things got too easy. 

And look how far it has brought me, I'm the vice director of one of the biggest hospitals in the world. I believe it is better to be the best in one tiny field than to be average in many." He finished as he looked at the shocked face of the Hyuuga kid. 

"He is talentless, it's his destiny to fail" Neji whispered as they had already turned away.

"Fate and destiny are things weak people believe in. These are things only people say that have already given up on their selves and now try to find a justification to explain their decision to give themselves up. Fate isn't real, when I was three, people wanted to kill me.

You could say that it was fate for a three-year-old to die, but I didn't want to die. I believe that everyone has their own fate in their hands and can form it as they want. Do we all have different starting points, sure, do some have it immensely easier than others? Without a doubt.

But in the end, you can make your own decisions and move forward. You can work on getting your path, I for myself am still working towards my freedom. For freedom is the goal of my life, and for that, I train endlessly every day" Naruto finished his rant/lecture. 

"I think that is enough of a break, let's continue our journey." Naruto said as they started to move again.

They almost reached their destination after two hours from the forest. Naruto looked ahead and could already see the island, it looked like a nice small place. He didn’t even think about it as he just continued running over the water.

“Ken” He heard Shikamaru and stopped, only after he turned did he see that the Genin stopped at the shore.

“What are you waiting for?” He asked as he came back.

“Woa, you can walk on water?” Naruto looked at the fat kid as he said that, what they couldn’t?

Asuma could only stare at the medic, he didn’t even do a single hand sign as he stepped on the water, nor did he slow down in the slightest. What kind of civilian could do that?

“They haven’t learned it” He just said as the boy stared at him.

“Well, who can?" He asked as Shikamaru and Neji lifted their hands.

"I will take these Genin and Asuma-san, we will get to the patient as fast as possible. The rest will be in your care Guy-san" He said before moving, he didn't wait if they agreed with him or not. 

He already heard a few footsteps behind him as they followed his lead. He looked over his shoulder to see Shikamaru and Neji following right behind him, Asuma was on the left side.

They moved fast as they already reached halfway to the island, he then noticed that Shikamaru and Neji slowed down. He could hear how Neji started to pant and how his movements become sluggish. Shikamaru was a little better but he also slowed down a lot.

"Asuma, carry Shikamaru I will help Neji" He said as Asuma moved and hosted Shimamaru on his back. He moved to Neji as he stretched his arm out.

"Give me your hand" He said as Neji hesitated for a moment before grabbing it, he then let his purified chakra transfer into the other boy's body and Neji stopped struggling with his movements.

"Don't let go until we reach the island" He instructed as he once again increased his speed as he transferred his chakra into Neji while moving. 

They reached the island safely but Naruto had to confess that this did indeed take a toll on his chakra reserves, the constant transfer into Neji, and boy, did this guy waste much of his chakra with that crude control he had over it. Way too much waste for every step he took. 

They reached the house that was described in the mission report, there was no guard outside which was really concerning. He knocked two times as a middle-aged woman opened the door. 

"We are the reinforcement from Konoha" 

Chapter Text

"We are the reinforcement from Konoha" 

“Where is the patient?” He asked and the woman made a confused expression before she understood and showed them the way up.

Coming into the room Naruto saw three genin and one adult, probably their jonin-sensei. He recognized Sakura and Sasuke, but the third was a new face. Extremely pale skin and black hair with almost dead eyes.

He ignored them as he went to Kakashi and started to diagnose him, it was a case of severe chakra exhaustion. He started to heal his wounds first, no need for them to get infected.

He then stimulated his chakra recovery as he let his chakra circulate through Kakashi's system, he wanted to check his internal wounds, but the talking of the genin's got on his nerves.

“Shut up, I’m saving a life here and you don’t have anything better to do than distract me. Say another word and you will sleep outside today” He warned and they shut up.

He then checked for internal wounds and healed them slowly, it took him two hours to get it all done. He gave Kakashi a light chakra signal to wake him up.

“Hey, don’t move, I just healed you. You still have to stay in bed for a day” Naruto said as he pinned him down, the guy was still a little confused. His eyes flickered from one noise he heard another.

“Is this the only room?” Naruto asked as he looked at the woman who was quiet the whole time.

“Unfortunately, we thought only four people would come” She said, and Naruto nodded, this room was by no means big enough for all of them and there was still another team to come.

“It’s no problem, you can go back to your family. It’s already late, we will discuss everything tomorrow.” Naruto said as she nodded and left.

"It's late and we need to rest, the other team should be here in around an hour. You should start guarding with three genin and a jonin, the genin should be one from each team so that they can get to know each other." He said as he took his sleeping back out.

"For how long?" Neji asked.

"Two hours should do, the jonins have to stay for three since Kakashi is still weak" He said as Asuma nodded. 

"I will start with Shikamaru and Sasuke" Neji said as the two other boys nodded. 

“What about you?” Sakura asked.

“I’m a civilian, I don’t guard or do all this bothersome shit. I will sleep now, so don’t you dare to wake me up” Naruto said as he walked up the wall until he reached the ceiling.

They all watched in amazement as the kid got into his sleeping back and started to sleep on the ceiling his face down to them. Kakashi was now wide awake, he knows that medics needed extraordinary chakra control. This, however, was on a totally different level, this kid controls his chakra while sleeping.

The genin could only gape as they stared at the ceiling, how on earth was that possible? Even his white hair wasn’t hanging down loosely.

“Well, you heard him. Make an order and stay guard for two hours each.” Asuma said as he got out of his awe. He will report that to the Hokage, this kid was made to be a ninja with this chakra control.

"Who is he?" Sasuke asked as they were on the roof of the house they had to guard.

"Ken, the vice director of the hospital" Neji said, his tone interested.

"So he is a medic-nin?" Sasuke asked.

"No, Ken is a normal medic. The village just doesn't have that many medic-nins so Ken had to come with us." Shikamaru explained as Sasuke nodded.

"He can't fight then?" Sasuke asked disappointed.

"Not sure, but his chakra control is amazing. Did you see how he just went to sleep on the ceiling, he controls his chakra while he is asleep. That is better than any jonin I have seen so far." Shikamaru said.

"Yeah, while coming here, he transferred his chakra to me while still running at high speed over the river with us" Neji said as Sasuke stared at Neji.

"You can walk on water?" He asked into the round.

"Yeah, Ken taught me" Shikamaru replied, Asuma was sitting further away but he heard everything. So Shikamaru already knew because Ken was teaching him.

"So you can walk up walls?" Sasuke asked.

"Sure" Neji and Shikamaru replied.

"Can you show me?" Well, that was odd but sure, Neji was first as he jumped down to the ground and then slowly walked up the building.

"Can you teach me?" Sasuke asked as the older boy came up. Neji didn't say anything as he didn't want to waste his time with the Uchiha.

"I can teach you" Shikamaru said as it didn't seem like the older Hyuuga would say anything.

"So, you lay down and put your feet against the wall. Now just focus your chakra on your feet, too much chakra and you will be repelled, too little and you won't stick. Just increase your chakra little by little until it sticks and try to remember this feeling, do it four to five times and then try to walk up the wall." Shikamaru said.

Asuma watched how Shikamaru was teaching the tree walking exercise, it was completely different from how he had learned it. The village didn't teach it like this, so that meant that Ken had taught Shikamaru like this. 

He watched how the Uchiha kid lay on the ground for fifteen minutes before the boy's body tensed up as he slowly took his first step. He indeed did take a full step before falling, but that was to be expected, clan children needed at least a week to learn tree walking.

"The first step was good, but you have to balance your body as well or the pull on your body will be too great." Shikamaru explained.

Another fifteen minutes passed and he saw something amazing, the Uchiha kid did indeed learn to walk up the wall. So one, the Uchiha was a genius, which was possible with that family or two, Ken's method was way better.

So or so, he had to report this to the Hokage, Ken was just too good to be left alone as a normal medic. 

“Wake up everybody, we are staying in someone else's house. We can at least make breakfast” Naruto said as he let himself fall down from the ceiling. Most of the others groaned as they woke up.

"The sun didn’t even raise, how can you wake up” Shikamaru complained as he just went back to sleep. Naruto just smiled as he let his sleeping back fall, it hit Shikamaru’s head who just groaned more.

“Get down in 10 minutes or you will be on guard for the whole night” Naruto said as he went down. He smiled as he heard the genin jump out of their beds.

“So, what are your plans exactly?” Naruto asked as they all sat at the small table to have breakfast. A few had to sit on the ground as the hosts were not prepared to get three teams.

“Today I will go into the village to gather people to help with the workload” The old man looked at him, trying to figure out why he was in charge all of a sudden.

“Asuma will go with you, he was Guardian Nin, so his skills should be good enough to protect you from Zabuza” Naruto said getting a surprised look from Asuma himself.

“Wait Zabuza is still alive?” Sakura asked, but only got a nod as an answer.

“Kakashi will train the genin and I will stay by as medic, Guy-san will stay here and protect the family” Naruto informed.

Two hours later they all stood in a clearing as they waited for Naruto and Kakashi to arrive, they didn’t wait long as Kakashi and Naruto appeared out of thin air, probably Shunshin.

“Then let’s get started, I will teach you how to walk on water” Naruto said as he put his foot on the river surface and stepped onto it.

“It’s just like tree climbing, but you have to adjust your chakra all the time since the water is moving.” Naruto explained, but their faces showed how confused they were.

“They haven’t learned tree climbing” Kakashi said from the side, as Naruto stared at him with a ridiculous look.

“What were you teaching them? I mean, I’m a civilian and I can do it, are you sure that ninjas are that great?” Naruto know how mocking it was, but it did the job as they all looked at him insulted.

“Well this sort of basic training is yours, to begin with, so do your job as sensei” Naruto said to Kakashi.

"What about us?" Neji asked.

"What about you?" Naruto asked back.

"We can already walk on water, can't you teach us something?" Neji asked as he swallowed his pride. This boy was younger than him and was better at this, way better, so he had to learn as much as he could if he wanted to defeat the main family.

"Urgg, sure, what do you wanna learn?" Naruto asked back. 

"Umm" Neji was for a loss for words as he didn't know what to ask for from a civilian medic.

"How about you teach us how to make a weapon out of chakra?" Shikamaru asked as the genin perked up open hearing this. 

"You can make a weapon with just chakra?" Sasuke asked in awe. 

"Sure" He replied as a broad sword appeared in his hand, it then formed into a kunai before it became a katana. 

"But I think that this is way too advanced for you. I will teach you how to have overall better chakra control, I have seen yesterday just how much you waste." Naruto said as he started with something small like the leaf-sticking exercise while Neji and Shikamaru set on the river.

Kakashi could only observe from the sidelines but what he saw with the chakra weapons was impressive, no screw that, it was amazing to a fault that he couldn't describe it. 

A weapon made of pure chakra that could change its shape at any given time is extremely dangerous since the enemy has no idea which weapon it might change in the next second.

It was also made effortlessly without any hand sign or giveaway movements, from one moment to the other a weapon was there. 

It would no exaggeration to say that Ken was at least a special jonin with this kind of specialization. He knows nobody with this kind of chakra control, even Tsunade wasn't this good.

He had to report this to the Hokage, they needed to get this boy to become a medic for this village. 

The following two days were all the same, the genin trained 10 hours a day, while Naruto did his own training on the water. He was sleeping on water, it was even harder than the ceiling since he had to adjust his chakra every second while he was sleeping.

Sakura and Sai got the hang of tree walking fairly easily, but the clan kids all struggled with their chakra reserves.

He closed his eyes as he drifted back to sleep again. A memory, a memory of how the village searched for him. It was a year ago when the Hokage found out that their Jinchuuriki was missing, not just for a day or two no.

He found out that Naruto was missing for four years, the search was gigantic. Almost every shinobi in the village looked for him and yet they couldn’t find him. The chunin who made false reports were sent to the intelligence division and after that executed.   

“Ken?” He opened his eyes as he looked at Shikamaru.

“Yeah?” Naruto asked as he opened his eyes.

“We are finished for today, the others are already heading back” Shikamaru said.

“Then go back with them, say that I will sleep here to train today” Naruto said, in reality, he was just too lazy to go back to all these noisy people. It was weird, both Neji and Sasuke looked at him with these eyes of admiration. Both learned at a fast pace as if their lives depended on it, how did he know that? 

Well, he was just like them when he was younger, so eager to learn new things and to become stronger. Their reasons for searching for strength might be different, but he knows how it felt to be this powerless. These eyes of desperation the two had. 

It clearly showed that they had no one to rely on other than themselves, for Sasuke it was an obvious answer. For Neji it was different, he should have a clan that supports him.

Shikamaru just nodded as he went after his teammates, he knew it when Naruto wanted to be alone.

They had known each other for six years now and had talked about their worries and insecurities. They almost know everything about each other.

“Are you okay?” He must have slept the whole night because as he opened his eyes he could see the sun raising. A boy, around the age of 15 looked at him in concern.

“Yeah, everything is fine. Thanks for worrying” Naruto said with a small smile, for a shinobi this boy was too kind-hearted.

“Are you a Konoha ninja like the others?” The boy asked.

“No, I’m a civilian medic” He said, the boy looked surprised at that.

“Ah, would you be kind enough to tell me what herbs help the most against injuries?” He asked, well it wouldn’t hurt him.

“Sure, what kind of injuries are you trying to treat?” They used the whole morning to collect herbs and Naruto made a cream out of them. The boy thanked him before he left with a small smile.

The days after that weren’t that spectacular, he started to guard the client as he couldn’t stand the two girls fighting over him and Sasuke. It was exhausting and nerve-wracking, how did they become ninjas?

It was after a week when Zabuza attacked again, he was on guard with Asuma and Neji. To be fair, he just wanted to be away from Ino and Sakura, they were just so damn noisy. 

“I didn’t think we would see each other as enemies Haku-kun”  

Chapter Text

“I didn’t think we would see each other as enemies Haku-kun”  

“Me either Ken-san” Zabuza looked him up and down.

“Is this the medic boy that made my cream?” Zabuza asked and Asuma’s shock was clear as he looked at him for confirmation.

“How should I have known that he worked for Zabuza? I’m just a civilian, I don’t have your ninja instincts to see through enemies” Naruto defended with an innocent face.

“Stay back, I will fight them” Naruto just nodded as he jumped to their client, Neji right beside him. 

The fight was breathtaking, Asuma had many hidden jutsus he had never seen in his life. Ash cloud was spat out and then it exploded, he doubted that Kakashi would hear them from the training ground, but Guy might hear them and come.

Asuma dodged Zabuza’s blade but was hit with three senbons. Zabuza made a Water dragon, but it was slashed with a wind Jutsu.

"You should step in and help Asuma, I will stay by the client" He said to Neji as the genin nodded, he moved to cover Asuma's back as he blocked a senbon that was flying at Asuma's shoulder.

Neji then proceeded to attack Haku, but Haku dodged and then engaged in very impressive one-on-one melee combat with Neji. It was the first time he had seen a shinobi fight this close and he was excited. 

Neji showed why people named him a genius of the Hyuuga clan, his Byakugan activated as he hit Haku two times and Haka's left arm was made useless. 

What he didn't expect was for Haku to use just one arm to sign a jutsu, mirrors of ice appeared, which was impressive enough but then Haku stepped into the ice. Like what the hell, something like this was possible?

Shinobi jutsus sure are crazy and flashy to look at, just like the water dragon a moment ago. The only sad part about it was that they used all their creativity to destroy something. 

Neji was doing pretty good to defend himself against all these senbons that were flying his way. It was clear that Neji's eyes could follow Haku but his body couldn't, also, Neji couldn't deal any damage to the mirrors. 

Asuma was trying to help Neji but that was blocked fast by Zabuza, Konoha shinobi sure had gotten weaker if the elite jonin had to fight this hard against an A-rank missing-nin like Zabuza.

But he learned one thing from all this and that was that the Byakugan had a blind spot. The observation was more of a coincidence, but it seemed that Haku had found it before him since he tried to strike Neji in his blind spot. 

"Hakkesho Kaiten" Neji said as he rotated and released chakra from his chakra points to create a shield. Well, that was new to him since he never considered releasing his chakra from his chakra points in his system.

It was a completely new idea and had so many possibilities, it was a genius idea. No wonder the Hyuuga clan was one of the strongest, if not the strongest clan in Konoha.

But even if the idea was genius, it didn't help long as Neji was still in the same position in the middle of the mirrors with no way out. He sighed, he had talked Neji into it, the boy would die if he continued any longer. 

"Neji on the floor" He yelled as he created a chakra threat to slice the mirrors forcing Haku to jump out before he was sliced in half. 

He used his threat to pull Neji over to him as he pulled the senbons out and licked one, no poison, that was good. He then proceeded to heal the genin, he used one hand to create a chakra shield around them as a senbon was flying his way.

"Careful Haku, you don't want me as your opponent" He said as his other hand still healed Neji up. 

"Are you able to stand?" He asked as Neji nodded in wonder, his body was as good as new, even his chakra was refilled. 

"Anything that hurts?" He asked as Neji just shook his head. 

"Good then off you go, I will pull you back and heal you again should something happ---" At that moment they heard a loud crash as Asuma was sliding down a pillar that he was thrown against. Blood ran out of his mouth and stomach. 

"Nevermind, you only have this one chance. I will fight Zabuza, old man go over to Asuma lay him down carefully and stay there so that I can protect you" Naruto said as he slowly stepped in between Asuma and Zabuza.

"Aren't you a medic? Sure you want to fight me boy?" Zabuza asked with a grin.

"It's my first fight that's true, but he is the Hokage's son and I'm kinda responsible for this mission" Naruto said as he readied himself. 

"I give you one last chance since you somehow healed me, get the hell out of my sight" Zabuza said.

"Only if you leave them alone" Naruto replied and a second later Zabuza was dashing at him, he copied Zabuza's sword as the two clashed and he was glad that he applied chakra on top of his strengthened muscles and skin. 

He used more chakra as he pushed Zabuza back, the shock was clear on the other nin as he jumped back and went through a lot of hand signs to create one of these gigantic water dragons. 

The dragon came his way as he jumped back a little to protect Asuma and the client as he created a chakra wall. The next moment he saw Zabuza coming at him again, so he created a threat and Zabuza thought he could cut through it. 

Well that was a mistake as it tangled up, he pulled but Zabuza didn't let go. What he didn't expect was that he pulled so hard Zabuza was pulled towards him. 

He used this chance to channel a good amount of chakra into his fist as he punched the missing-nin in his face, sending him flying a few meters as he crashed into a tree. But that son of a bitch stood up again as he went through a few hand signs that once again send a water dragon his way, just way bigger this time. He could already see how Haku jumped to Zabuza to dodge this.

This was his chance to test out the jutsu he had created in a real battle, he made a few hand signs, he was way slower than the others but he didn't care. His jutsu released a lot of chakra as it spread forward and covered the area Zabuza and Haku were in. 

With a second delay that chakra stopped all the vibration in the area, making it freeze up in an instant. 

It was the same jutsu Naruto used when he played every time in the village. Vibrations were the thing our world is built open. He had learned that in his medical studies, physic was important for medical-ninjutsu after all.

He had learned that all things in the world vibrated, cold things vibrated less than hot things. With this knowledge, he experimented and created this jutsu, Vibration reduction. As the name says, it reduces the vibration until the things stop vibrating at all and with that freeze.

“What the hell was that?” Turning around he saw the two genin teams at the side of the bridge staring at him with mouth agape. Had they seen the whole fight? Why were they even here?

“This was definitely self-defense, this guy wanted to kill me. You are all my witnesses, I don’t wanna have a law sued against me later” Naruto said as he just decided to ignore them completely.

The genin all started to complain as they didn’t buy the distraction at all, but Naruto didn’t care as he put chakra into his eyes to look around them. 

"Impressive Ken-kun, just like Tsunade, no even better than Lady Tsunade" Guy said with a thumbs up. 

"Look after Neji, I will heal Asuma" He just replied as he went for the jonin.

Healing the unconscious jonin, he saw that Asuma had severe damage to his abdomen but nothing he couldn't fix. He first stopped the bleeding as he looked up to see all the genin staring at the wound in horror. 

"Bring him to the house, I will need my equipment. Be careful not to move him too much, especially with his stomach" He said as he moved over to Neji to check on him. 

The boy had a lot of minor cuts that were bleeding and a few deeper wounds but nothing life-threatening for now. He patched the deeper and meaner wounds up and the boy didn't make a single sound.

"You did great" He said as he ruffled Neji's hear, it had become a habit he did with his younger patients. Though, the other boy seemed to be at a complete loss as he just stood there frozen for a second before blushing. 

"I will heal you after I'm done with Asuma" 

Chapter Text

"I will heal you after I'm done with Asuma"

A hand landed on his shoulder and he turned to see who was bothering him as he treated a patient, he didn’t expect to look into Kakashi’s Sharingan.

“From where do you know that this jutsu?” Kakashi asked as all their voices quieted down to hear his answer. Naruto didn’t move as he looked into the Sharingan and looked until he couldn’t take it anymore and started to laugh.

“Yo—you thought that--- that this would work” Naruto couldn’t stop himself from falling to the ground as his laughter got even louder, it took him two minutes to calm down.

“Seriously Kakashi, I haven’t laughed this good in a while. You thought that this pony genjutsu would work against me” He couldn’t help it as a second round of laughter came out of him.

“Why don’t you look after the client like a good shinobi should, I will heal Asuma-san until he is fine. We both do our jobs, everyone is happy with that” Naruto said with a pointed look, Kakashi sighed defeated and walked over to the client.

“What a good boy he is” Naruto said happily as he started to heal Asuma again, who in return just laughed at his remark, so the man was awake.

“You were so awesome out there. Zabuza was like; I will kill you and then made a water dragon, but you just stared him down totally cool and then froze him to death.” Ino exclaimed.

"And that wall and punch before, are you sure that you are as old as us?" Lee asked so they had seen everything.

"So you were there the whole time and didn't think to help?" He asked as Kakashi started to sweat bullets because this was getting very dangerous right now.

“Okay, everyone out of the room. I have to heal Asuma’s wounds probably and after that, I want to hear exactly why you didn't help me” Naruto said with a harsh tone that suggested that this wasn’t over.

“But we wanna see it.” Ino complained.

“Didn’t I make myself clear, go down and make dinner or something” Naruto said as he looked at the brats with ice-cold eyes, he was just one year older, but it felt like it was 10.

“Now then, please take your shirt off and lie down.” Naruto said as the rest finally left the room, to his surprise the man did as he was told and didn’t comment on it at all.

“Does it hurt anywhere else than here?” Naruto asked as the wound slowly closed before his eyes.

“My left leg” Naruto nodded as he finished the chest wound first, he then rolled his pants up and looked at the wound. The stomach luckily was healed on the bridge.

“You are lucky that they didn’t use poison, or this would have taken way longer” Naruto said with a small laugh.

“hmm, is that so.” Asuma just said as he waited to be finished.

"Okay, that is as much as I can do right now, so please rest a little more and don't move too much" He said as Asuma nodded.

A knock at the door stopped them as Kakashi came in with the genins, they all set down and looked at him expectantly.

“Don’t look at me like that, I have worked hard to reach where I stand today. Nobody helped me to learn a single jutsu, all I have today is the result of my hard work. If you just for a second believe that you will get my jutsus then you are better off using force” Naruto said as he sat down in a corner.

He just smiled into Kakashi’s Sharingan as the man looked down on him. It was cute that he thought it could work somehow.

“Doesn’t it cost you a lot of chakra to cast this many genjutsus?” Naruto finally asked as he yawed, not in the slightest bothered with the man.

“Yeah, it does” Kakashi finally said defeated again as he sat down.

“Well I have enough of you, so be quiet and let me sleep.” Naruto said as he got into his sleeping back in the corner, they thought that he would wander to the ceiling again but he just stayed there.

“Won’t you sleep above us?” Kakashi finally asked.

“That was before you tried your little trick with your little Sharingan of yours, sleep outside, I’m mad at you” Naruto deadpanned as the others stared at Kakashi holding their laugh back.

“This mission will be over in around two more weeks, so I wanted to use this time to meet with Tsunade” Naruto said the next morning at breakfast, Kakashi's chopstick did fall down thought.

“I thought, now that the main threat is dead, I could go and visit her since she is nearby” He continued.

“I can’t allow that” Kakashi said as Asuma nodded with him.

“Well, you see. I don’t really need your permission, the Hokage gave me the lead over this mission and even if he didn’t. I’m a civilian, I don’t have to follow your orders” Naruto said and could only smirk as Kakashi ‘Civilian my ass’ whispered.

“She is about two days of travel from here, so I should be back in a week” Naruto explained.

“How do you even know where she is?” Ino asked him curiously.

“I can sense her, I mean this much Yin chakra. There is no other option besides her, or do you know another a healing goddess running around anywhere else?” Naruto sarcastically asked.

“My team will escort you” Asuma said as he finished his plate, his students gave him a funny look that clearly said, ‘We will?’

“As if, you just got healed, you will have to lay down for a while. I will take Guy's team with me” Naruto said as Guy and Lee gave him both a thumbs up.

“We will move out in an hour, please report that to the Hokage Sai” Naruto said as he stood up to pack his things. The pale boy just nodded as he unsealed ink and paper to draw a message on it.

The travel had taken longer than he thought, as the Genin weren’t that fast. They even had to sleep outside, much to their dismay as Tenten complained nonstop. They reached the town around noon and Naruto immediately know which building she was in.

It wasn’t that hard to find out though, she was after all famous for her gambling habit. He opened the door to the casino and looked around to find the old woman. It didn’t take long at all to spot her with her assistant Shizune and her pig.

Both these women were legends at the hospital, incomparable in skill. He wanted to find out if that was true, or if the stories were over excessively told.

“Tsunade-sama, Shizune-san” He greeted as he sat beside them.

“What do you want brat?” the woman said, not even looking at him.

“I’m the vise-director of the main hospital in Konoha and I’m here to make a deal” That got their attention.

“You brat don’t even have enough chakra to form a scalpel, now piss off” Tsunade said in a very threatening tone.

“Oh you mean this scalpel?” Naruto asked as he formed a chakra scalpel, but different from normal medics he didn’t form it around his index finger. No, he formed a real scalpel purely out of chakra and placed it on the table.

Tsunade and Shizune stared at the blade with wonder, this was completely new to them and they were the best. Shizune even took it and cut the table like it was butter.

“You have my interest brat” Tsunade said as she got serious.

“I’m just here to compare skills, to see if you are still the best medic in the world or if I can get that title.” He said with a cheeky grin.

“And what do I get from this?” Tsunade asked.

“How about this?” Naruto said as he unsealed money he had saved up, the whole casino gaped at the amount. Some even started planning on stealing it.

“You decide on anything we will compete against each other and if I lose the money is yours, but if I win, then you have to teach me” Naruto explained and a smirk grew on Tsunade’s face.

“Anything?” She asked.

“Anything” He confirmed.

“Well then let’s get outside, don’t wanna destroy this place” She said with a laugh as they got out onto the street, people started to gather as they watched the two.

“A fight, we will compete in a fight” Tsunade said with a laugh.

“Ah man, I thought about something medical-related. Fighting is my weak side.” Naruto said and Guy's team scoffed at him.

“You did say anything boy, now get going, I wanna have that money” She said, Naruto just rolled his eyes as he nodded.

“I will take it easy” She said as she flicked against his forehead, she expected him to fly away but was surprised when a small whine came from the boy.

“That hurts like hell, are old people always so mean? It’s my turn now” He said as he jumped up and flicked her. It was just thanks to her instincts that she could put chakra into her forehead and feet to only slide three meters away.

“Hoh, do we have a copycat here?” She asked as she realized that he used her technique.

“Don’t flatter yourself old woman, my flick was without chakra.” She stared at the boy, that was without chakra? What kind of monster was he, even if she wasn’t using her full power. It should still have sent him flying.

“Oh, do tell. How can one become so strong without chakra enhancement?” She asked as she punched him, Naruto was sent flying for two meters before he stopped himself in midair on a chakra platform.

“You would like to know that won’t you?” Naruto said as he formed a wall of chakra to block her next punch, she looked shocked at the wall as her fingers touched it. A laugh escaped her as her shoulders slumped.

“Hah, to be beaten by a small brat like you” She said.

“Ehh, but I haven’t even started yet” Naruto said as he let himself down to the ground.

“I would have to use a lot more strength to break through that and this village wouldn’t survive this.” She said.

“I would still like to discuss medical ninjutsu's with you, to see if I’m still behind.” Naruto said as she turned to leave.

“Speak with Shizune, she knows everything I know” Tsunade said before she got back into the casino.

 “Well, I hope we get along” Naruto said as the two made their way to Tsunade’s room to discuss medical-ninjutsu’s. Team Guy used their time to look around the city since it was not often that they had left Konoha.

Chapter Text

“Well, I hope we get along” Naruto said as the two made their way to Tsunade’s room to discuss medical-ninjutsu’s. Team Guy used their time to look around the city since it was not often that they had left Konoha.

It had taken Naruto way longer than he thought to go through all sorts of surgeries with Shizune, his technique was far more advanced, but his knowledge was so far behind that he was ashamed of himself.

He might be far better than Tsunade in chakra control. However, he still has a long way to go before he even got close to these two in terms of medical knowledge. He had learned so much these two days, Shizune was an amazing teacher and he just copied all their knowledge into his brain.

He had given Shizune the money and said that it was the payment for her help. It was amazing how much he had learned in just two days, how much better he was now. His specialty had been the chakra system and its repair.

Tsunade and Shizune were experts in all kinds of injuries, they could heal shattered bones, recreate organs and construct entire arteria systems. Shizune had given him many of her personal journals of her notes that she took over the years, he will become as good as them. No, he will overcome, surpass them.

"I'm very grateful Shizune-san, I have learned more about medicine than I did in the last three years. I will have this all down in a year or two, then I will come to find you again." Naruto promised as he bowed, he hadn't bowed to anyone in a long time. But Shizine was someone he respected greatly.

"Then until we meet again" She said with a smile.

"How was he?" Tsunade asked once the others had left.

"A genius, way better than me. He said he will need a year or two, but I think half a year will be enough for him." Shizume answered.

"Hooh, so good? Maybe we should visit Konoha again and look into his work. His specialization is the chakra system repair?" She asked.

"That's right, I learned a lot about the chakra system of the body that isn't written in any book that I have read so far. I didn't think that it was possible to repair a once-damaged chakra system" Shizume hummed.

"I have tried it once, but gave it up since you need to have perfect control over your chakra. An operation would be impossible since you would have to control your chakra perfectly in someone else's body. 

In theory, it's possible if your control is so good that the interference of the patient's own chakra wouldn't shake it, one tiny slip-up and the patient's chakra system takes more damage than it has before.

But if it is that boy, I'm sure he can manage, after all, he could create a barrier out of pure chakra without any hand signs. It's true, each generation is surpassing the next, is learning from their generations before." Tsunade said as she had a small smile on her face, she had stopped smiling for a long time now, so this especially rare.

“So could she help you?” Lee asked as they slowly walked back. They had met up with the other two teams and were now on their way back.

“Yes, she and Tsunade are way beyond my liege.”

“But aren’t you already one of the best doctors in the village?” Ino asked from the other side.

“That just shows how good these two are and how much the village has lost with them away” He replied as Kakashi nodded beside him.

“Do you think that you will be as good as them in the future?” Neji asked.

“Give me two more years and I will know everything that is in these books. I will surpass Tsunade, I will become a legendary doctor.” Naruto told them.

“And you don’t want to become a shinobi like Tsunade? After all, she isn’t only famous for her medical skills but also for her fighting powers.” Guy asked.

“And fight for this village? Do you think I’m crazy enough to risk my life for this rotten village?” Naruto asked back as hate and bloodlust filled the air around him.

“Rotten?” Asuma asked back with a carefully masked blank expression.

“What else would you call this corrupt system, all these people in this village are rotten to the core.” Naruto answered as the genins had gotten still, all listening as the air grow thicker between the two stronger individuals.

“How can you speak from rotten, you are young, you didn’t even meet every---” Asuma started but Naruto interrupted him.

“I have seen it, I have seen you all threat Naruto like a piece of shit.” Now that got them all to hold as they stared at him, at his rage-filled eyes.

“I have seen how everybody looked at him, how nobody had helped the kid. I have seen your eyes Asuma, I have seen the look of distrust and disgust on your face when you spotted him walking through the straits.

I have seen how the people chased him, how they beat him up and nobody did anything to help that child. Years of abuse and nobody had ever once said anything against it, so yes, this village is rotten to the core and I will not pretend otherwise. Unless you have anything to justify your actions, if that is the case I’m all ears” Naruto said as Asuma just stared at him point blank.

“Thought so, rotten it is, everybody has this tiny black hole in their body and masks it with that friendly smile in that village. Nobody of you is any better” He said.

“What about you then?” Ino asked.

“I’m not better either, while I didn’t do anything against him, I still didn’t defend him. Like I said, everybody in that village is rotten and that includes me.

Welp, this got dark fast, at least the boy can enjoy his life outside of Konoha. Four years, Naruto must be living his dream now, even in poverty he would be happier than he was in the village.” Naruto said as he was suddenly junked up from the ground as Asuma pressed his kunai against his throat.

“How did you know that he disappeared four years ago? That is not public knowledge.” Asuma hissed out.

Naruto didn’t answer as he stared right back at Asuma’s eyes, his deep blue eyes sucking Asuma into the depth of the ocean.

“Let me down or I can’t guarantee the survival of any of them” Naruto said slowly as Asuma’s grip loosened, letting him fall to the ground.

“Now to answer your questions, I obviously felt the chakra of the Biju in him. I have trained in chakra control for over almost 10 years now, of course, I would feel that unique chakra leaving.” He answered as Shikamaru looked away, obviously trying to behave normally to not expose him.

“You felt it and didn’t alarm the village?” Asuma asked in rage.

“Was I supposed to? Like, I'm a civilian, I was a child and even then, how should have I known that the village didn’t know, don’t tell me you were that incompetent to not feel something that I did with 9” Oh that hit a nerve with the jonins not that it mattered to him.

“The day will come when we all will regret how Naruto was treated, Konoha has no jinchuuriki right now and the other villages are more than aware of that.

Konoha was once a powerhouse, had many powerful shinobi, but times have changed, Kakashi, one of our best ninjas has lost against an A-rank ninja. The Hokage is old and nobody is powerful enough to replace him.

All three Legendary Sanin are out of the village and now our biju, the Nine Tail, the most powerful chakra beast is gone.

War will come sooner than later and Konoha will be going against nations that still have their Biju’s, the Fourth Hokage used his teleportation jutsu to defend against a biju dama, I don’t know anyone in the village that can defend us now.” Naruto finished as the genin paled.

“You are frightening them unnecessarily” Asuma said but it came out weak because they all know that it was true.

“The truth can be our worst nightmare” Naruto said in agreement.

“That’s what he said?” Hiruzen asked as his son had reported everything on the mission, he couldn’t believe it.

“You are telling me that one of our most promising prospects of the younger generation finds this village rotten to the core?” He asked again as Kakashi just sighed at the wall.

“Well he isn’t completely wrong is he?” The one-eyed ninja asked as both father and son gave him a harsh look.

“Careful Kakashi or—” The Hokage started but was interrupted.

“Or what? It’s the truth and it was your decision to let Naruto suffer, it was your stubborn decision to let him go through all that pain despite the protest from some of us. Now our jinchuuriki is gone, the son of my sensei is gone.

I think that Ken kid is right, everybody here has little black---”

“Enough” Hiruzen shouted as he slammed his hand on the table.

“I made a mistake, I miscalculated, and it costs the village dearly.” He continued.

“That doesn’t mean you can question me so openly” The two jonin reminded silent as they waited for their Hokage to calm down.

“How would you two rank him?” The Hokage finally asked.

“A-rank—” “S-Rank” Kakashi started but Asuma just tapped in.

“He is definitely S-Rank, the jutsu he used was definitely large-scale with no way to defend against it. It was fast, it went through walls and it was invisible. With no preparations, you wouldn’t even know what hit you.

His defense is also good, he could take a hit from Lady Tsunade and even block her attack. His chakra control is nothing like I have ever seen before, he has formed weapons from just pure chakra and fought with them against an A-rank ninja.

He is definitely S-Rank, the only problem would be experience. But that could be fixed with a few months of intense battle training.” Asuma said.

“And you said that he has no interest in becoming a shinobi?” The Hokage asked again to make sure.

“He hates it with all his being, hates every person in this village.” Asuma confirmed.

“You two are dismissed” Hiruzen said as he needed time for himself to solve this problem.

“Brave of you to question the Hokage like that” Asuma said as they went out.

“That kid is right, no wonder he didn’t want to become a shinobi despite his obvious talent for it.” Kakashi replied.

“He must have been close to Naruto, this kind of hatred doesn’t come from just watching as a bystander.” Asuma concluded.

Chapter Text

“He must have been close to Naruto, this kind of hatred doesn’t come from just watching as a bystander.” Asuma concluded.

“Ken-kun, I heard you have gone on a mission with Shikamaru?” Shikamaru’s mother said as she greeted him at the door.

“Hai, they needed a medic” He replied.

“Come in, he and my husband are already waiting for you” She said as she led him to the living room.

Indeed, Shikamaru and Shikaku were sitting there with a board of shogi ready, father and son together against him. In their long history of games, they had only won once against him.

“Come sit, we have the perfect strategy planned out. This time you will definitely lose” Shikamaru said as he smiled.

“That’s what you said the last times as well” He teased as Shikamaru blushed in embarrassment.

“Shut up and place your pieces” The boy mumbled as he slumped down beside his dad.

“I heard that you fought on the mission” Shikaku commented as he sorted through his pieces.

“Hmm, just a small involvement, nothing noteworthy” He replied.

“Worthy enough that the Hokage is thinking about you” Shikaku said.

“Then tell that old man that it is creepy to think about a young boy” He replied as Shikamaru spit his tea out.

“Disgusting” Naruto said as he wiped his face dry.

“You should be careful with such remarks” Shikaku warned.

“It’s not like I’m a shinobi of his, he just has to say the word and I’m out of this village” He replied.

“You are smart Ken but let me tell you, this world is older than you think. You may be smart, smarter than me, but you haven’t seen what it is capable of.

It does you no good to provoke the Hokage like that, it will only make your life harder in the long run.” Shikaku said as he moved his peace.

“I will think about it”

A week passed and he was reading through Shizune's journals, he came to like her through this even more. Her writings had small little pictures of how she punched Tsunade or how she tried to strangle her.

It seemed that she was very frustrated with her progress, he liked how she had expressed herself in these journals. He had learned a lot, mostly how to regenerate a bone that was split into too many pieces.

With his chakra control, he was able to recreate a bone from animals as he saw how the bone grow right before his eyes. How the cells started to harden, it was magnificent.

He couldn’t believe that he was this far behind and that was just the knowledge she had given him in her journal, he didn’t know what else they could do. How much they would have in experience.

“Ken-san” A nurse said as she opened the door to his office.

“Yes?” He asked.

“A Kunoichi was sent here with poisoning, we healed the poison, but it attacked the chakra system. She is in room 4a, she has a hot temper so be careful” She said as she left him with her patient sheet.

He took it as he already made his way to her room Anko Mitarashi, a special jonin. She seems to have gotten poisoned while sparing, how reckless.

“Anko-san?” He called out as he entered the room. The woman was lying on the bed, her eyes looking outside the window before they turned to him.

“Nobody told me that a kid would be treating me” She just told him, he was used to that reaction, so it didn’t bother him that much.

“If you have a problem with my age then I can go” If they didn’t want him to treat them he wouldn’t bother, he didn’t really care much about adults. Children were a different story, he liked children, small and innocent with no bad memories attached to them.

“No, it’s fine, if a child can fight why wouldn’t one heal? They told me you are the best regarding the repair of the chakra network?” She asked as she set up, he just nodded as he moved around the bed to come closer.

“I’m the leading chakra expert in this hospital” He confirmed.

“Then tell me if the poison weakened that seal?” She asked as she showed him a seal on her neck. His eyes turned silver as he concentrated chakra into them.

The seal was interesting as it had foreign chakra spilling out of it into her body, it connected with her chakra core and fed on it, turning her chakra into its own. It was dangerous and growing as he saw how it had already spread through her entire body.

It was changing her slowly, to what, he had no idea. The poison had indeed attacked the seal a little, but not nearly so much as it did to her own body.

“The poison did damage the seal a little, but not nearly so much as it damaged your own chakra system. Your chakra veins are fragile so no chakra usage for the next two weeks, let them rest for a while.

I will stimulate them a little so that they will still be useable but make sure not to train in the coming two weeks. As for the seal, I think it’s better if I disconnect it from your chakra system” The last word wasn’t even out as she wiped around to face him so fast that he had already distanced himself to safety.

“Or not, if you don’t want to” He assured her.

“You--- you can get rid of this seal?” She asked in wonder and hope.

“I can disconnect its access to your chakra system at least, if it doesn’t have another support system then it will slowly dry up and vanish I think. But that is just an assumption, I will not guarantee anything” He said as he saw how tears came to that rough face.

“When?” She whisper asked him.

“I’m free tomorrow evening, I assume that I can book the operation room?” He asked as she nodded still tears in her eyes.

“Well, I’m off then, ah before I forget it, you should tell whoever put that seal on you that it is very dangerous, we don’t want to have someone like you again. Have someone pick you up after the operation, the nurse will come and handle all the paperwork with you” He said as he left her alone to cry.

He made his way to check on the patient that he had to supervise, work had piled up as he was away. Many shinobi were waiting for him to come and have their chakra system checked, so he had a pile of patience waiting for him as he came back.

“What are you doing in my office?” He asked as he came back to his office after his round.

“You said that you would teach us more chakra control” Shikamaru said as he got out of Naruto’s chair, Neji was leaning against the wall.

“Next time wait outside of my office” Naruto said as Neji nodded, Shikamaru just rolled his eyes at his comment.

“I’m pretty busy so I will give you a short instruction and you can ask if you need more” He said as Shikamaru closed the open door.

Chapter Text

“I’m pretty busy so I will give you a short instruction and you can ask if you need more” He said as Shikamaru closed the open door.

“Okay, watch closely and don’t talk until I’m finished” Naruto said as Shikamaru nodded, Neji had activated his Byakugan.

"Don't use your Byakugan for this, this is for your visual imagination." He said as Neji's eyes turned back to normal.

Naruto formed a blue ball of chakra in his right hand, the ball was as big as a melon and perfectly round. He slowly let the color change as it turned green, then red, pink, yellow, brown……

The ball then changed forms as it turned into a cube, a triangle, a kunai, a spear, a sword…..

Its texture started to change as it slowly turned into a fluid, it dripped onto the floor. A few seconds later he brought it back up as it turned into sand. The sand slowly fell down as each particle changed its colors randomly.

In the end, the particles came back up and formed the perfect ball as it disappeared, leaving two gaping genin behind.

“As you can see, chakra can take on any form, texture and color we want. Its characteristics can be changed to how we want it, there is no limitation to how chakra can be used.

This is my first lesson, chakra has no limits, so don’t limit it or yourself by doing so. Don’t think of chakra as something that you have to control but rather think of it as something that you can guide.

You probably don’t understand what I mean, I needed three years to understand this and I still can’t put it in words correctly.

You better start with normal chakra exercises, ask your dad if you can switch your games of shogi onto the lake each day. Neji, ask Guy-san to train on the lake. 

Being on the lake has to be something normal for you, adjusting your chakra should be coming automatically.” He said as they nodded.

“You can come back to me if you have mastered that” He said as Shikamaru still looked at the hand the ball was in just now, Neji on the other hand was channeling chakra through his and tried to recreate the thing he just saw.

“We will be back shortly” The young genins replied as they left.

"What brings all these high-ranking jonin here?” He asked the next day as he came into Anko’s room.

Coming in he saw, Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai and Genma, all very famous shinobi of their village. Even if he tried to distance himself from the shinobi's business, he still got a lot of information being in the hospital and hearing all the gossip.

“I asked Kurenai to pick me up after the operation and for some reason, these guys came along” Anko gestured.

“Well, it isn’t my problem, the nurse went through with all the details regarding the operation with you right? Are there any more questions or can we go and start?” He asked.

“I do have a few questions-----” Kakashi started but he didn’t even turn to as he interrupted the famous shinobi.

“I meant the patient, please refrain from taking my time with something that doesn’t concern you Hatake-san. So, Anko any questions?” He asked.

“You are sure that you can remove it?” She asked again.

“As I said, I will not remove it, I will just sever its connection to your chakra system so it stops feeding on it. If the seal doesn’t have any other courses of chakra, then it will slowly dry out, give or take two weeks up until a month.” He said as she nodded.

“Then let’s do it” She said with a smile.

“Then please follow me” He said as he led her to the operation room, the others following behind them.

“You will have to wait here, I should be done in two hours at the latest” He told them as they reached his personal operation room.

Getting inside it was a little different from other operation rooms as his was completely white with nothing in it aside from a bed for the patient.

“Please lay down with your head downwards in this hole” He said as she did so.

“Relax your muscles and try not to move” He said as he channeled chakra into his eyes and they turned silver.

He once again looked over her entire chakra system as he marked a few spots that he would need to take care of after he was done with the main operation. He slowly put his own purified chakra into her as it seeped along the lines of invading the chakra of the seal.

It took 45 minutes just to let his chakra track down all the invading chakra veins. He then used his own chakra to cut the connections between the invading chakra veins and her own chakra system.

Another 30 minutes passed as he cut off all the connections, now the only thing left to do was to pull the invading veins out slowly and carefully and tie a knot around the end where the seal was.

He then needed another 30 minutes to heal all the empty places the invading veins had left behind so that her own chakra system didn’t create chakra veins in these places.

“I think that’s it” He said as he helped her get up, she was all wobbly as her senses were compromised with all the foreign chakra in her system. He led her out as Kurenai supported her.

“Bring her back home and monitor her for the next 24 hours just in case, but there shouldn’t be a problem. Make sure she doesn’t use chakra for two weeks and schedule an appointment with me in two weeks as well to get a checkup.” He said as he already turned to go to his office.

“Wait that’s it, no complications or anything?” Asuma asked.

“Yes, that’s it, why? Is there anything I should have known before, for you to ask for complications?” He asked as the jonins all hesitate to answer him.

“Well,---- that was Orochimaru’s cursed seal” Genma finally admitted.

“That you should have said before the operation, there could have been a trap in the seal. I could have been in danger, she could have been in danger. I will have to file a formal complaint against her and sue her for endangerment.” He said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“It went well, didn’t it? Why make a fuss now?” Kakashi asked.

“Because unlike you I’m not prepared to die at any moment, I did not sign up to be put in danger. If you decide to put yourself in danger, not my problem, but putting me in danger while knowing it, is very much my problem.

Now if you excuse me, you will all hear from me. I still have another patient to tend to, who, if you may have noticed, I wouldn’t be able to treat if all patients would endanger me like this” He said as he left them.

Chapter Text

Now if you excuse me, you will all hear from me. I still have another patient to tend to, who, if you may have noticed, I wouldn’t be able to treat if all patients would endanger me like this” He said as he left them.

A week later.

“So you called us all here because that brat really filed an official complaint?” Kurenai asked in wonder as they all stood in front of the jonin commander, Shikaku Nara.

“That’s right, I have here a complaint for each of you, how in the world can five of my shinobi be this reckless to endanger a civilian?” Shikaku asked.

“How in the world should we have known that he didn’t know that Anko’s seal was from Orochimaru? I mean which ninja in this village doesn’t know that?” Kurenai said.

“And there is your problem, that boy is not a ninja, he is a civilian medic. He is not a shinobi of this village and with that falls under our protection.

Now to the complaint, the hospital is very serious about this and is backing up Ken’s case. They are asking for compensation for his endangerment.” Shikaku said.

“How much?” Asuma asked.

“A payment for a difficult S-rank mission, for each of you” The gaping was big in the room at the sheer audacity to ask for this amount of money. It was a small fortune, from which he could definitely buy a house for himself.

“I’m sorry but this is absurd Shikaku, I don’t even have this much money laying around” Kakashi said.

“Yeah, how can that brat ask------”

“You all don’t have to worry, I will pay for it” Anko said as she interrupted her best friend.

“You will go into debt for at least ten years, no, this is absurd----” Kurenai again started.

“Ten years of debt, compared to being finally free from him. I will take it, I’m finally free and I’m willing to pay for that” Anko said with a smile.

“I can pay for myself” Asuma said as Shikaku nodded.

“Same here” Genma butted in from the side.

“Fine, but I still find it absurd” Kurenai said.

"Asuma, you will have to pay double, I hear that one of my jonin held a kunai against a civilian's throat?" Shikaku asked in a tone that showed how pissed he was with that.

"I will bring you the money tomorrow" Asuma assured as he swallowed.

“Now that this is sorted out, I want you all to give me an opinion on him” Shikaku said.

“Rude” Kakashi said without missing a beat.

“Inexperienced to the point that it is naïve” Genma said.

“Careful, his tone and words were rude, he himself was very careful when he moved around us. His back was never fully turned on us” Kurenai said as the others looked at her.

“Hate, he has the same eyes as me, he hates something with passion. But he also likes his job, he likes to help people. I have watched him these two days and I have seen his eyes switch between hate and care multiple times. But if you want to know more about him, I think your son talks with him in private” Anko said.

“Yes, Ken-kun is a good friend of my son. He plays once a week against us, but I wanted to know your opinions to compare them with mine.” Shikaku answered.

“He plays against you two?” Genma asked to make sure.

“Hmm”

“And who wins?” Asuma asked, he hadn’t won that often against Shikamaru.

“We have played 213 games and I have won exactly one time” Shikaku confessed as the room stilled.

“You are kidding, right?” Asuma asked with a nervous laugh.

“I’m not, I agree with each of your opinions. He is everything of that, but he is also highly intelligent, very skillful, pragmatic and morally very grey.” Shikaku said without pausing.

“He is also of high importance for this village since his kind of expertise is very valuable. We already lost Tsunade and now we have him to replace her, but the Hokage and I are afraid that he might leave this village soon.

We can’t let that happen, someone of his skill level has to stay in this village. Someone who can remove something like Orochimaru’s curse seal like it was nothing. So, what can we do to keep him here?” Shikaku asked seriously as they all stayed silent.

“Can’t you just order him to stay here?” Genma asked.

“He is still a civilian, if he goes around complaining about it openly, and believe me he will, then every civilian in Konoha will rethink staying here if they can’t go out whenever they want.” Shikaku said.

“Money doesn’t work on him” Asuma already said before Kakashi could bring it even up.

“Just get him a student, he will form a personal connection to the student and if that student stays here then he will as well, even more so as he seems like a very lonely person.” Anko said.

“And we would be getting another talent like him maybe” Shikaku said in approval.

“You know, I started to wonder where Ken even came from” Asuma said.

“What do you mean?” Kurenai asked.

“Well, I did hear rumors about him, but have you ever seen a child like him? Snow white hair, a pale body and ocean blue eyes. These are not very common characteristics, I have never seen a boy like this before in Konoha. One day, he was just there, shouldn’t we try to figure out where he came from?” Asuma asked.

“Well then do it, all of you, because like it or not he is of high importance to us” Shikaku ordered them all.

“You did get a lot better” Naruto complimented as Shikamaru was sitting across him on the lake. They were playing shogi Naruto had created a chakra platform for the board.

“I don’t have to think about it all the time anymore, sometimes I even forget that I’m on the lake” Shikamaru confessed.

“These sometimes will have to be the norm, you have to get to the point where there is no difference between sitting here or sitting on the ground. Besides that, your shogi skills still suck” He teased as Shikamaru still glared at him.

“My skills are high level, yours are these are just out of proportion.” Shikamaru replied.

“Hmmm”

“My father wants me to become your apprentice” Shikamaru blurred out.

“Hmmmmm” Naruto hummed even longer.

“He thinks that you might leave Konoha, as you know, you are very talented, and the village doesn’t want to lose you” Shikamaru continued.

“So they think about attaching you emotionally with a student” Naruto just listened as he moved his piece forward.

“And why are you telling me this?” He asked as he looked into Shikamaru’s eyes and send his chakra out to form a barrier around them.

“Because you deserve to know, because you already lost enough to this village” Shikamaru said.

“You are so emotional Shikamaru, who would have thought that the Nara heir was so emotionally attached to me to make irrational judgments.” He said with a small smile.

“So? What are you going to do?” Shikamaru asked.

“Well, I didn’t plan on leaving for the next three to four years and I won’t let myself be influenced by them. I will be going with my original plans” Naruto answered.

“Hmm”

“And you? Do you even want to be my apprentice?” Naruto asked.

“I did ask you before they asked me, didn’t I?” Shikamaru answered with a cheeky smile.

“You will have to call me Sensei” Naruto replied with a laugh.

“As if”

“Oh you will”

“We will see about it”

“Call me Sensei or I will not accept you as my discipline” Naruto said as Shikamaru glared at him.

“Naru---- Ken” Oh that was close.

“Sensei” Shikamaru said without hesitation as Naruto gave him murderous eyes for almost calling him by his real name.

“I will give you another week to learn to be completely at ease on this lake, after that I will show you a new exercise”

Chapter Text

“I will give you another week to learn to be completely at ease on this lake, after that I will show you a new exercise”

“Dr. Ken, Ken we need you down here” Another doctor yelled up to his office as he hurriedly made his way downstairs. Coming down he saw the patient, a young child, his head was completely slit open, and his left arm and right leg were broken.

All in all, the child looked like he had fallen down from an enormous height. He started to patch the kid up as he spotted the bleeding. His chakra slowly entered the open wounds to try and figure out what else was damaged.

This kid was almost dead, aside from the obvious broken bones, he also had a lot of internal injuries that needed to be fixed. But how? There wasn’t enough time and there were by no means enough doctors here to heal all the places needed.

What could he do? There must be something that he can do to save this child. Come on, think Naruto think, there has to be something, it must be. God, just something, one thing.

Heal the internal wounds first? No, he wasn’t fast enough to treat them all, try to use his chakra control and stop all the bleedings?

But that would stop the blood circulation, he couldn’t find a solution. Everything he knew was impossible, even Tsunade wouldn’t be able to treat someone that is this badly injured alone.

No, no, no, I can’t give up just yet, he has to do something. But his options were limited-----

Chakra doesn’t have limitations

Time, he needed more time to heal these wounds, so he would make more time for the patient.

“Bring him into my operation room now. I will be there shortly” Okay, don’t panic and think Naruto. You just have to stop the time around the patient so that you can treat him better.

But how? He could inject his chakra into the child’s system but that would take too long. He could try to cover the child with his chakra but that wouldn’t help with internal wounds.

So he couldn’t inject his chakra with the child’s but he also couldn’t cover the child with his, there was only one option left.

Connect with chakra itself, so what if he hadn’t tried it before? The life of that boy was in his hands right now, he better be successful.

He went into the operating room as a team full of four nurses and another doctor waited for him.

“Out!!! All of you, I need silence for this to work”

“Dr. Ken—”

“OUT!!!” He screamed as they scrambled out of the room and closed the door behind themselves.

Okay, calm down. Let your chakra out, let it connect with chakra in the room, in the air. Naruto felt how his chakra reached out, but instead of connecting it was pushing the chakra in the room away to make room for his.

He tried again and again, but the free chakra in the room was pushed away by his. It was frustrating, how come that his chakra------ his chakra?

No, there had to be just chakra and no free chakra and his chakra. He made a risky decision as he released all his chakra into the room, he was dry and yet he didn’t have any symptoms of chakra exhaustion.

Slowly he felt it, his connection with the room. No, with the world around him. It was amazing, he felt everything. The walls vibrated, his heart beating. How the steps of the people outside send waves of chakra out.

His focus came back to the patient, the boy was lying on his operating table as he used his newfound connection to put pressure around the wounds. His mind tried to categorize all the information he got from the boy as the chakra showed him exactly what was damaged.

So yeah, he started to heal it, chakra wrapped around the colon as it was brought back to its original place. He continued to bring all organs to their original places as he healed and held them there.

Now he focused a little and in all these places healing chakra was applied, well it would be better to say that the chakra just turned into healing chakra with just a thought.

His eyes traveled over the external wounds and he already saw how they just started to knit themselves together like it was nothing. Broken bones set themselves as the boy in front of him came back into his original state.

He waited for a little as he looked at the completely healed boy in front of him, his body suddenly felt tired, really tired. Exhaustion hit him hard as his vision started to black, with a last thought he commanded the chakra to push the operation's finished bottom as he blacked out.

The first thing he felt was that he had the biggest headache he had ever felt in his life and it didn’t help that he still felt an enormous amount of information being sent to his brain.

He tried and failed to block the information overload into his brain and fell unconscious a second time.

The third time he woke up it was way better, his head didn’t feel like it would split apart any moment.

Opening his eyes he saw that he was hospitalized, he was in a VIP room, what else. He looked out the window and his breath stopped for a second. Before his very eyes, the world had changed.

Outside of this little window was a forest and it looked beautiful, the green forest had mixed with many different colors of chakra that was with all living things.

He turned his head a little as he felt about a five larger chakra source. He looked at the corners of the room to see shinobi hidden behind them, it seemed that the village was spying on him. He wondered if they had already started before and he didn’t notice and just noticed it now with his new connection to chakra or if they just started it.

He lifted his hand to see if he could move, after 5 minutes he was sure that everything was okay. He stood up and went for the wardrobe to get his clothes, changing felt a little weird with all these ninjas observing him.

Putting his jacket on he moved out of his room, a nurse saw him and paled a little as she called for the doctor that was in charge of him. He already took a clipboard as he wrote down his symptoms and filled out the discharge papers as he handed them to the incoming doctor.

Getting out of the hospital he went for Nara compound since the shinobi wouldn’t dare to trespassing into a clan's territory, even more so as that of the jonin commander.

“Ken-kun” Shikamaru’s mother greeted as she opened the door for him.

“Yoshino-san” He greeted back.

“Come in------ Shikamaru!!!” She shouted as she called for her son.

It didn’t take long before the younger boy came into his view. Shikamaru led him to his room and closed the door behind himself.

“Sleep, I will not let anyone in” Shikamaru said without even looking at him. He took the offer thankfully. He felt safe here, safe enough to close his eyes and leave his worries behind to get a good amount of sleep.

“How long has it been since I was out?” Naruto asked as he woke up.

“It has been a week since you passed out in your operation room. The boy you healed is already back with his family but has an appointment scheduled with you two weeks from now.

Rumors are going around that you made the impossible possible with that boy, many saw him already dead. The Hokage has visited you, other than that everything is normal” Shikamaru reported.

“I see, thanks for the information.” He said as he tried to dull his senses a little, but it didn’t help that much.

“How much did you learn while I was out?” He asked as Shikamaru smiled at him.

“I can sleep on the lake now” Wow, that was very fast progress.

“Speaking of chakra, I can’t feel yours at all” Shikamaru said and Naruto smiled a little, of course, Shikamaru couldn’t feel his chakra anymore, that was because he didn’t have any at all.

His chakra was gone, all the chakra he needed to sustain his life was pulled out of the air.

“I gained enlightenment.” He answered vaguely, Shikamaru just accepted his answer.

“I will give you a new exercise, I can’t personally oversee your training for now. I have new things to find out about myself” Naruto said as Shikamaru nodded in understanding.

“Start with a string and move it up to a marble. Let it rotate around your body, just using chakra. If that isn’t helpful anymore then start to use two marbles at the same time or even three.” He explained as Shikamaru nodded.

“It would be best if you could do that exercise with five marbles simultaneously while running over the lake.” He explained as Shikamaru already groaned.

"Tell Neji to do the same, with his clan jutsu chakra control is more important for him" 

Chapter Text

"Tell Neji to do the same, with his clan jutsu chakra control is even more important for him" 

The next week was spent researching his new powers, which meant he had to get rid of his stalkers. It was easier than he thought to lose the anbu spying on him, having no own chakra meant that they couldn’t use a sensor to track him.

Which meant they had to follow him via visual confirmation, which also meant that he saw them and well, he reported it to the hospital, they then again filed a complaint against the village.

After his third compliant file, the anbu finally stopped following him around. He then started to take notes on changes, on things he could do now.

First thing that stood out was that he was even whiter if that was possible, his skin was even paler and his hair even whiter, like the last bit of impurities were cleaned out of him.

His healing palm had turned so dark green that it scared him, small wounds were healed before he could even touch them.

What changed most was that he didn’t have his own chakra anymore, now he was one with the chakra around him. He stood in the clearing of the forest, he could see, feel and smell the chakra of the woods, the chakra of the water.

He could command it at will, he just had to think about it and a construct of chakra will come to life just like he had imagined it. Be it an extra hand or a weapon, anything he thought of, it came true.

But it had its limits, 30 meters, that was how far his range went for absolute control of chakra. That kind of range was very limited true, but at the same time, he was a god in this sphere.

He could create hundreds, no thousands of kunais and let them rain down on his enemy as long as he was in his range.

His defense was unbeatable as he could create a barrier of pure chakra around him. And what was even more terrifying, he could suck out any chakra of the Jutsu’s coming at him, letting them vanish at any given time.

He was at a point in his life where he felt that he could take a break, he was strong enough now. He could take a breather and stop training for hours each day, he finally felt safe enough not to fear the Hokage anymore.

He had reached his goal, to be autonomous for the first time in his life, nobody could influence his decisions now. He was finally free.

His music could still travel through the whole of Konoha, but he now understood the difference between control and absolute control.

He had absolute control in his 30-meter sphere, he could change and move the chakra within this field at any time, with so much as a thought.

Outside of that sphere, it was different, he still had control to send commands out, but they couldn’t be readjusted again. So once send out, it wasn’t possible to stop it.

Meaning that if he let his sound travel, he could do nothing to stop it, or if his butterflies went outside of his sphere then he couldn’t command them back.

He started to experiment with commands, like searching for Shikamaru and it did. The butterflies made of chakra could indeed complete a task that was once given.

So, he made them more complicated, he send out butterflies that were commanded to heal but it didn’t work. So, he increased the number of butterflies, he needed almost 100 butterflies to heal a large wound.

He didn’t know exactly where his fascination for butterflies came from, but he just found them beautiful, with so many different colors, and so many patterns. They were small and beautiful in his oh-so-grey world.

“Your checkup doesn’t show anything, the seal is slowly dying out.” He said as the seal was already fainter on Anko’s neck.

“So can I finally start using my chakra again?” The kunoichi asked with a sigh of frustration.

“Yeah, it should be all good now, start slow to not rip your vessels apart.” He said as he already noted down her progress.

“Thanks” Anko suddenly said as she bowed to him.

“After so many years I’m finally free from that bastard, so thanks” She continued as a few tears fell down.

“It’s no problem, after all, it’s my job and I got handsomely paid from you anyway.” He said as she laughed.

“Yeah, Kakashi is still pissed about that” She said with a laugh as she wiped the tears away.

“Well, off you go or is there anything left for you to ask?” He asked.

“How would you feel about being the first examiner of this year's chunin exam?” She suddenly asked out of the blue.

“And why would a civilian medic be the examiner for the chunin exams?” He asked her.

“Well, you know more about chakra than anyone else in this village, right? Chakra control is a key skill to master. Don’t you think that you should make sure that Chunin all over the world have an acceptable level of chakra control?” She asked.

“I still don’t see how any of this is my problem?” He said deadpan.

“Oh come on, I have seen you these last few days. You have gotten more confident, and you have gotten stronger to the point that you aren’t afraid to show it anymore. Why don’t you show these genin what it is to control chakra?

Why not watch over your apprentice in this dangerous exam, after all, many die in the chunin exams” She said a shiver went down his spine with how easily she said it like it was normal that children fought to the death.

“Wouldn’t you like to show the world what you are capable of? Don’t you get tired of hiding away your talent, mysterious player?” She asked and never in her life did she think that she overstepped a boundary this fast as her arms and legs were shackled to the ground and walls.

Hundreds of kunais were pointing at her, some even pierced her skin, Naruto slowly moved around the table as he came to stop right in front of her.

“You have a very loose mouth” He commented.

“Always been that way” She replied without flinching.

“Is this supposed to be a threat?” He asked as he stared into her eyes.

“More like an invitation to move up into a more powerful position, I mean it's damn time.” She replied.

"Hmm" He just hummed as he let her talk.

“I must say, these kinds of skills at the age of 13? I’m impressed, you beat a lot of geniuses with that age and that's all self-taught if I understand that correctly” She said.

“You have no idea who you are playing with, I learned these skills because I feared for my life. I worked my ass off for the last 10 years to learn chakra control up to the level I’m at today and let me tell you.

I’m not afraid anymore, I’m a child from the streets. Me going around confident means I’m not afraid anymore, from no one. So go and tell your Hokage that he better keep his people in check.

I don’t like all this anbu watching me, so tell him that he should order them away because I have no problem getting rid of them.” He could see in her eyes that she didn’t take his threat seriously.

“Woman look at me” He said as his killing intent was focused on her.

“I would not feel a single shred of guilt if I erased Konoha from the map, except for the Nara clan and a few individuals. I would not lose any sleep doing so. So tell the Hokage exactly that I don’t like people spying on me and that I don’t like so obvious schemes.

At least do them better so that they are just a little bit more entertaining, now go. Oh, and before I forget, I will be the examiner for the first round of the exams this year.” He said as his eyes were shining blue with power.

Chapter Text

At least do them better so that they are just a little bit more entertaining, now go. Oh, and before I forget, I will be the examiner for the first round of the exams this year.” He said as his eyes were shining blue with power.

One month later

“Good, keep running” He said as Shikamaru was running over the lake with two marbles circulating over his body.

The boy was learning much faster than he had ever thought, maybe because the Nara clan didn’t have that much chakra, to begin with, so it was easier to control?

Nevertheless, he watched how Shikamaru made huge progress over the last month. Chakra control was becoming more and more natural for him, it was showing as Shikamaru was rotating two marbles at an enormous speed around his whole body as he was running the lake up and down.

Neji was different, in a good way. Neji had earned his title of genius, he was inhaling every bit of knowledge he was throwing their way. Neji also had a huge head start as he was familiar with the idea of using pure chakra to fight.

The Hyuuga could release chakra from any chakra point in their system. So, controlling chakra had to be a natural talent in the clan, but this boy was on a different level. 

Neji was calmly sitting beside him on the lake when three small stones rotated around his wrist without touching it. Another marble was circling around his back, he was in awe of this talent. 

"Another cup of tea?" He asked as Neji nodded, his hand reaching out very slowly as he tried to keep the rotation of his marbles stable.

"Don't you have anything better to do than teaching us all day on your weekend off?" Neji asked as he slowly brought the cup to his mouth. 

"Better than helping you beat fate?" He asked.

"Fate is undeniable" Neji answered.

"What is your fate then? Because I doubt that it is worse than my fate, I can proudly say that I overcame the worst situation life could have thrown my way and changed it into something liveable." 

"No offense pretty face, but I don't think that your and my situation are comparable" Neji said and a second later his marbles flew away from his body as the boy blushed. 

"Pretty huh? Well, this is really flattering coming from someone as handsome as you" Naruto replied without missing a beat, it was more of a reflex as he had a lot of children that found him pretty, so he had learned to reply to them.

Neji was a genius, he knew that and his clan knew that. He had mastered water walking as he was in his first year of the academy and yet he was so much behind this medic. A civilian medic that didn't have any clan or sensei that taught him, a self-taught genius.

Compared to that, he was just normal. He couldn't even be considered good anymore, he was a child compared to the power Ken had. 

And yet Ken was not arrogant with his power, sure he had let them know where he stood and was strong with his opinions. But he also took a lot of time to teach them, a lot of free time that he could use for something better than teaching two genin.

He talked with him on a personal level, nobody had done that since his dad. He had never met his mother, she died giving birth and his father was the world to him.

Just to be taken away to Kumo, for a mistake the clan head did. Life was so unfair, nobody was there for him after his dad was dead. He was on his own and now Ken is trying to compare his pain with what?

The pain of studying a lot of books? Of being an orphan? At least Ken know how it was to fear for his life, that much was clear, but the rest? It seemed that Ken's life was rather normal, with a normal genius career.

Compared to him, compared to someone who lost his father, this kind of hate was not comparable. Did he have a seal on him that decided his destiny for him? No!! And yet he talks about changing fate, now naive. 

And yet, he liked Ken a lot. He was warm, understanding, good looking with his pale white features and blue eyes. It also helped that he was rather powerful, but yeah, he was kinda falling for him, but he didn't think that this was a crush or something foolish as love.

Just a desire, a physical desire. So he tested out if he even had a chance and hid an 'accidental flirt/compliment in his answer' and look at that. Ken didn't look bothered at all, maybe he could get Ken into bed with him.

Shikamaru was confident that he could spas the chunin exams if he continued to train like this, this newfound control of his chakra had changed his skill significantly.

His shadow control was faster and used a lot less chakra now. His chakra control had become so good that he could use one-hand signs now, he didn’t need both hands to force his chakra for certain jutsus.

His clan's jutsu for example, he didn’t need to stay in the same spot anymore. Once activated he could keep moving, he still needed his one hand to keep the jutsu activated, but his other hand was freely moveable.

His goal was it to use his shadow control not from his own shadow, but from the surroundings around him. To be able to use any shadow that was out there, he will become strong enough to protect Konoha, to protect his clan and family.

The question was, was he willing to fight Naruto to protect it? Would he fight Naruto if the Hokage ordered it? He wasn’t sure, he loved his village, his family and clan.

But he also saw what they did to Naruto, that they didn’t deserve his kindness as he worked as a doctor. Naruto also had every right to be angry with them, he was treated so badly that his anger and hate were understandable.

He was also a good friend of his, maybe even his best friend. A friend that was helping him to become stronger so that he could protect his loved ones.

He was in a dilemma where he wasn’t sure who he would choose, his village or Naruto? He wasn’t sure, for now, he had to make sure that such a situation didn’t emerge where he had to choose.

He----- suddenly his body was under so much pressure as so much murderous intent was released in his direction. He lost control of his marbles and fell onto the lake, he was at least proud that he didn’t fall into the lake.

What he didn’t expect was for Naruto to fly past him at such a speed that he only saw a flash as he entered the woods behind them. He got to his feet and took off after his friend to see what happened, Neji was just two steps behind him.

Running for two minutes he come into a clearing where Naruto had a boy their age pinned down, Sasuke? the boy looked scared to his very core as chains were binding him to the ground, kunais flying around him as he could die at any moment. Before Sasuke stood Naruto, he was glaring down at the boy with murderous intent as his wings flapped ----

Wait wings? Sure, enough Naruto had two giant wings at his back, they folded before they vanished leaving behind a few light particles.

“Speak, why the hell did you spy on me?” Naruto asked in a dangerous tone.

"I----I wanted to learn from you again" Sasuke mumbled.

"And you needed these eyes for that?" Naruto asked as he looked into freshly awaked sharingan.

"I-----I'm sorry" Sasuke admitted.

"You better be, I have worked my ass off to get to the point where I'm today. Do you think it makes sense that you just copy it?" Naruto asked as Sasuke looked away.

"Though so, if you want to learn then you can train with the others, but I will sure as hell not allow you to just copy jutsus. That is if your eyes could even copy them" Naruto remarked as he released Sasuke. 

"Tomorrow you can come and train with the others and bring a snack as apology" Naruto said before the wings formed again, they unfolded and yes they were just magnificent.

Each wing is at least 3 meters long and a meter wide. With these majestic golden wings, a few feathers fell down just like a real bird. The leathers fell onto the ground and oh well, their eyes grow big as the grass started to grow where the feathers touched.

With one flap Naruto was thrown into the air and disappeared out of their side in a few seconds. Leaving three very much awe-struck genin behind.

"When do you think we will be able to do that?" Sasuke asked.

"Never" Shikamaru and Neji answered at once.

Chapter Text

"Never" Shikamaru and Neji answered at once.

The next day the three genin waited for Naruto at the lake, Shikamaru taught Sasuke everything he knew so far but it wasn't much. 

"Sorry that I'm late, there was an emergency at work" Naruto said as he came.

"It's no problem, you don't get paid to train us after all" Shikamaru said.

"Yeah, and Kakashi-sensei always comes at least two hours late." Sasuke said.

"Well, let us start. I will once again show you how chakra can change to our will since Sasuke hasn't seen it yet" Naruto said as three perfectly round balls of chakra appeared in the air around Naruto as he didn't even lift a finger.

They slowly started to change colors as one became solid and was thrown into Sasuke's hand. The other changed into gas as they could smell it and the last one turned into liquid as it soaked Shikamaru to the bone.

The three balls then came back in front of Naruto and they turned into any kind of weapon they had seen. Naruto then made a table and cheered out of it, colors and texture completely matching the real thing, you couldn't tell the difference from a normal table.

"As I already said, chakra does not have any limitations. It will become whatever you can imagine, so don't limit yourself in your imagination." 

"I don't see us doing that anytime soon" Shikamaru said.

"No, controlling chakra outside of your body is extremely hard, but controlling chakra through your jutsus or enhancing your body through chakra is in your realm of possibility very soon" Naruto said. 

"Sasuke, you will start with the basics, try to rotate a string over your body while sitting on the lake. We will advance from there on." Sasuke nodded as he moved already.

"Shikamaru, you continue doing your training until you have mastered it." That left him alone with Neji.

"Neji, you are very unique and learning at space that it scars me" He confessed as the other boy blinked at him. 

"I think that you could already start to enhance your body, try spreading your chakra through your feet. Let's see if we can get you to become faster" And so training started for the next week.

Sasuke was trying to complete his basic training, which was hard for the boy since his large amount of chakra made it harder to control.

Shikamaru was already up to four marbles, god, he was surrounded by monsters. That he created, but oh well, he was a little proud of himself. 

Neji was getting the hang of enhancing himself with chakra and he was fast, very fast. 

"How about we spar?" He asked at the end of the week.

"I'm sorry what?" Shikamaru asked.

"A spar" He repeated.

"And be pummeled to the ground by you?" The Nara asked sarcastically.

"No, you need to learn how to apply your new knowledge in a fight and I-------- I need experience fighting" He admitted as the three stayed silent.

"Sure, we can spar and then I will show you a few jutsus" Neji said as the other two genin looked at him shocked because while Neji wasn't unfriendly, he was certainly not helpful.

"He is showing us so much, it's only fair that we teach him a few things as well" Neji explained as he already moved into his stance, activating his Byakugan the boy almost had his eyes fall out.

"You---- you don't have chakra?" Neji asked confused. 

"That's right, I lost it shortly after coming back from the mission" He confirmed.

"How are you alive?" Shikamaru asked concerned.

"Obviously I pull chakra out of the surroundings to survive" 

"At every second, without a pause?" Sasuke asked to be sure.

"Yeah" He confirmed easily.

"Isn't that exhausting and what do you do when you sleep or fall unconscious?" Sasuke asked again.

"Controlling chakra for me is like a reflex, just like breathing, even if I fall unconscious, my body would still continue to control the chakra into my body.

Because controlling chakra is like lifting my arm, I don't think about it anymore, I just do it. Not having my own chakra has a lot of advantages as well. 

My chakra doesn't go out unless I suck out all the chakra in the surrounding, which is very unlikely. Many jutsus don't work on me anymore, like all genjutsus because they need a chakra system to take place. I don't have such a system.

The Nara clan's shadow possession also shouldn't work anymore, since you don't connect your shadow with mine, it's the chakra that connects, the shadow is just the medium. 

Hyuuga clan? Your eyes probably don't even register me since I have no chakra, which points to seal when you can't see them. Or sharingan, what are you going to copy if I don't need hand signs for my jutsus anymore?" Naruto asked at last and they were all speechless.

They knew that Ken was strong, but this was absurd. Way too overpowered, just being immune to genjutsus was already a huge advantage but the rest was as well. 

The only thing that could hit him was nin- and taijutsu and well, Ken already showed how much strength he had, so that left them with only ninjutsu.  

"Let's start then" Neji said as he still activated his Byakugan, he had to focus a lot harder to not look past Naruto. It was strange that a person didn't have their own chakra, no it was still unbelievable. 

He attacked as fast as possible but had to deactivate his Byakugan as the chakra around him suddenly started to glow and move in a strange way as it was sucked into Ken's direction, he then felt how his fist hit a solid wall of chakra.

He jumped back as he dodged a few kunais flying his way but instead of flying past him, they changed directions to go after him. 

He jumped a few times back until the kunais suddenly went flying past him. He looked and saw that Ken hadn't moved a single muscle as just his eyes followed him. This was absurd, how in the world was he supposed to win against him? 

But it seemed that Ken had a certain range, something he realized as he activated his Byakugan again, the chakra around Ken was moving as it rotated around him like a sandstorm. It was moving so fast that he feared to step a foot back into that sphere. 

He moved a step back as Ken took a step toward him, the sphere was moving along. He coated his fingertips with chakra and attacked the sphere, his fingers crushed against a barrier. But it wasn't without success as he saw how a few cracks there, even though these cracks vanished almost instantly.

So he used all his skills to rain down attack after attack against the barrier before he broke through. He used the opening to throw a few kunais, with explosion tags on them. 

The kunais were caught by a threat that sent them back to him, he used Hakkesho Kaiten to block the kunais. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw how Shikamaru planted an explosion tag on the barrier with Sasuke behind him.

The tag exploded and ribbed a hole into the barrier and Sasuke shot a huge fireball into the sphere, he used the moment of distraction that the fireball would cause to break through the barrier again. 

He rushed in and took cover behind the fireball so Ken couldn't see him. What he didn't expect was for the fireball to vanish before his eyes. 

"Well, well, who do we have here?" Ken said with a smirk as his stomach dropped. 

Chapter Text

"Well, well, who do we have here?" Ken said with a smirk as his stomach dropped. 

It didn't even take a second before he felt his body encased in chakra, he tried to use Hakkesho Kaiten and it did work for a second. But his rotation was much slower, his chakra release was much harder even with his extra training.

The moment his chakra shield died down was when he was pressured into the ground, his face planting into the hard ground and that hurt a lot. 

He heard two people groan behind him so that meant that Shikamaru and Sasuke were also down. They had zero chance to win this, he was by no means a genius compared to Ken. 

He wasn't even sure if the jonin could win against Ken right now, his abilities were so unique that he didn't know how to fight against them.

"Well, that was a little easier than I thought" Ken confessed as the pressure vanished. 

"We are just genin, face a jonin and say it again" Neji said as Ken nodded. 

"Yeah, but I don't want them to know my abilities" Ken said.

"Well, then you will have to train alone, I can show you how to throw a kunai" Sasuke said as he sat up, his face was bloody but it healed the instant they had sat up.

"That would be nice" 

"Say is the rumor true that you will be one of this year's chunin examiners?" Sasuke asked as the others also listened to the answer.

"That is right, I will be the first examiner this year" He said.

"So, are most rumors about you true?" Neji asked in a strange hopeful tone.

"I don't know, what rumor are you referring to?" Ken asked.

"That you removed Orochimaru's seal" Neji said without hesitation.

"Ah that, yeah it was no problem. Now I could do it even faster than before" Ken admitted.

"Then---- could you-----"

"Ah come Sasuke, we have never heard nor seen anything, we weren't here today" Shikamaru yelled as jumped up and grabbed a baffled Sasuke.

"Hey, why are you---" Sasuke protested.

"Just shut up and move" Shikamaru said. 

Neji was nervous now that he was alone with Ken, Shikamaru's reaction already showed how serious this was. But Shikamaru also showed that he didn't intend to stop him, he was just going so that he could deny anything later. 

"Could I what?" Ken asked after a long moment of silence. 

Should he ask? Was Ken going to report him? Could he trust this man in front of him? If Ken reported him then a life of imprisonment would be the most favorable option he had. 

"Do you want me to remove that seal on your forehead?" Ken asked casually as he kneeled down to his level, Neji was in shock. Ken had asked like it wasn't that much of a problem like it wouldn't change his life forever.

"Is this what you call your destiny? I wouldn't say that this kind of seal is your destiny when you have so much to offer. You are a whole lot more than this seal. A side branch family member, who cares where you were born in, what matters is what you choose" 

Ken's words gave him hope and at the same time they were insulting, who cares where you were born in? Something like that could only someone say that didn't know what it meant to feel the pressure of a clan on their back.

"You know that it is treason right?" Neji asked. 

"And that the Hyuuga clan will hunt me if they find out, I'm very much aware, but every person should have the right to choose. And this slave seal goes against anything I stand for, pissing off the Hyuuga clan is just a bonus." Ken replied.

"So you can remove it?" Neji asked with hope.

"Sure no problem" 

"When?" 

"Right now?" 

"You mean like here in the open?" Neji asked, suddenly the sphere's color changed as the walls became solid and white. 

"There, now sit and let me see exactly what this seal is" Ken said as he created a chair for him to sit on.

Neji nervously sat down as he took his headband off, only his clansman had seen this side of him. The seal was a mark of weakness and slavery for most of the branch family members and yet they didn't try to fight against it.

Ken hummed above him as he inspected the seal, could he do it? Was Ken capable enough to break a seal the last 5 generations of branch family members weren't capable of breaking?

"Are you sure that you want to remove the seal, I'm not the only one with a problem then?" Ken asked.

"I'm sure" He replied seriously because even if he hadn't completely thought about the consequences, he was sure that he wanted that thing gone.

Ken just hummed in confirmation as his hand hovered over the seal, something felt strange to just sit here and wait as Ken examined him.

"Done" Done? That couldn't be, so fast? Was Ken pranking him?

"The seal will fate in a week to two, so better keep that headband protected or someone might find out our little secret" 

"And? Did you remove his seal?" Shikamaru asked as he came to the compound that evening to have a sleepover.

"Didn't you go away so that you could deny knowing anything about it?" He asked.

"Didn't you come here to talk about it?" Shikamaru asked back.

"I did, he is free now. No one there to bind him to that clan, but I think his resentment is still deep and won't go away with the freedom he has now" He said.

"Freedom? There is no such thing as freedom for a clan child. Your clan chooses for you what to do, leaving labels you a missing-nin, so if he doesn't want to die then he will stay where he is right now.

He is only free when he gets strong enough so that no one dares to go after him ------------- or if someone powerful protects him." Shikamaru added.

"I don't know if I have the power to protect him, I'm not even sure if I can protect myself from the Hyuugas" He confessed.

"Ken--no Naruto" Shikamaru said as he sat up from his bed to look into his eyes.

"You may not have figured it out, but you are invincible. Genjustus don't work on you, you are as strong if not stronger than Tsunade if it comes to strength and ninjutsu? I'm not sure if I saw it correctly, but I'm pretty sure you can absorb the chakra of every jutsu flying your way.

On top of that comes that you can heal yourself during a fight, you are unbeatable. You may not have the strongest offensive, but your defense is not breakable." Shikamaru said.

"So you think that I could win against the Hokage and the Anbu if it is necessary?" He asked to make sure.

"Win? Probably not, but escaping would be no problem for you" Shikamaru answered.

"So you are advising me to protect Neji?" He asked.

"Shouldn't you finish something that you started?" Well, that was undeniably true.

Two weeks later 

Ken was working his morning shifts in the hospital before the exams started, he was excited about this. Seeing all the genin that would become the future of your villages. 

Sasuke, Shimakaru and Neji had made remarkable progress in their chakra handling. Sasuke and Shikamaru were so good that they would use one-hand signs for every jutsu they had. 

They also could enhance their body parts to move faster or have more strength in a taijutsu battle. Sasuke even managed to awaken his Sharingan one more level when he put more chakra into it. 

It also helped a lot with their chakra consumption, as they needed a lot less chakra for their jutsus. Making them able to fight way longer than their peers. 

But they both paled in comparison to Neji. Neji had started to train as if his life depended on it and well, it did. If the Hyuuga's found out what he did then they would be coming for his head. He hadn't told Neji that he would protect him, mainly because he didn't want to take the motivation away. 

Believe it or not, having your life depending on it makes one a very fast learner. So, the three would always come to him after their respective training with their own teams. 

And Neji archived things that he didn't think were possible, something that took him four years took Neji just about a month to learn. Neji could now create small chakra barriers on his body. The genin still couldn't control chakra that wasn't connected to his body, but he could create small barriers on his body to block attacks. 

His Byakugan helped in that regard immensely. He could also widen his range by lengthening his arm with chakra, forming a blade at the tip of his fingers. He was interested to see how the three would perform in these exams.

Chapter Text

His Byakugan helped in that regard immensely. He could also widen his range by lengthening his arm with chakra, forming a blade at the tip of his fingers. He was interested to see how the three would perform in these exams.

He slowly entered the examination room, all genin teams were sitting at their tables. He had decided that he would come dressed in his doctor's clothes. He could feel the eyes of all the young people there as he felt their chakra. 

And there were already a lot of people that caught his attention, that redhaired suna-nin was a jinchuuriki with a very desirable seal since the Biju's chakra leaked into the boy's own system.

The second was a silver-haired boy from Konoha, these were the chunin exams but that boy had at least the Chakra amount a jonin had and even better control than most people he had seen, even better than Neji, a medic? 

The last one was a girl from the land of sound, she had chakra that almost matched that of the Hokage. Her chakra also felt very sinister, but oh well, he knew that the shinobi world had a lot of special people. 

"Hello everyone, I'm this year's first examiner. My name is Ken and I'm a civilian medic" He started as he already saw a lot of question marks above their heads.

"I was asked to examine you since my chakra control is the best in this village." A few hands shot up as he nodded.

"What has that to do with becoming a chunin?" A genin from kumogakure asked.

"Well, chakra control is essential for higher-ranking shinobi since it terminates who would win a battle. The better your control is, the less chakra you use for a jutsu, which means you can fight longer." He answered.

"I see where you are coming from doc, but any jonin could have tested us for that, what makes you so special?" The sound girl with that abnormally sinister chakra asked.

"Because I can do this" He said as he once again formed three balls of chakra, in a flash they turned into all kinds of weapons. Their colors changed as he multiplied them into hundreds of smaller weapons in that small room. He saw how some used Kai to break a genjutsu.

"As you can see this is something until now only I'm able to do, but I'm sure that some of you have the potential to come to this level too." He said as he let the weapons vanish again. 

"Now coming to the exam, you will all have to stick a leaf on your right arm and slowly move it over to your left arm using just chakra control, ah and of course while hanging upside down from the ceiling.

I know pretty easy and on top of that, only one teammate has to complete it. Does it make sense that the other two can become chunin with bad chakra control, nooo!!! Did the Hokage and other jonin say that was the only way so that you don't fail, yeesss. 

If I had my way only these with good enough chakra control would pass, but it seems one per team is enough." He complained as he formed a chair out of chakra.

"Well? Get to it, I can see everyone from here. You have three hours to pass, ah cheating will mean immediate disqualification. This is already easy as it is, cheating on something like this is an insult." 

The exam was as expected very easy and many passed, he was even more disappointed that there were still people who couldn't pass something this easy. 

Sasuke, Shikamaru and Neji had of course passed in the first five minutes, what surprised him was how good that sound girl was for her enormous chakra.

"Many passed your little test" Anko said to him as he came to see the second test.

"They wouldn't have if I had my way" He replied as she just laughed.

"You will have to be in a way higher position to have your way" Anko said with a laugh.

"All in planning" He said with a small smile, he wasn't so insecure in his power anymore after Shikamaru's wake-up call. Neji and Sasuke also taught him a lot of taijutsu, which with his strength is enough to defend himself. 

"Ohh? Someone seems to be determinated to build up political power" 

The second exam started as the genin all went inside the forest of death, it was an intense environment for children. To be always on the lookout, to not know what kind of animals lived there. Enemies that could come at them at any moment, it must be stressful.

"How is your neck, nothing left of the seal?" He asked as he sat down with Anko and waited for the exam to be over. 

"It's completely gone" She confirmed.

"Speaking of seals, I felt a very sinister chakra from one of the participants" He said as she just hummed.

"Hmm, that's very normal" She just replied.

"Is that so, it was really dark and so much" He said. 

"How much was it, like jonin level?" She asked.

"Little bit less than the third" He answered as her dango fell out of her hand.

"Are you telling me that there is genin with chakra as much as the Hokage?" She asked.

"Hmm, and very skilled chakra control, she tried to hide it with her clumsy acting. But I did see how her chakra was all even and no disturbance the whole time" He answered.

"You should have told me that" She hissed at him.

"As if you couldn't feel that much chakra, she was right behind you. How did you get even the rank special Jonin when you can't sense chakra to that degree?" He asked.

"Fuck you" 

It didn't take long from there on to find out that the real participants were killed and their faces stolen. They had asked him to lay low as they searched for the imposter, so yeah, he waited at the tower for the teams to come in.

What surprised him was that the redhead from suna had gotten there first without a single injury. They were followed by Shikamaru's team a day later, then came Neji's team. 

Slowly half of the teams made it to the tower but Sasuke's team was still missing and he was a little worried. He knows that he wasn't responsible, but he liked the other boy. 

On the last day, Sasuke's team made it to the tower, completely bruised over with an unconscious Sasuke, who had a very familiar seal on his neck. So that bastard Orochimaru had somehow made it into the exams, these incompetent bastards couldn't even find him for over a week.

He patched Sakura and Sai up and waited for Sasuke to wake up, Kakashi was fussing a lot over the boy.

"Hatake-san you have to stop worrying so much" He said as they waited for Sasuke to wake up.

"He is under my care, I have an obligation to ensure his safety." Kakashi replied.

"Obligation, what an interesting choice of words and how oh so ironic. Considering that your sensei's son should have been your obligation, but I never saw you near Naruto" He said as Kakashi's head turned to him in a flash.

"Are you trying to make things right this time? Or did you just not care for him since he was a monster?" He asked with a dark smile.

"Careful doc, I will not hesitate to put you through the wall" Kakashi threatened.

"You are welcome to try, but I think I have reached the point where I can ask questions without fear" He said satisfied with himself.

"So tell me, why did nobody help Naruto? I mean, there had to be at least one person in this village who had to see the misery that boy was in and had to feel pity. And yet, nobody came, which makes me wonder if there was an order against it?" He asked.

"I-------there--------- there was an order to leave the boy alone" Kakashi admitted.

"So the Hokage had thought what? Leaving Naruto to suffer was a good idea because? I mean, shouldn't so much suffering result in hate and revenge thoughts? Was he trying to turn their own jinchuuriki against himself?" He asked interested since he had gotten answers to this.

"No, suffering from such an early age doesn't result in hate. The self-esteem of oneself will be destroyed, that person will be willing to do anything to be finally accepted. A child that is starved for praise or a compliment" Oh, ooohhhh, these little rats of assholes.

Maybe he should just let the Kyuubi out and be done with it? He wouldn't even die now that he didn't have his own chakra anymore.

"You are all sick, the Hokage for ordering something like this and you for accepting it" He said as Kakashi flinched, it seemed that his murderous intent had leaked into the room. 

"Sensei" 

"Yes Princess?" He asked as he turned to Sasuke.

"Meant the other one" Sasuke just said as his eyes turned to Kakashi.

"Is there a reason nobody has taken me in then?" The boy asked and oh god, they did it again with Sasuke, they could see it with how Kakashi hesitated for a second.

"Get out and don't come near him again" Naruto growled.

"Now don't be hasty--" Kakashi tried but Naruto had enough as he chained Kakashi down. He ever so slowly walked over to the man as he slowly kneeled down to be at the same eye level.

"You will never ever get near Sasuke again or trust me I will wreck this village into pieces. I may not look like it, but I will kill anyone that stands in my way. Now get out of here, I don't want to be around child abusers anymore" Naruto said as he released Kakashi.

"So princess, I hear you are living alone. Well, that was yesterday, you are now my new roommate. Neji will probably join us soon." He said as he got back to Sasuke, as the boy stared at him in shock and his mouth agape.

"So let's get that little hickey away and pretend like you weren't assaulted by a pedophile" He said as Sasuke let out a short laugh with his own sad smile. 

"Why are you helping me?" Sasuke asked as he had just finished removing the seal, it was super easy since it had just taken place and didn't have the time to invade Sasuke's chakra system that much.

"Because I was in exactly the same position as you, because I know how betrayed you feel" He answered.

"Now come, I heard that you will have to fight duels against the other genin, try to use your chakra as little as possible." 

The fights were nothing exciting, more or less a few kids that knew a few jutsu fighting against each other. Shikamaru's fight ended in a few seconds as he shadow-controlled her in an instant and then ran her into a wall face-first. 

Sakura's and Ino's fight was an embarrassment to the village and the shinobi world. Two girls pulled the hair of the other, it was out of place.

Sai's fight against Kida was interesting, he didn't know that this kind of fast drawing was possible. Sai had won by a big gap, so big that he was suspicious of that boy's skills.

"NEJI!!!! What the fuck are you doing?" Ken shouted down as he saw how Neji was toying with Hinata, she was one of the few people who had shown kindness to him. She was something like an angel to him, a naturally kind person.

Seeing Neji toy with her while purposely hitting spots that hurt was too much for him because, one, he respected Hinata and two because Neji was losing himself in his rage. 

The match ended as he instantly healed her and looked her chakra system over, but it seemed that she was okay for now. Neji was already back in the stands as he waited for the next match.

It was Sasuke against some sound nin, he sighed as he made his up and past Neji, of course not without slapping that shithead's head from behind with a chakra hand.

"What the hell were you thinking? You have a problem with her father and not her, what in the fucking world is wrong with you to hurt a younger girl that much?" He asked.

"She is from the main family---" Neji started but was slapped a second time.

"She is a fucking person Neji, she is her own fucking person and I'm sure that she never wronged you in her life. How can you of all people be so blind to just lash out against anyone when you know how indifference has cost your father's life? 

She is a young girl Neji, she had nothing to do with the seal or your father. You should keep your emotions in check or I will stop teaching you because I don't want to help someone that harms innocent people" He said as he walked away, he had seen enough for today. 

Chapter Text

She is a young girl Neji, she had nothing to do with the seal or your father. You should keep your emotions in check or I will stop teaching you because I don't want to help someone that harms innocent people" He said as he walked away, he had seen enough for today. 

Naruto had gone back to the hospital to treat a few patients, it was pretty quiet until four Jonins burst into the emergency room with Rock Lee.

Neji and Tenten were beside them as they waited for the doctors to diagnose the boy.

He sighed as he moved on to his next patient, emergency treatment wasn’t his specialty, so he stayed out of it.

It was sad to see that the villages still allowed fights to go so far that these children had to be taken to the emergency room.

He went to Rock Lee's room an hour later after the emergency treatment was over.

Tenten and Neji were waiting at Lee's bed as their sensei was discussing something with the nurse who was checking Lee's vitals.

"What do we have here?" He asked as he snatched the clipboard from the nurse and the adults turned to see him.

"Ah good that you are here doctor, the boys' sensei demanded that you had to treat this patient. Even though I tried to explain multiple times that this isn’t your specialty" Nurse explained.

He flipped through the pages as he read up all the information on the boy. It was indeed very far from his specialty.

Lee's entire leg was shattered, but that was only the start. His other bones had also cracked and his muscles were thorn. His blood vessels were overstretched, almost as if something wanted to be let out.

In short, this boy was ruined beyond repair, in a world without chakra he would already be dead meat.

He sighed as he controlled the chakra in the boy to get a more accurate picture of the damage.

"Can you heal him? When will he be able to train again?" Guy-san asked worried from his side.

"Train? Are you insane? He will be lucky when he is able to walk again. I’m good, one of the best in this hospital, but this damage is unmanageable even for me.

This is something only Tsunade could fix, even with the extra knowledge I have from her this is impossible. I can stitch his bones back together, but they will not be able to heal to their original self.

How could he be damaged to this extent anyway? Didn’t you make sure that your students are unharmed?" Naruto demanded as he looked straight through Guy's soul.

But before Guy could even attempt to answer that question, no more accusation, the door was slammed open as Hiashi Hyūga glared down at Neji instantly.

"Neji come home now" The voice of the Hyūga clan head was ice cold, as it was clear that a beating would be the lightest of punishments that the boy would face. 

So you couldn’t blame Neji as the boy didn’t move immediately. Hiashi's fingers shot up as he activated a jutsu or that was what Naruto thought but nothing happened.

You could see the confusion on Hiashi's face and suddenly Naruto understood. That bastard was trying to activate the seal on Neji’s head. 

The other Hyūga clan members behind the clan head started whispering as Hiashi's facial expression turned into pure rage. 

Chakra gathered in his fingertips as he took a step forward, Neji already moved into a defensive stance.

"What did you do?" Hiashi's voice somehow turned even colder as he took another step forward.

"I asked you a question boy" The man screamed. Neji stayed still, completely focusing on defending himself as Tenten guarded Lee. Guy-sensei was trying to understand the situation but already moved a little in front of Neji.

"I want——"

"Enough" Naruto shouted with a chakra-infused echo that let people cover their ears in pain as a few fell to their knees.

"The audacity you have to come into a hospital and make such a scene." Naruto said as he stepped in front of the clan head, shielding Neji completely.

"Out of the way boy, this is clan business and has nothing to do with you" Hiashi hissed.

"Oh, this that so? I think it has to do a lot with me, considering that I removed the seal" Naruto said without missing a beat.

The room was dead silent, only the sounds of the machines could be heard. 

Someone had just admitted that they had removed the Hyūga clan seal, a seal that held supremacy over the branch members. Removing it would destroy the hierarchy system and would lead to a revolution.

And a boy not much older looking than 13 said he removed it. 

"Boy do you——" Hiashi started but Naruto interrupted him.

"It’s Dr. Ken for you. Now get out of my hospital or I will make sure that your clan can never get treatment here again." Naruto said forcefully as he already turned to Lee again.

Hiashi hesitated for a second before he took another step towards Neji but a golden wing made out of pure chakra blocked his way.

"The nerve you have to harm a child is out of my imagination, I’m warning you one last time. Get out and don’t even attempt to get to Neji again or I will use force to stop you" Naruto said dead serious as his second wing formed behind him.

"You are involving yourself in clan business boy, I'm allowed to kill you should you try to stop me" The man said coldly as he stared down at him.

"You can try, but you will come to understand that your clan especially is a bad matchup for me" Naruto challenged as Hiashi activated his Byakugan.

A second later his expression turned from rage to shock as he tried to find the boy, he had to concentrate extremely hard not to look through the chakra-less doctor.

A second later he screamed in pain as his Byakugan deactivated. 

"You can not see me, nor can you block my chakra points because I don’t have my own chakra. 

Furthermore, I can control the chakra in this entire room. All these colors and forms that suddenly formed are my doing. 

Your 360-degree vision is especially easy to give a sensory overload. All that blinding ——" Naruto couldn’t explain more as Hiashi concentrated a large amount of chakra in his fingertips and attached him.

Naruto created a sphere to protect him but that was smashed in just three hits. Naruto then protected himself with his wings as he formed hundreds of kunais and let that rain down on the clan head.

Hiashi blocked that as he rotated, releasing chakra from his chakra points to make a protective sphere himself.

But Naruto also used this moment of distraction as he controlled the chakra in the entire room and condensed it around Hiashi making the clan head unable to move as he was pressured in place through the sheer amount of chakra.

"You leave that boy alone or next time I will increase the pressure until your bones break" Naruto warned as he released the man who fell to the floor. 

"Carry him out, he is distracting this workplace." Naruto instructed as he turned to Neji.

"I have taken this risk for you, you better learn fast because I won’t be staying in this village forever"

The news that a doctor fought against the Hyūga clan head spread extremely fast. The entire village now knew that Ken could stand up for himself against the strongest clan in Konoha.

But even more importantly, they knew now that he could undo the caged bird seal. All Hyūga branch members were under house arrest, as they feared that they would all swarm to their freedom. 

A fear that was definitely reasonable, because while the branch members of the Hyūga clan saw it as an honor to serve the main clan. They also hated the control they had over them. 

"Ken-san, the Hokage wishes to see you" An Anbu said as he appeared right in front of Naruto.

"Tell him he can come to my office after my shift is over" Naruto replied as the Anbu blinked at him. Not sure what to do before he nodded vanishing into thin air.

Chapter Text

"Tell him he can come to my office after my shift is over" Naruto replied as the Anbu blinked at him. Not sure what to do before he nodded vanishing into thin air.

Naruto treated patients the entire day, while simultaneously teaching Sasuke and Neji chakra control. Shikamaru was forbidden from meeting him for the time being since the Nara clan didn’t want to get involved in this fight.

"You let this old man wait" The Hokage commented as he returned to his office.

"I see that you made yourself comfortable" Naruto replied as he closed the door behind himself, leaving Sasuke and Neji outside.

"Let’s not beat around the bush, you can’t just remove the Hyuuga seal how you please." The Hokage said sternly like if he was lecturing a child.

"Hokage-sama, do I tell you how to run this village?" Naruto asked throwing the Hokage off-road in his track of thoughts.

"No?"

"Exactly, so I kindly implore you to do the same. I’m the vice president of this hospital, a private hospital. I don’t think that you should have a say in which patients I treat or not.

Neji Hyuuga came to me with a harmful seal on his head that didn’t bring him any benefits. I didn’t and still don’t see a reason why I shouldn’t have removed it. 

And I will continue to do it in the future should more come to me. That seal is a slave seal, forcing people into complete obedience with their birth.

If they had chosen it with their own will, hey then it’s not my problem, but forcing it on children? 

I think you already know what I think of this village and how rotten it is. What you did to Naruto, to Sasuke and all these other children. 

That you aren’t even ashamed as an Adult, as the Hokage. These are times of peace and you still do this to children." Naruto said as he looked right into the Hokage's eyes, there was a flicker of doubt or guilt as the man stared right back at him.

"You should be careful with your tone boy, I’m still the Hokage and I will not hesitate to remove any danger for this village." The Hokage warned.

"The time where you could have used force and fear with me is over. I know that my offense capabilities are very lacking, I know that Hiashi didn’t use his full power to not make the scene even bigger. 

So fighting and winning against you is impossible for me. Even more so with all the Anbu in this hospital" Naruto said as he glanced at all the Anbu's hidden in the shadows.

"So you know your limitations———" The Hokage started but Naruto interrupted him.

"While I may not be able to win against you right now, I’m also pretty sure that I can defend myself against all of you. Because I have the perfect defense and speed needed to flee this village at any given moment.

So make no mistake, because I will leave this village behind at any indication that my life is in danger and I will settle down in another village that is more willing to accompany my demands and conditions.

You may not know this, but I’m irreplaceable in this hospital, I work the most hours and cover the most fields including teaching.

Me going will throw Konoha's medical field into chaos like it did with Tsunade and we both know how much damage that did to the village." Naruto warned as he moved to the door to open it.

"I will continue to treat patients like I did before and remove anything harmful to them. If the Hyuuga branch members aren’t loyal without the seal, then maybe it was a slave seal after all.

And just to stop the argument from coming up that the branch members would be hunted by other nations without the seal. The Uchiha also didn’t have one and still weren’t hunted, the main family didn’t have a seal and weren’t hunted.

By the way, you can just take the eyes out before killing them, so yeah, it wasn’t that useful anyway. Now if you would excuse me, I still have work left that needs to be done" Naruto said as the Hokage stepped past him.

"I will let you know that you are stepping on a very dangerous territory here. Civilian or not, the moment I deem you more dangerous for this village than beneficial is when I will do something about you. 

You may think that you are untouchable but you aren’t. You may have a very unique and powerful ability, but many have these. 

Believe me when I tell you that I will break through your defense and there is nothing you can do that will stop me." The Hokage said before departing.

"So you want meeeee??? To train you for the finals in a month?" Naruto asked to make sure as Neji and Sasuke had pleaded with him.

"I can only teach you to control chakra, I don’t know any jutsus or close combat techniques." He explained trying to make them understand that he wasn’t a ninja.

"You could teach us elemental chakra" Sasuke said in desperate hope.

"Fine, but be aware I almost know nothing about elemental chakra. I know how to turn chakra into one of the five elements but that is how far I can go."

They tested the two in their chakra nature and found out that Sasuke had fire and lightning, while Neji had water, wind and fire (that’s what the internet said).

For a Hyuuga that was pretty surprising since they didn’t use elemental chakra, so having such a developed elemental chakra nature was a blessing.

"Well, that is very fitting for both of you. I would recommend choosing one to master first before learning another.

Choose one that fits your fighting style best, I will then try to explain to you how to train it a little. But in the end, you will need to find a master to teach you jutsus." Naruto explained.

"It’s still a mystery to me how you have only one chakra nature and wind at that. It’s very rare in this village" Shikamaru pointed out as he rounded the corner.

"Aren’t you afraid to be seen with me?" Naruto asked his best friend playfully.

"When did that ever stop me" Shikamaru returned light-heartedly.

"Speaking of which, I would totally recommend Lightning Sasuke. It has way more destructive power and also more precise control. 

I also think it will fit your fighting style more since you rely more on speed." Shikamaru said as Sasuke looked at him expectingly like he wanted this to be approved.

"The decision is yours, but Shikamaru is right. It has a lot more destructive power concentrated on a small point." He explained as Sasuke nodded in understanding.

"I could teach him" They all turned their heads up in surprise. Kakashi had somehow sneaked up on them. 

It just showed again that he was one of the best when he wanted to. 

"How did you even find us?" Naruto asked because this was the spot that he and Shikamaru used for years when he played music to not be found.

Kakashi just pointed at a small dog beside him, so this was the famous dog summon.

"We might not be able to find you, but Sasuke and Neji are another thing." Kakashi explained. 

"Oh, and you think that I would let you train a kid that you neglected?" Naruto asked.

"I swear that I will do my best to protect and teach him. Besides, my own chakra nature is lightning and I know a few jutsus and fighting styles around it.

Furthermore, you don’t have the time to teach both Neji and Sasuke. And Neji can hardly leave your side now, can he?" Kakashi asked.

They all know that he was right, Neji didn’t have as near as much freedom as Sasuke had. 

He could be attacked by the Hyuuga clan at any minute. 

"Do you want to go Sasuke?" Naruto asked to make sure. 

"I would have preferred to learn from you, but he is right. I will learn from you when Neji is strong enough to be free." Sasuke replied. 

"Well off you go, but to make sure Kakashi. He better be at the tournament without any kind of major injuries or I will make sure that this village hospital will shut down for a month and you will explain it to the Hokage." Naruto threatened.

"Sure sure, he will be healthy and well fed" Kakashi said before taking Sasuke and disappearing into the wind. 

"Well this is disappointing" The dog said as he stared down at them.

"A talking dog, this world really is crazy." Naruto noted as the dog jumped down.

"I’m not a dog but a summon." The dog corrected him without being insulted.

"So anyone can summon you with the summoning jutsu?" Naruto asked.

"No, you have to make a contract with us first."

"What happens when I perform the jutsu without any contract?" He asked.

"Probably a reverse summon, you will be summoned into one of our worlds to the summon that suits you most.

The probability that you die is also very high since we don’t take kindly to people invading our home unannounced."

"Well thank you for the information" Naruto said as the dog just nodded before puffing out of existence.

"Welp, that was interesting. Now let’s get back. I’m getting hungry."

Chapter Text

“Welp, that was interesting. Now let’s get back. I’m getting hungry.”

The following two days were used to train Neji in changing pure chakra into the water element. It was much harder for him than they anticipated. Well, in retrospect, they should have known. Hyūgas never used elemental jutsus for generations now.

But Naruto thought that there was more to it. Water was the perfect element for Neji’s fighting style. Soft and fluid, with a lot of movement and adaptability. Perfect for attack and defense. But something wasn’t right; it was like a blockade that he was trying to forcefully overcome.

He used the little free time he had left to study the summoning jutsu. It fascinated him that there were parallel worlds to this one with completely different living creatures.

“So, I think I’m ready to try this jutsu now,” Naruto announced as he, Neji and Shikamaru sat in his living room one afternoon.

“Do you really think summoning yourself into another dimension is a good idea?” Shikamaru asked, even if he wasn’t that worried.

“You don’t have to worry, if I understood it correctly then the summoning will be canceled after a day. I’m sure that I can defend myself for a day,” he said as he already slowly started to go through the hand signs.

“Neji, you really have to stop thinking about your seal. I have already removed it, you are no longer bound. Be free like water.”

“Wait just a second, when you go ……. Puff 💨” Shikamaru sighed as he stared at the place Naruto had been a moment ago.

“That son of a bitch, I hope that you are good with the transformation jutsu, because we will have to hide you away in the Nara compound until that bastard gets back.”

Naruto’s vision slowly cleared as he stared into a completely white space. He didn’t know if the space was open or if it had walls or not.

Suddenly a man appeared out of nothing and formed in some kind of ghost form before him.

“You ……. you are alone,” the man said, surprised, but Naruto didn’t say anything as he stared at these purple eyes.

The man had purple eyes with Sharingan patterns and above these was a third eye. A Sharingan staring down on him.

“Why is Asura’s incarnation alone?” the old man wondered out loud, truly bewildered. To Naruto the old man’s words didn’t make any sense and he was a little disappointed.

Because he saw something he knew, I mean a man with three eyes is rare. He still hoped to see talking cats or something like that.

“My name is Ken,” Naruto started, just to get some answers from that old man.

“Hagoromo, do you know who I’m?” the old man asked after giving out his name.

“No idea, but I’m not from the shinobi world. So maybe it’s because of that?” Naruto answered.

“And yet you are the jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails and the chakra around you behaves strangely,” the man noted as Naruto tried to not let the man know his surprise.

“Why did I appear here? I tried to find out which summon would work best for me, so how come I was summoned to you?” Naruto asked.

“It seems that chakra thought that you needed to meet me. So how come that Asura’s incarnation has so few friends?” the man asked like nothing was wrong.

“I don’t even know who you are or who that Asura guy is, how about you start at the beginning so that we both know what’s going on?” Naruto asked, or more like demanded.

“Well, once there was a world without chakra ………” And so the old man told Naruto everything from the time where no chakra existed to the point where he and his brother fought their mother.

He also told Naruto about his sons and how they each found their way in life to their last fight against each other.

He also told him a lot about the past incarnations of Indra and Asura, he had to agree with that old man.

Compared to his past incarnations he had very few friends, one to be specific. Sasuke and Neji weren’t friends yet.

But that also meant that an Uchiha had to be the incarnation of Indra. That meant that either Sasuke or Itachi was the one meant to meet Hagoromo as well.

They talked a lot about old times and also about Naruto’s upbringing. The old man instantly recognized that Ken wasn’t his real name.

“That is quite an amazing ability you have mastered, even in my time there was no one that had this much control over chakra, even if the amount you control is small,” Hagoromo said.

“Well, it’s the only thing I’m good at and healing of course,” Naruto said as he played around with his chakra ball as Hagoromo watched him, fascinated.

“Only my mother could control chakra so freely like you, of course she was way more powerful but still, it’s quite amazing,” Hagoromo complimented.

“While I enjoyed our conversation and found it quite informative, I still don’t understand how I ended up here.

As you can see I’m not a shinobi and I also don’t have the supportive background the incarnations of Asura normally have.

So maybe wait for the next incarnation, I mean it seems like any underdog can be Asura’s incarnation.

On the Uchiha side you have two very talented shinobi, Itachi probably even more than Sasuke.

I mean it doesn’t have to be the incarnation of the same generation now does it?” Naruto asked.

“No, it doesn’t, but their synergy is better that way most of the time.”

“Well, like I said, please search for the next incarnation or the one before me. I don’t want to be pulled into this mess of saving the world,” Naruto said.

“Are you sure? You are a perfect candidate, you are still young, you have amazing chakra control and intelligence.

Furthermore, don’t you want to be free? The power I can give you is enormous and you should know that this world is ruled by the powerful,” Hagoromo said.

“Well yeah, but with that kind of power comes a lot of responsibility. You are literally asking me to seal your mother when it comes to it.

A being that is stronger than all the Hokage combined. So that is a hard pass.”

“And what if I say that I can give you the power to heal, you could replace entire organs with my power,” Hagoromo said with a small smirk as Naruto’s eyes sparkled.

“Are you telling me that I could replace an eye or heart in an instant?” Naruto asked carefully.

“Hmm, that would be correct,” Hagoromo just hummed, confirming.

“Are you sure that you want to give this kind of power to someone that hates his village so much?”

“Hate? That is not what I see, I see disappointment. You are disappointed in the people around you, but you don’t hate them.

You may say that you hate them, but your actions show something different. No, I concluded that you have a very strong belief in humanity.

Or else you wouldn’t help healing them, wouldn’t help moulding the next generation.”

“Let’s say that you are right, I still don’t have that support system of friends that Asura’s incarnation should have,” Naruto pointed out.

“Maybe that’s a good thing. Asura may have had a lot of support and with that his belief in humanity to work together.

And so had all his incarnations after him, yet look where it has gotten us.

Both the previous incarnations of Asura and Indra still fought each other.

No, maybe a more rational and skilled Asura is better and as I already said, your skills are excellent,” Hagoromo said with a compliment at the last.

“Okay, but even if you have the confidence to give me the powers of the Sage of the Six Paths. Because from what I understood, I need to master normal Sage mode first.

Sage mode is practically mixing nature chakra with your own to make Senjutsu.

Now I don’t know if you have noticed it or not, but I don’t have my own chakra anymore,” Naruto pointed out.

“You are a smart guy, I’m sure you will figure something out,” Hagoromo said as he suddenly appeared behind him.

With a single touch Naruto felt something entering his body.

“Sorry, I would have loved to give you more time to decide for yourself, unfortunately I don’t have the time anymore to talk with you. My chakra is running low to keep you in this dimension and I don’t have enough to summon another incarnation of Asura here, so you kinda brought this onto yourself.”

The last thing Naruto felt were different kinds of chakra forming in his body as he was pushed out of the dimension.

“That son of a bitch!!!” Naruto cursed as he reappeared in his home.

That mother fucker had just pushed the power into him without consent. This responsibility he knew he couldn’t ignore anymore.

That old bastard, he had even come to like that old mother fucker. Hagoromo knew that he couldn’t walk away from such a responsibility.

He sighed as he let reality hit him, he now was responsible for the well-being of this world if it came to it.

How was he going to deal with this now? He was strong without question, strong enough to protect himself, but was he strong enough to protect others?

Hardly, he was just barely able to defend himself to make an escape. He needed to learn a lot more now, had to master a lot of ninjutsu.

Sage mode was another thing as well, how in the world was he going to learn Sage mode? He didn’t have any chakra to mix nature chakra with.

Maybe he could mix it with the Nine-Tails’ chakra, well that was a question for later. First he had to plan out how to learn a lot of shinobi techniques in a short period of time.