If paperwork was anything like homework, this could be the most important chapter in the book!
It was Graduation Day at Shinobi Academy. Iruka Umino walked into a roomful of twelve-year-olds and chaos, and found Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka sitting on each side of Sasuke Uchiha. Both of the girls were completely ignoring Sasuke and fighting with each other across his face… about who should be Sasuke's girlfriend… literally, they were shaking fists at each other in front of Sasuke's face.
Iruka hid his camera under a genjutsu and snapped a photo. For memories. Not for blackmail. Uh-huh.
Iruka looked around the rest of the room. Shikamaru Nara and Choji Akimichi, Ino's future teammates, the next generation of Ino-Shika-Cho. Kiba Inuzuka, with Akamaru on his head, if that boy wanted to be a tough-guy alpha male, the cute and affectionate little puppy wasn't helping. Shino Aburame, sunglasses, high collar, spiky hair. Hinata Hyuuga, if that girl had confidence she would have been the top kunoichi (female ninja) of the class. Speaking of Naruto… there he was, lounging in the back row beside Shikamaru. Iruka made a friendly smirk when Naruto gave him a finger wave.
And... there were a bunch of non-descript characters with generic faces who wouldn't make it past the second Genin Exam, whose names Iruka probably knew but couldn't bother to remark on because he didn't want readers to feel sorry for them when they failed.
"ALRIGHT LISTEN UP!" shouted Iruka, using his Big Head Jutsu.
Everyone jumped except Naruto and Shikamaru.
After giving his standard pep talk / graduation speech, Iruka announced the teams.
"Team 7: Sasuke Uchiha. Sakura Haruno. Naruto Uzumaki. Your Jōnin Sensei is Kakashi Hatake."
Sakura squealed. Ino growled. Sasuke said, "Hn."
Naruto just ignored them, smirking internally. Yup, Dead Last and Rookie of the Year with the Top Kunoichi, just like the last three Team Seven's. Perfect, those two are so useless I won't have any hesitation in leaving them behind.
It was a good thing Naruto had improved his chakra control to the point where he could use low-level genjutsu like the standard Bunshin (clone). If he hadn't done that, he would have had to ace the written test in order to pass the Academy final, and that would have been extremely suspicious.
– CS –
"WHERE'S NARUTO?" screamed Sakura. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate the one-on-one time with Sasuke. The problem was, she'd been alone with Sasuke for three hours now and she hadn't been able to gripe or complain about ANYTHING. And Sasuke hadn't said anything further than, "Hn." And that was once, when Sakura greeted him "Hello" in a too-sweet voice. The dam had finally broken, and now Sakura was tearing loose. "I don't know what it is with him and our new sensei, but if they think it's okay to be late THREE HOURS, well, it's NOT!"
"Yo," said Naruto, appearing in the seat next to Sakura.
Sakura screamed. "DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT NARUTO YOU IDIOT!" She swung her fist at Naruto. He ducked. Kakashi cleared his throat from the doorway, stopping Sakura from trying again.
"My first impression of you… troublesome," said Kakashi, his voice bored. "Meet me on the roof in ten minutes."
"Welp, see ya there," said Naruto. He somersaulted back to the ceiling, where he'd been sticking upside down and meditating for the entire three hours, completely unnoticed until he sensed Kakashi arriving. Running over to window, Naruto slipped out and vanished.
"Stupid Naruto, trying to look cool. C'mon Sasuke, let's walk up to the roof together."
"Hn."
– CS –
"Introductions," said Kakashi.
When it came to his turn, Naruto said, "I have some likes. I have a few dislikes. My hobbies… I might tell you when I trust you. My dreams… well right now my dream is to pass the Genin test."
"Idiot, we already passed the Genin test." Apparently Sasuke could say something other than "Hn."
"Hmm, well done," said Kakashi, with an eye smile. He told them about the real Genin test, and ordered them to meet him at Training Ground 7 at 5:00 AM.
"Oh, and I suggest you skip breakfast. Don't want you throwing up on me."
– CS –
The next morning at 5:00 AM, Sasuke and Sakura arrived at Training Ground 7 to find Naruto snoozing in a hammock.
Sakura wanted to scream at him, but Naruto raised his arm and pointed at a tree where two more hammocks were hanging, folded.
"Grab a hammock and set it up," he drawled. "Kakashi Hatake is always at least three hours late to everything. Catch up on some sleep. He told us to be here, he didn't say we had to be awake the whole time."
"Hn." The ever eloquent Sasuke managed to compress a sense of disdain, boredom, arrogance, and a little bit of sleepiness into a single syllable.
Sakura, somehow not understanding Sasuke's grunt, was about to scream at Naruto when the lounging blonde yawned in a most relaxing manner. It was contagious… Sasuke and Sakura yawned simultaneously.
Inner Sakura pumped her fist. CHA! Sasuke and I even yawn at the same time! HOW ROMANTIC!
Outer Sakura had a different thought, as evidenced by her blush. "Sasuke… do you want to... share a hammock?"
"No." Sasuke ambled over and grabbed one of the hammocks, setting it up a small distance away from Naruto.
Naruto didn't want any more trouble from Sakura. So he yawned again. It was a bit fake, but it worked. Sakura yawned again... then sighed and grabbed the last hammock.
Five hours later, Kakashi arrived in a swirl of leaves.
He found his three students sitting around a portable charcoal grill, munching on kebabs.
"I thought I told you not to eat breakfast."
"This is lunch," said Naruto. "Who eats kebabs for breakfast?"
Kakashi silently acknowledged the point.
Naruto sprinkled seasoning over the kebabs roasting on the grill. A delicious smell wafted towards Kakashi. "Want one? This one's done." Naruto lifted a kebab skewer with his tongs.
"Thanks," said Kakashi, reaching for it.
"Ah-ah-ah!" said Naruto, moving the kebab away from Kakashi's hand. "We haven't passed the hidden teamwork test yet. Can't have it unless we're a team."
Kakashi considered the fact that Naruto already knew what the test was about. He looked towards Sakura and Sasuke, who were munching on their kebabs and watching the interaction with interest. He looked towards the skewer of perfectly-grilled meat and vegetables Naruto was holding. His stomach growled.
"Fine. You pass."
– CS –
That night, Naruto went home to his crappy apartment. After closing and locking the door, he went still for a moment. Then he ate a cup of ramen and went to bed. Or rather, his shadow clone did.
– CS –
Deep underground in a well-furnished office, Naruto arrived and sat on the couch in a meditation position.
"Report!" he barked.
A medium-tall brunette in a delivery uniform walked into the office.
"Whirlwind Postal Service is still making a killing, weekly profits are up by 1.5%. We're still having trouble breaking into the large-shipments market, civilians don't seem to trust us so easily when they can't see how their stuff is leaving the store. As you know, the main competitor in the Water Country area is Gato Shipping. Gato's rates are suspiciously low for their methods of moving cargo. We recommend having the spy division look into them, maybe they're into drugs or something. Negotiations with the Land of Vegetables are going well, the daimyo seems to like the idea of selling produce to remote locations at luxury prices, so we expect to have an office there up and running the next month or so. Land of Tea seems a little more reluctant, they're used to the existing shipping companies, but once again we're hoping to entice them with speedy service to remote locations."
"Good work. Dispel."
The brunette disappeared in a poof of white smoke. Naruto closed his eyes and processed the memories for two minutes before he opened them again. He made a cross-shaped hand seal, and the man in the delivery uniform reappeared silently, without even a wisp of smoke. The man turned around and Naruto slapped a seal paper on the back of his neck, which instantly glowed and sank into his skin. The man bowed and left the room.
"Next!" commanded Naruto.
A short figure stalked from the shadows, wearing a stereotypical ninja costume, everything covered in black except for the eyes, which were a nondescript brown. The figure knelt, one hand on his tanto and the other in a fist on the ground, in a stereotypical "reporting ninja" pose.
"Spy ring continues to avoid suspicion. Clones enrolled in Shinobi Academies of Kumo, Iwa, Kiri and Suna just finished their second year, situation nominal, all have scored somewhere in the middle of the pack. The two Chūnin clones we inserted in Kiri's rebel forces report that the rebellion continues to grow in size. We project that Mei Terumi will become Mizukage within the next one to three years. Still no progress finding Utakata, rumors indicate that he's still the host of the six-tailed slug. Jiraya was sighted yesterday in Rice, we suspect he's having the same problem we are getting spies into Oto, all of Orochimaru's bases are sealed and underground, we can't slip in anything bigger than a fly."
"Okay, gotta tell the training group to practice using Henge with a fly form. It's just freaking difficult to use the wings in that form. Thank you, you can dispel."
After sending a "new" spymaster clone out, Naruto asked for the training team leader. This one was an identical clone of Naruto.
"Yo boss, what's up? Here's the empty chakra storage seals. You ready?"
Naruto sat in his meditation pose, closed his eyes, and nodded. The clone dispelled, and after five minutes Naruto smiled. He picked up the stack of chakra storage seals and channeled a huge amount of chakra into each of them. Good thing he had suppression seals on the entire underground facility, otherwise this would have prompted some serious digging (literally) from that prick, Danzo. Naruto LOVED fuinjutsu.
After sending a new training clone out with the stack of seals, Naruto called for the last group leader. A pretty auburn-haired girl, appearing about 17 years old, walked into the room.
"Everything's going well with the apprentices. I've got three new Akimichi recipes since last week. Riku is still watching the master metalsmith working on chakra-conductive metal, hasn't been allowed to touch the valuable stuff. Sara, the bank teller, is still bored out of her mind. And Sora got to work with some stained glass in the construction company, so he learned something new."
"Thanks Yui."
"One more thing," said the clone. "I think we should learn to dance. It might be useful for infiltration. And not just at formal parties. Could be useful on seduction missions."
"Hmm, I see your point. Do you want to add it to your daily schedule? I think you have time in the day after your restaurant shift ends. I can create a new male identity to learn the mens' dance steps."
"Yup, sounds good."
With that, Yui dispelled. Naruto wouldn't re-spawn her until the next morning, no use in making a clone to collect memories of sleeping. Sleeping as a girl was weird anyway, even though he'd gotten used to it.
– CS –
As Naruto got ready to sleep in his luxurious queen-sized bed, he remembered the second chapter of his father's book that he had first read four years ago.
Chapter 2: Secrets and Lies: How to Hide Your Skills and Avoid Paperwork
Ninja keep secrets. Everyone knows this. For some reason, a lot of ninja ignore this.
For a ninja, EVERYTHING is classified. Your favorite food. Where you sleep at night. Your favorite hobbies. Which girl you have a crush on. And most importantly, your skills, abilities, and jutsu.
There are at least four reasons for this:
1. The obvious one: you want to surprise your enemies.
2. Anything your enemies know about you can be used against you.
3. Contrary to popular belief, having a big Bingo Book bounty is a bad thing. Why the hell would anybody want half the ninja world trying to cut off your head? This isn't One Piece.
4. If your allies know how powerful you are, they'll give you responsibilities. Responsibilities aren't bad, but they come with paperwork. Paperwork is pure evil.
Let me expand on that last point. As Kushina says, paperwork was invented by Yami in order to get revenge when Kami gave us ramen. In fact, you know how I became the Yondaime Hokage? That was a mistake. The instant I got sworn in as Hokage, I got buried under 5 metric tons of paperwork. And the village council, they're the ones who give me all the paperwork! Every time I complain they just smile and give me more. I'm convinced that it's a conspiracy by Iwa and Kumo to assassinate me with paperwork! My training time has been cut to a quarter of what it used to be since I became Hokage! And my favorite jutsu, the Shadow Clone Jutsu, is hardly any use, because different pieces of paperwork are all related to each other and you can't even parallelize the paperwork into more than three different processors or so. I almost wish I had let Iwa win the war rather than revealing my abilities with Hiraishin and becoming known as the strongest fighter in the village. We could have made Jiraya the Hokage. I could have a nice cushy position on the village council, laughing at ero-sensei and sending him pieces of bullshit paperwork with horribly drawn sketches of gay porn in the margins. Fuck it, I could actually go on a honeymoon with my lovely wife Kushina.
Hmm… Kushina's pregnant. Maybe I can convince our baby that being Hokage would be awesome and fun. Then I can dump the job on him when he's like 16 or 18, and I can spend the rest of my days making baby siblings for him with Kushina.
Note that "Classified" does not mean "No one can know of this." You will need to trust your teammates about many of your abilities in order to work well as a team. And you'll need to be honest with your friends and family in order to keep them as friends and family, though a lot of the time you can actually cop out by being vague or straight-up telling them you don't want to say. Just make sure your teammates, friends, and family can keep secrets, and make sure they know that everything about you is a secret.
Aaaannny-way… How To Keep Secrets.
Section (a). Henge is Your Best Friend.
Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Technique) is known as an E-rank jutsu for disguising yourself as another person.
This is stupid. What Henge actually does is transform your physical body into a different shape and color. Any shape and color. Yes, that means you can transform into objects or animals. Technically even liquids or gases, though this is extremely dangerous unless done by a Shadow Clone (more on Shadow Clones in Chapter 3). And get this: while you're under a Henge, you remain fully awake and aware of your surroundings, though if you're transformed into an object, you might not be able to see. On the other hand, if you're transformed into an animal with excellent eyesight, you'll be able to see better than ever, and your other senses can be improved as well.
Note that it takes a lot of time and effort to be able to use any animal form. For example, if you were to Henge into a horse, you'd have to learn to walk with four long, gangly legs. You don't get the instincts of the animal you transform into. And you have to learn each animal form separately.
You can also transform yourself into a bigger, stronger person, and you'll get physical strength. Note that this is usually not worthwhile because changing your size significantly takes extra chakra, and you have to continuously expend chakra to maintain that form, so you might as well be simply channeling chakra to your muscles and bones to make yourself stronger (see Chapter 7, "Chakra Makes Everything Better"). However, if you need to increase or decrease your weight, Henge is perfect.
That's why I consider a well-mastered Henge to be an S-rank jutsu.
Anyway, hand seals are Dog → Boar → Ram, channel your chakra while focusing on an image of yourself in a different form.
Use Henge whenever you visit the library to prevent people from knowing what you're studying. Use Henge when practicing Ninjutsu so no one knows what you're capable of. Use Henge when carrying out missions in enemy territory so no one knows who did it (that's how you avoid a Bingo Book bounty).
Section (b). Disguising Your Jutsu.
There will be times when you need to use ninjutsu openly. If you're anything like me, you'll have an aptitude for high-level ninjutsu, which tend to be flashy in the extreme. This is dangerous because it can get you a reputation for being powerful… which sucks, as we've already discussed. Still, if you want to protect your loved ones, sometimes you'll have to act openly.
Ninjutsu Rule Number 1: Don't shout the name of your technique. That's just stupid. Not only does it warn your enemy of what's coming, it actually slows down your jutsu. Yes, it might help you focus, but thinking the name in your head is just as good. And if it's one of those "breathing fire" type jutsus, you can actually choke on your own words. Gack.
Ninjutsu Rule Number 2: Practice your jutsu until you can form and release the necessary chakra without hand seals. You haven't mastered a jutsu until you can do this. You can spit out jutsu faster, it's impossible for your opponent to see what's coming, it can't be copied by the Sharingan, and it's just badass.
Just think, if your control is good enough, you can shout "Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball)" while shooting out a lightning bolt. Your opponent will throw up an earth wall or a water barrier, which would be a perfect defense against fire, but far less effective against lightning.
Note that the Byakugan can see chakra being formed even without hand seals. The Hyuuga doujutsu can't copy techniques, and in fact the Hyuuga rarely use ninjutsu at all, but it makes it hard to surprise them. Good thing they're on our side.
Section (c). Learning in Secret.
Build yourself an underground training facility using Doton (Earth Release) techniques. Make it deep and big, and cover it with security seals (see Chapter 11 for fuinjutsu). Use Shadow Clones to keep people from noticing you're missing.
If you're on a Genin team, you may need to let your Jōnin sensei and your teammates into this facility for training.