Naruto: A New Perspective

Chapter 10

"Why does Naruto get to sleep in?" Sakura complained.

"Because he's on a training regimen that would make most Jounin cry." Kakashi responded. Naruto could now successfully cut his stone, showing complete control of multiple blades of wind in a small space, the hardest type of control (but safest in practice,) when it came to wind chakra.

"It doesn't look hard to me." Aiko scowled, Kakashi was dragging them to the bridge today, because they had come home triumphant the night before, tree climbing completely mastered by all three, including Sasuke.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, he just stands around and spreads his chakra as far as possible. How is that hard?"

Kakashi smiled, "It's hard because he has five other bunshin doing it at the same time, and you forgot that he's trying to extend his chakra and control it as far as possible yes, but he's also trying to turn the air into blades."

"So?"

"Well let me put it this way, all of you would collapse in less than an hour. Naruto and five of his bunshin take two hours to collapse. That means it would take Naruto alone about ten hours to collapse. Congratulations, if you had ten times the chakra you would be caught up with Naruto."

"...I have ten times the control." Sakura muttered, one of Naruto's blades of wind had nearly cut her.

Aiko rolled her eyes, "You're always praising Naruto these days, sensei. Why don't you just marry him?"

"I thought about it, Aiko." Kakashi replied seriously, "But I decided it wasn't fair to you, as you were in love with him first."

"What? I am not- stop laughing!"

The entire group, including Tazuna and Sasuke laughed at the Uchiha girl, which only left her feeling more embarrassed. So maybe she liked Naruto a bit more than a normal friend, the boy avoided any notion of them hanging out alone if they weren't training. He refused every subtle offer of a date, and it drove her mad.

Aiko had always assumed that she could get any boy she wanted, every boy in the academy seemed to practically fall to their knees around her, quiet as she was. It wasn't to the level of Sasuke, but she always assumed anyone would be happy to at least go out with her... but Naruto didn't seem to return any of her feelings, at all.

Of course he was oblivious to the fact that Hinata was crushing on him as well, so maybe it wasn't just her. Maybe it was him. That's what she told herself, at least.

"What the hell...!" Sasuke's voice cut into her musings, "What happened here...?"

The few men that were left to work on the bridge were all down, knocked out or otherwise, on the unfinished bridge. Atop of that, an eerily familiar mist was growing...

"Kenji!" Tazuna shook one, who twitched, "What happened here, Kenji?"

"A... demon. A monster..."

The man fainted again, and the genin and their instructor then heard a very familiar chuckle. Kakashi had informed them that Zabuza was alive, but they hadn't realized they would face him again so soon. Two figures appeared from the mist, one was Zabuza and the other was the hunter-nin that had 'killed' him.

"Where's that stupid blond one, Kakashi?" Zabuza asked, eyes searching for Naruto, "Hiding with his little bunshin? No matter... we'll kill him later."

"Deal with the brats, Haku... the Copy-nin is mine...."

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Naruto rushed back to Tazuna's, he had woken up late and found his team had left without him. He had been well on his way when he smelled blood. He followed it to a nearby road and spotted a dead pig. It was left lying out on the road, not only was this an insult to Naruto, who regularly mourned any loss or waste of food but it had been sliced at the throat cleanly. Only a sharp object, like a kunai or katana could do such a thing.