Inheritance

Naruto's Drive

Sarutobi's mind was moving unbelievably fast, even though outwardly he remained as calm and serene as he sat behind his desk as he ever had been. He wasn't sure if he'd ever heard of a set of Genin's first mission outside of the village turn sour so very quickly, particularly with all of said Genin coming back alive. Quite how all three Genin had come back unscathed was still a mystery to him.

Yet here they were, having just finished briefing him on the C-rank mission they had just undertaken. Kakashi and his hastily erected, temporary team. First mission and they fight a pair of Jonin nuke-nin, with an outlandish, if nothing else, form of fuuinjutsu.

Much more worrying was the prospect of Akatsuki's involvement, and the idea that Jonin level shinobi from Iwagakure were already targeting Naruto; news that Kakashi had sent him in advance of their arrival. But that was another meeting for another time. Preferably one with Jiraiya present.

"Undoubtedly, you have all done extraordinarily well to come back unharmed, let alone with the mission fully accomplished." Sarutobi began, addressing the Genin more than he was Kakashi. "Any mission where you face enemies of the calibre that you faced, is automatically at least of an A-rank, and you will be credited and paid for one. You have all shown that you are going to grow into fine Konoha shinobi. You may each take a three day respite from active duty to recover. You are dismissed."

The three Genin nodded their thanks to the Hokage, and left the office, Naruto with a grin that would have put the Cheshire cat to shame.

However, Kakashi remained, his face as serious as it could be, with just the one eye showing.

"Just a brief thing, Sandaime-sama. Suna's jinchuuriki, the boy named Gaara. He and Naruto met. He's taken, shall we say, an interest, in Naruto. I'd like to recommend he be kept under a tight watch when he arrives in Konoha for the Chunin exams."

"He openly threatened Naruto?"

"Attacked him on the street. Promised to finish the job."

Sarutobi raised an eyebrow at that. It was common knowledge that Gaara was unstable, Suna almost never allow him to move around the village without an escort to prevent incidents.

"Thank you Kakashi, you are dismissed."

The Next Day

Naruto heaved himself off of the floor, having finished the final part of his morning warm-up, wiping his brow which had just started to sweat as the cool morning air was displaced by the warmer air of the day. It had occurred to the blonde the previous night during a meal at Ichiraku's, that since he had been given time off, he wouldn't be required to meet up with Jiraiya, which meant in turn, Jiraiya more than likely would make no effort to be there to train him.

Which meant that for the next three days, he would have to train himself if he wanted to get anything done, which at first left him at a loss with what to do with his time. He obviously had a lot he could work on, but deciding exactly what should hold priority was difficult to say the least. His first move had been to send a handful of Bunshin to the library, a place that Naruto was still blown away by it's potential usefulness. A few to scour the place for something that looked interesting, and another set to expand his knowledge on the basics. He had now totally nailed the entire Academy curriculum, and then some. He had a pretty sound knowledge of the continents geography, and a good overview of it's history, along with it's current politics. He knew basic chakra and ninjutsu theory, and had gone far beyond the call of duty in terms of strategy and battle tactics, thanks mostly to Kakashi's advice.

He had identified chakra theory as the next place to expand his knowledge in. He was incredibly eager to get to a point where creating his own ninjutsu was a possibility, and even more than that, Yuugao's words about the idea of 'chakra mastery' resonated deeply with him. He had yet another few clones in the library specifically for the purpose of building on his knowledge of chakra itself.