Most thought he was stupid. Well, part of that might be his own fault, with the way he acted and all. But at the same time, that wasn't his fault. He was always being punished by adults whenever he showed that he was actually quite intelligent. Not Nara levels of intelligent, of course, but if his Academy teachers weren't sabotaging his education he could have graduated years ago.
He'd known exactly what the problem was... he had way too much Chakra for the Clone jutsu to work, no matter how small of an amount he used, he just couldn't use a small enough amount. But nobody would let him explain that, and the Chakra control exercises taught in the Academy weren't enough to correct the problem, and he wasn't allowed in the library to find another solution.
Of course, when he finally had enough and went to Gramps with his problem, the old man was not happy, but he managed to convince him not to do anything drastic. After all, it was only him being sabotaged, right? He was the container for the Nine-Tailed Fox, he knew they were just angry still.
His Gramps looked at him, wide-eyed with shock. "How-"
Naruto grinned sheepishly, "Remember I have really good hearing?" The Third nodded dumbly. Of course he remembered, he was the one who called in a favor with Tsume last year and got an Inuzuka to teach Naruto how to effectively use his enhanced senses, in fact, his Inuzuka sensei had been so impressed that Naruto had been promised a Ninken companion from the next litter they had. Until then, Naruto was being taught how to work with a Ninken partner by pairing with Tsume's old wolf hound to train. "I overheard some shinobi talking about it, years ago, and figured it out. Also..." Naruto gestured towards the picture of the Fourth Hokage on the wall. "It's not hard to guess that, either. And I managed to get some books on my clan..." Now if only he could find information about Chakra control exercises in the same way.
Hiruzen sighed and slumped down in his chair. "I had hoped that you wouldn't put those pieces together." He muttered, knowing the boy was smart, but hoping anyway. "If you've known this whole time, why didn't you say anything?" He asked.
Naruto bit his lip. Anybody else would take it for a nervous gesture, but Hiruzen knew it was a sign that Naruto was thinking about how he wanted to word his answer. "You had your reasons for not saying anything, right? And from what I heard, my dad had a lot of enemies, didn't he? I mean, Iwa doesn't seem to like him much at all, and I deal with enough assassination attempts from the villagers without dealing with them." Naruto frowned and looked down, not noticing the Hokage or the ANBU in the room tensing in shocked horror.
Hiruzen sighed and blinked before moving around his desk and pulling Naruto into a hug. After a few moments, he decided to let it go for now, and turned his attention back to the Chakra and Clone problem, resolving to find the boys inheritance later, once he pulled it out of where he hid it in the Villages emergency weapons cache.
"Well, I suppose that..." He froze suddenly as he remembered a conversation he once had with Mito Uzumaki, a long time ago. It was right after his sensei invented the Shadow Clone jutsu. Basically, it was invented because the Uzumaki had too much Chakra to successfully perform E-ranked jutsu, which is what the Clone jutsu was. The only exceptions to the rule were the Henge and Kawarmi, because they didn't require control or precision.
In fact, they put so much Chakra into the Henge that they ended up turning into an actual transformation, not just an illusion. Which brought up another fact, that Genjutsu and Uzumaki didn't really mix, either. Oh, they could detect and dispel them easily enough, especially since most Uzumaki ended up being natural sensors, but casting them? No, not happening. Same with Medical jutsu, there was a reason why the Uzumaki and Senju had such a close relationship, and it wasn't just because they were cousin clans. All the medics and hospital staff of Uzushio tended to be Senju that either married into the Uzumaki, or just lived there because they could.
...He was going off on a mental tangent.
From what she said, trying to teach an Uzumaki the Clone jutsu, or any E-ranked jutsu really, was an exercise in futility. It couldn't be done. It was even worse for an Uzumaki who also happened to be a Jinchuuriki.
He sighed again. "Inu, go out and get me these books and supplies." He said, quickly jotting down a list of books on Chakra control and some beginner Fuinjutsu guides, along with Chakra ink, brushes, regular ink and quality paper. Along with a decent calligraphy set. Then, "Naruto, I'm going to teach you a different Clone jutsu, the Shadow Clone. It was made specially for the Uzumaki clan, because of the large Chakra reserves they were known for." He paused.
"In fact, I must apologize, Mito Uzumaki told me about the problems that an Uzumaki would have with E-ranked jutsu like the regular Clone jutsu, but I had completely forgotten about it until now." He said, sheepish. Naruto merely looked at him, blinking. He could feel the rest of his ANBU watching him incredulously as well, and he coughed before handing Naruto the instructions he'd written out while he talked.
"That is for you to reference if you need to, put it somewhere safe. Now. The Shadow Clone jutsu is a S-rank Kinjutsu, partially for the immense Chakra requirements. Because of this, only an Uzumaki or a high level Jonin can really use it safely. However, the jutsu also has something of a memory transfer. Whatever the clone experiences, the original will remember, so it is a highly useful jutsu for scouting, or research. However, the memory transfer does not include muscle memory. So, if you do use them for training purposes at all, anything physical will have to be done by you."