Hiruzen stood on the lookout point at the top of the tower with Menma standing behind him. He knew the boy was there, Menma had been standing there for at least five minutes, probably trying to correctly word what he wanted to say. Hiruzen thought it was weird though that he had come alone usually Naruto would be with the two were almost inseparable. Hiruzen could tell from Menma's lack of a boisterous greeting that it was important so he hadn't goaded him into speaking.
"Old man…" Menma finally said. His voice was rather low, showing the brevity of whatever it was he wished to speak about. Menma swallowed down a lump in his throat and finally chose to raise his voice closer to its normal timbre, "Naruto and I have read some things recently… and I know that our name is from a clan. A clan that was supposed to be pretty famous. The book told me lots of stuff, about how they were the best at fuuinjutsu, and what the crest on the back of my clothes meant. So I just want to know two things now."
Hiruzen turned around to face Menma, showing the boy that he was taking his questions seriously, "Alright. Go ahead and ask away Menma-kun. I'll answer what I can."
Menma nodded and began to fire away, "Are there anymore of them left or is it just like what Shikamaru said? The part saying clan is extinct."
Hiruzen let out a sigh as he answered, "It is true. It happened long, long ago. Any of them that may be left are scattered to the corners of the world, and none of that bloodline claim the surname Uzumaki any longer. I'm sorry."
"Huh…" Menma said, as he had expected that much from the whole 'they're extinct' thing, "Well that sucks."
Hearing Menma's blunt summary of his clan's current state actually put a small smile on Hiruzen's face, "Yes it does I would imagine. I have worked with members of your clan in the distant past and I can certainly tell you that the book you read was accurate. They were fearsome fighters, creative in ninjutsu much like you but not nearly as much so." He said with a chuckle, "And they were as good at fuuinjutsu as you were informed. It eventually led to their downfall in the end. Having a village spearheaded by masters of such a complex technique led to their enemies teaming up to eventually destroy them in the end. I'm afraid all of their possessions were lost with them so there's nothing I can hand down to you in that respect."
Menma waved it off. He didn't care much for anything material at all, "Don't sweat it, I've dealt without for this long back when I didn't know anything, it doesn't matter now right? I'll make my own clan stuff." He scratched the side of his head and laughed uncomfortably as he asked his next question, "Why are most Uzumaki of our village Jinchuriki? You said that our mother, an Uzumaki was the previous Jinchuriki of the Kyuubi, and the previous Jinchuriki of the Kyuubi was the first hokages wife who was also an Uzumaki. Plus there's me who has the Ten Tails."
The old kage thought before he was struck with something else, 'Well he will be telling Naruto and Menma about the masked man so he can tell him this too.' "I'll tell you what Menma. There's a man that you and Naruto will find in this village at some point. He's a big tall man with long wild white hair and he wears wooden sandals. He's a pretty flamboyant person, you can't miss him."
"How will I find him?" Menma wondered, excited at possibly meeting someone that could tell him about his parents, "I mean, finding one guy is hard when I've never met him and the only person with white hair that I know is Kakashi-sensei."
Hiruzen let out a chuckle as he put his hand on Menma's head, "Trust me Menma-kun he won't be that hard for you to find at all. He'll probably drop right into your lap." Menma nodded and smirked before making the ram seal and vanishing," Hmm, he is just as fast as Kakashi and Asuma said he was."
XxX
(Days Later – Team 10 Training Ground)
It had been a few days since Menma's meeting with Hiruzen over his desire to bring his clan back to prominence. Time was winding down and preparations were coming to a close with training time for the chunin exams that would be taking place in Tetsu no Kuni. Any jounin sensei in Konoha worth their salt was making sure that their genin squads that intended on participating were up to snuff for the harrowing challenge.
Including the jounin sensei of Team 10, "Come on people. Laps, laps, laps. Keep those hands moving! I'd better not see you miss a single seal in the line-up!" Asuma currently had his team running full-speed laps around the edge of the training field while making hand-seals on the fly. This sounded like something ridiculously easy for Naruto, and it was… even with two backpacks full of rocks strapped to his chest and back, "Shikamaru pick up the pace you're three behind Ino, eight behind Menma, and ten behind Naruto!"
They had been doing this for the last two hours straight.
"I'm not Naruto or Menma, Asuma!" Shikamaru uncharacteristically yelled, "Why are you even comparing my lap count to theirs? They can do this for the rest of the day as long as we stop for lunch. They could outrun you if they had to."
"So *pant pant* tired…" Ino huffed as she kept moving. She had fought back the urge to puke not too long ago so she was cool to keep going as much as it sucked going full speed.
Asuma cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled to her, "Stop complaining out loud you guys! Talking makes you tired faster!" He turned towards Naruto and Menma who were running at full sprint as though they were racing. As the two were about to book it past him again, only the sweat pouring down their face telling Asuma that they weren't feeling it, 'Yeah this isn't doing anything for them.' He stuck out his arm and stopped them in their tracks, "Hold up. You guys are done. Ino and Shikamaru will only have to do two more each and then we can move on."
"I can keep going." Menma insisted.
"So can I." Naruto said.
Asuma nodded, "I know you guys can, that's why I'm ending it here… because the point of this was to get you tired and make you keep pushing through it. If I wanted to do that with you guys we'd be here all day long and most of the night. So for now I'll teach you how to add your wind chakra to your weapon, Menma you can go work on chakra control." He pulled out his trench knives, "Ok Naruto, it's simple after you've gotten splitting the leaf down. Just treat the weapon as if it were the leaf itself. Generate your chakra the same way around the blade."
Naruto pulled his kunai from his waist and began to do what he had been accustomed to doing with his leaf before today. Like with the leaf he could feel his chakra had reached cutting potential, but seeing as how he couldn't cut metal with just his chakra, it further sharpened the already razor-sharp edge of his weapon, "So…"
Asuma gestured towards the edge of the clearing where there were trees abundant, "Go hack into something that you know that you wouldn't have gotten close to cutting through before this."
Naruto shrugged and ran towards the nearest tree that wasn't their unofficial team meeting point with a battle cry before jumping at it with a diagonal slash that cleaved cleanly right through the wood, "Whoo! Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed happily, celebrating his weapon's newfound cutting prowess by jumping around. He used both hands and started swinging around his machete in a theatrical manner while making whooshing noises with his mouth, "All hail Uzumaki Naruto's clear-cutting machete! Fear my high-flying flow!" He pointed the kunai at Ino and Shikamaru who stopped to look at him rant, "Fear it!"
"Oookay." Ino said, hands on her knees as she took the time to catch her breath.
"Troublesome." Shikamaru said laying on the ground.
Menma on the other hand was sitting in a meditation like position, not even looking up at Naruto from where he was still gloating to the world with his kunai, "So what's next Asuma?" He asked the bearded jounin who walked over to them.
"There's only a week left before we head out to Tetsu no Kuni." Asuma started to say as he grabbed Shikamaru's hand and dragged the groaning boy off of the ground, "I want to do something together as a team before we go and right now is as good a time as any while I'm letting you all come down from that workout." Hearing this, the swordsman, the blonde boy and girl followed behind their sensei.
XxX
(Konoha Hot Springs)
Naruto, Menma, Shikamaru, and Asuma shared a on the male side bath, sighing in relief while sitting in the hot water. Asuma cupped a hand in front of his mouth and yelled towards the gate separating the two sides of the hot spring, "How you doing over there Ino?"
"I'm fine!" She yelled back, enjoying this time given to her to just rest up, "It's fine since I can still talk to you guys over here, it's great!" Being on the women's side and knowing who was on the other side closest to the fence made her feel rather safe, as neither Naruto or Shikamaru would be the type to try and peek on her, especially not with Asuma there too, Menma might but even that might be to bold for him. "So do you think we're really ready for the exams Asuma-sensei?"
"Absolutely…" He said, leaning back against the wall of the bath he was in, "Ino, your new offensive attacks are going to catch tons of enemies off guard if you actually have to fight. Shikamaru's actually been training in-depth and managed to get some offense behind him now that doesn't consist of him sneaking up on someone-."
"Whatever…" Shikamaru replied in response to the playfully backhanded compliment, "Troublesome adult."
Asuma just smirked at him and kept talking, turning his attention to Naruto who had gotten a cigarette in the bath with him and was currently partaking in his smoke, "And we have a perverted swordsman and then we've got Manic McSpaz Pants over here-."
"I am not a spaz!" Naruto replied heatedly before blowing his smoke directly into the air, "I haven't done anything spazzy in..." He started counting on his fingers before speaking again, "At least a week."
Asuma shook his head in amusement, "Well you having your nose in that book of yours is keeping you occupied. Are you getting anything out of it so far?" He asked Naruto in interest, wanting to know how another facet of his student's private studies were going. He didn't know anything about fuuinjutsu, so having two of his genin begin learning it was kind of cool, especially if they was teaching themself.
Naruto made a tiny hand gesture as he grinned, "A little bit. The basics. I'm not nearly good enough to do anything cool. I'm doing exercises that just amount to me making storage seals. I tried to read further but I didn't really get what it was talking about. It said something about how just sealing objects was thinking too small. I don't know what that means since the book said that you could seal pretty much anything. So why would sealing an object like a house or something be thinking too small? It's a brain-teaser…" He said, running his hand through his hair.
Menma rolled his eyes, "That Shiho girl and I told you that fuuinjutsu was going to be hard Naruto. Just don't try skipping ahead and blowing off your arms. We need you in one piece so we can take that test."
"I'll be ready to roll, don't you worry." Naruto said, slapping some water over at Menma jokingly.
Ino spoke from her side of the hot spring, "Hey Shika, I thought you didn't want to go do the exams in the first place. What, did the pervy bookworm finally kick you into gear with that energy of his?"
"Don't call me Goldie…" Naruto said, seething at the name, "You're blonde too."
"Not blonde like you though…" Ino responded, and Naruto could just see the smirk on her face through the wall, "…Goldie." She heard a thump bounce off of the wall and let out a laugh, "Oh cheer up, it's a term of endearment. You should be happy yours is so nice. Asuma-sensei, Menma, and Shikamaru aren't so lucky."
Menma's eye twitched in reference to the conversation, "Yes because the names 'Bum' and 'Smokestack' are so endearing Ino." He then noticed Naruto getting out of the hot spring on their side, wrapping a towel around himself to leave and get dressed, "Where are you going Naruto?"
Naruto looked over his shoulder, cigarette still hanging out of his mouth, "I've had enough of soaking in the water, I'm going to go for a little walk. I won't go too far."
"Alright." Asuma said, dismissing Naruto to do what he wanted to. Sitting in one place doing nothing was still something that was just out of Naruto's range of possibility.
"Yeah, I'm heading out too." Menma said.
XxX
Menma's walkabout outside of the hot springs were just so that he didn't fall asleep while he was in there. How could his team just chill out and relax like that? He was all fired up for the chunin exams, he wanted to get rolling again! He was ready for whatever was in store for them, no matter what it was. This exam was a test in more ways than one. It was a test to see where they stood among ninja that were supposed to be on their level. No fighting shinobi that were supposed to be head-and-shoulders better than them like Zabuza. Plus his brother, Naruto, wanted his rematches; with both Sasuke and Tenten. Sasuke because they never truly got going with their fight, Tenten because he wanted to get his win back to say the very least… and that wasn't even mentioning Tenten's teammates, especially the kid with the white eyes.
Naruto knew that there was no way they weren't getting themselves a piece of these chunin exams as well. He almost felt like seeking Tenten out just to brag about the fact that he was going, but the element of surprise appealed to him more.
He then heard some light giggling, but he decided to ignore it until he heard it again. He looked around but didn't see anyone, however once he heard another set of giggles he growled to himself, thinking someone was messing with him, "Chakura Hankyouteii no Jutsu (Chakra Echolocation Jutsu)…" Naruto's control of the jutsu at this point was so great he could walk around blindfolded if he kept letting out constant pulses of the jutsu. He had never done this to test it out, but the way things were now, he could see up close with his eyes closed and feel things at a distance out of his eyeshot, and to his right behind the shrubs and bushes he could feel a large living presence.
Naruto dropped his cigarette from his mouth and stomped it out under his foot before he walked over through the foliage and saw someone crouching by the fence keeping the hot springs away from the outside, "Um, what are you doing?"
"Quiet kids." The man said, not even turning to pay Naruto or Menma any mind, "Are you trying to get me caught here?" He then let out a thoughtful sound, "Hmm that blonde girl looks like she'll probably wind up being a 10 when the time comes… something to think about for later." He said to no one in particular.
Menma's face twisted in confusion before he realized what was happening and gave the strange man a deadpan look, "Are you really peeking on the women's side of the springs?" A set of giggles gave him his answer.
The man waved him off, "Whatever kids. Hey, you guys want to get in on this?" He offered, "Kids like you need to learn about the healthy female figure at some point. Now's as good a time as any. Consider it a gift from the magnanimous Jiraiya-sama."
Menma's eyes widened and he fished through the pockets of his jacket before pulling out the icha icha paradise book that he had been reading recently. As he read the name of the author on the front he lowered the book in shock, "You're Jiraiya!? You? You're the guy that wrote the icha paradise series! I'm your biggest fan!"
Hearing Menma almost yell, Jiraiya turned around and stood up to his full height, towering over Naruto and Menma as he walked closer and looked at Menma, "Get real kid. There's no way a runt like you has read my works. They're for adults only."
"No, trust me I've read every book in the series so far, I really do love your work Jiraiya-sama. Can I get an autograph?" Menma said.
Jiraiya looked at the black haired boy, "So I see you're a man of culture aswell? Fine I'll sign your book."
Naruto wasn't really paying attention to their conversation until he looked at the autograph on Menma's book, "Wait would you happen to be the same author of this book?"
Jiraiya squinted and looked at the book in Naruto's hands, meanwhile Menma scrutinized Jiraiya's appearance, 'Wild spiky white hair… big, tall man… big wooden sandals. Holy crap this is the guy that Hokage-jiji told me to talk to!'
Jiraiya's face finally smiled as he recognized the book Naruto had with him, "Oh yeah, that thing. I almost forgot that I wrote that. You guys managed to get into it? Way to go. It's almost like you two are my students. So what's your names?"
"I'm Uzumaki Menma, that's my brother Uzumaki Naruto." Menma told him, "And the Hokage told me that you were the guy we needed to ask about a few things."
After smiling at having found Naruto and Menma so easily, Jiraiya's face turned grave, 'So they knew enough about what was going on inside of him that he went to Sarutobi-sensei? Man, this was good timing to meet the two anyway from the looks of things.' He smirked and pointed his thumb at himself, "I'll answer any question that you guys have for me! There's no way I can let an apparent disciple of mine go without knowing things that the grand sage Jiraiya can inform them on!"
"Great!" Menma said, getting excited now. Not only did he find the man he needed to see rather effortlessly, it was also the guy that wrote his favorite book. What a great day to be him. And then the female voices from over the fence started acknowledging their presence.
"Who's talking out there?"
"There's a hole in the fence!"
"I see orange!"
Jiraiya, Menma and Naruto all paled, knowing their fate if they were to be caught here, "We need to get out of here now!" Jiraiya hissed in a whisper as he grabbed Menma and Naruto and took off running before any women could get dressed and chase them, or worse, knock the fence down and kick the crap out of them.
"We?" Naruto asked indignantly as he found himself tucked under Jiraiya's arm, "What do you mean we? I didn't do anything, you guys were the ones peeking!"
"They won't care!" Jiraiya yelled as he used Shunshin to cover his movements of leaving the street, "Lesson one; female anger is an unguided weapon!"
And just as they disappeared without a trace, a crowd of women wearing towels emerged from the changing room, charging out onto the street to search for whoever it was they saw getting looks at them, "Damn it! Whoever that was they were fast!" The woman who spoke pointed to the side, "Some of you go over the bridge and search over there. The rest of us will keep going this way and search. Remember, orange." And with that, the angry mob split up and took off.
As the sounds of the angry women vanished from the area, Jiraiya's voice whispered, "Man you guys are strong." Under the bridge crossing the steaming water of the hot spring, Menma and Naruto had their palms and entire body stuck flat to the underside while Jiraiya held on to them like a leech, "Did you guys stick your entire body to that thing?"
"Yeah…" Naruto said, focusing on keeping himself stuck to the bridge with the heavy extra added baggage attached to him, "Can you let go now? I think they're gone."
"Are you sure?" Jiraiya asked almost fearfully. He didn't want to get himself beaten up today on the word of some kid he met not even five minutes prior.
"I don't sense anyone." Menma assured him, as with the positioning he was in he couldn't see through the bridge with his jutsu, he could still sense life though, "It's all clear Jiraiya-sama."
Jiraiya dropped off of Menma and Naruto and landed on the surface of the water, barely blinking in surprise when they did the same, "Jiraiya-sama?" Naruto pulled out the book and tapped it, "Oh! Okay, I've gotcha kid." They both started walking on the water and jumped back up onto the street now that the danger had subsided.
"Naruto, Menma."
Naruto, Menma, and Jiraiya turned to see Asuma and the other two genin on Team 10 walking towards him, fully dressed like himself. Once Asuma saw Jiraiya he quickly acknowledged him, "It's good to see you Jiraiya-sama. We should have a talk sometime."
"What's up Asuma-sensei?" Naruto said with a smile, "Menma and I were just going to talk with Jiraiya-sensei here. We've got some things to ask him about."
"I don't mind." Asuma said, looking down at Ino and Shikamaru, "Well that's all I had for us to do today. You guys are all dismissed for the day."
Shikamaru nodded, however Ino stood there with an angry look on her face, tapping her foot on the ground as she glared at Naruto, "You know all of the commotion just now was from someone wearing orange. You wouldn't happen to know anyone wearing orange, would you Naruto?"
Naruto grabbed his windbreaker, "No I don't." When he could feel enough anger radiating off of her to get Shikamaru and Asuma to step away he said more, "Oh this isn't orange, this is tangelo. See? Tangelo."
Ino narrowed her eyes and pointed at them with two fingers before pointing back at Naruto and walking away, "Hmph."
Menma put a hand on Naruto's shoulder and shook his head, "Yeah, you're dead Naruto. Watch our place for traps when we get home later."
Asuma waited until his other two genin had left before turning to Jiraiya who nodded. Jiraiya looked towards Menma and Naruto, "Hey do you guys have a place to relax so that we can talk? Some of the stuff you're probably going to ask me might be sensitive information."
"Yeah, sure." Menma said, gesturing for them to follow him, "Let's go."