7 Chapter 7: Surprise! Naruto is being stalked?!

Naruto woke up at 4 in the morning and had begun getting ready to go train with Kakashi. Instead of wearing his usual orange jumpsuit, he pit on a pair of black pants and a white shirt with an orange short sleeve hoodie. He then out on his sandals, and wrapped his kunai pouch around his leg. He then grabbed his forehead protector and put it on before leaving his apartment.

He began running, while jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Soon, Naruto reached the training grounds, and to Naruto's surprise, Kakashi was waiting for him. He had half expected Kakashi to not be there considering his habit of never showing up on time.

"Yo." Kakashi greeted.

"Hey Kakashi-sensei, didn't expect you to be on time." Naruto grinned.

Kakashi only smiled lightly before putting his book away.

"Ready?" Kakashi asked.

"Yup!" Naruto responded.

The two began engaging in light sparing, Kakashi would, from time to time, point out Naruto's weaknesses. After a half hour, Kakashi decided, they'd done enough taijutsu training for now, so he began moving onto ninjutsu training.

Then he pulled out a piece of paper and gave it to Naruto, who took it and held it up.

"This is chakra paper, all you have to do is pour your chakra into it, and it will tell you what type of element affinities you have." Kakashi explained.

Even though Naruto already knew what chakra paper was he still nodded his hand to show that he understood. The he poured his chakra into the paper, and saw that it split in two. Though, Naruto already expected it to do that.

"Wind type, that's a pretty good element for increasing the sharpness of your attacks." Kakashi said.

Naruto nodded, he wondered what Kakashi had in store for his training.

"Alright, we'll start by having you learn how to implement your wind nature into your existing attacks and techniques, and later, I'll pick up some wind style ninjutsu that would suit your combat style for you to learn." Kakashi explained.

"So should I just add wind nature to my attacks with kunais and shurikens?" Naruto asked.

"There's that, but I was also thinking you could try combing it into your other ninjutsu." Kakashi said.

Naruto looked up, was Kakashi about to try and teach him the rasenshuriken? Naruto wondered.

"While, I have a few ideas, I thought we could first try to have you combine your wind element with your shadow clones." Kakashi said.

Naruto looked surprised, he hadn't thought of that.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"Take me for example" Kakashi said.

Then he created a shadow clone.

Naruto did, and as soon as the shuriken hit the clone, instead of disappearing like a normal shadow clone, it changed into lightning and electrocuted the shuriken, charring it.

"Woah! That's awesome!" Naruto exclaimed.

"What would adding wind nature to a shadow clone do?" He asked.

"Well, if my thinking is correct, it should create an air explosion upon impact, which would knock projectiles away and send someone flying if they hit the clone. Which would help you in catching someone off guard in combat. The drawback however is that the chakra doesn't come back to you after the clone is defeated." Kakashi explained.

Naruto nodded and thought, he wasn't entirely sure if he could pull it off. He had needed to create another clone to focus on adding the wind nature to his rasenshuriken before.

Kakashi saw how Naruto looked troubled, so he stepped towards him and placed his hand on his head. Naruto looked up to see a smiling Kakashi.

"Don't worry about getting it right away, but I believe you'll be able to master this." Kakashi said.

Naruto looked down and grinned.

"Right!" Naruto said.

He then began concentrating on his chakra and changing its nature to wind. Then he created a shadow clone and threw a shuriken at it, only to see it disappear in smoke.

"Damn it!" Naruto cried out.

"Now, now, Naruto, it's only your first attempt, how about you practice coating your weapons in wind nature so you get a feel for it." Kakashi suggested.

Naruto nodded and began pouring his chakra into his kunai and coating it. At first, Naruto was able to see a cloak of chakra forming around the kunai, but it wasn't sharp how the wind nature would make it. So he began concentrating on making the chakra sharper.

Slowly, the chakra started to sharpen around the blade. Then he threw the kunai at a neaby boulder and the blade went through it and pierced the tree behind it.

Kakashi looked impressed as it was pretty early on in Naruto's training. But he noted down how long it took Naruto to mold his chakra like that.

"Hey Naruto, why don't you create some shadow clones to help you. Because I want you to be able to do what you just did in a split second. The shadow clones will be able to help you get used to the feeling." Kakashi commented.

Naruto nodded as he created 100 clones. He then started to concentrate on molding his chakra correctly as quickly as possible.

"Hey, Naruto, I thought you could only create 20 clones." Kakashi asked wide eyed.

He'd heard about what Naruto had said from Sasuke and Sakura when he asked them how they planned everything. According to them Naruto said he could only create 20 clones.

"Oh this? I was just giving them a number that I felt wouldn't shock them too badly." Naruto said laughing.

Kakashi shook his head and sighed. He knew why Naruto had such a large supply of chakra, but he still couldn't help feeling a little jealous. Must be nice to have so much chakra available, he thought. Then he went back to watching Naruto's performance.

After 20 minutes, Naruto was able to mold his chakra around the kunai within a second and it's penetrating abilities had also gone up as well.

Then Kakashi clapped his hands together, bringing Naruto's attention towards him.

"Alright, that's enough training for now Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura will be here soon." Kakashi said.

Naruto nodded and released all his clones, then he sat down on the ground and waited. He looked up towars the sky and watched the clouds pass by. All the while, a shadowy figure lay hinden behind some bushes watching him.

Soon, Sakura and Sasuke arrived and were surprised to see Kakashi and Naruto already here. While Naruto was never late, he usually wasn't the first one there. Let alone Kakashi, who was always hours late.

"Yo." Kakashi greeted.

Naruto sat back up and waved at the two who showed up.

"Alright, so for today, I'm going to have you guys match up and spar with each other. Each person will go twice, once against each member of the team." Kakashi instructed.

The three nodded their heads. While Naruto and Sasuke were looking forward to this, Sakura was dreading it. There was no way she could go up against Sasuke she thought.

"Naruto, you and Sasuke can go first." Kakashi said.

"Right!" Naruto yelled.

Sasuke just nodded his head and the two faced off against each other.

Kakashi stood between the two and made sure each of them were ready.

"Begin!" He commanded.

Sasuke lunged towards Naruto and threw a kick towards his head. Naruto saw the kick and dodged it by bringing his head back, then he grabbed Sasuke's leg and threw him. Then, Naruto created two clones that ran over and pinned Sasuke to the ground.

"Match goes to Naruto." Kakashi stated.

Sasuke looked at the ground as he grit his teeth together. He lost, he actually lost to Naruto, and it wasn't even close. He was thies years number 1 rookie, and while he never really rook it seriously, it meant that no one out of the recent graduates should have been able to beat him.

Naruto dispersed his clones and Sasuke got to his feet. He then walked over to Naruto and grabbed him by his shirt.

"I want a rematch!" Sasuke said staring at him.

Naruto looked Sasuke in the eye, then he looked over at Kakashi, who only shrugged his shoulders. Naruto then grabbed Sasuke's wrist and forced his hand off his shirt.

"Okay." Naruto said.

The two then seperated and faced each other. Kakashi walked in between them and raised his hand up. Then he swung his arm down.

"Begin!" Kakashi said.

This time, Sasuke didn't rush Naruto, instead. he brought his hands together and weaved the signs to use the fireball jutsu. Then he spewed the fireball towards Naruto, causing him to dodge by running to the sides. Then Sasuke threw several shurikens at Naruto. Naruto created a shadow clone that tossed him up into the air. He created two more clones then he threw them at Sasuke.

Sasuke threw two kunais at the clones and impaled one of them while the other deflected it. The two then clashed, however, Sasuke discoveres that his kunai was cut in two while Naruto's clone held up a chakra coated kunai at Sasuke's throat.

"Match goes to Naruto." Kakashi announced.

Sasuke stared at the ground in frustration while Naruto looked conflicted in his thoughts. Kakashi could only sigh in his head. He then looked over at Sakura who didn't seem to know what to do. While she had wanted to cheer for Sasuke and didn't want him to lose, she couldn't argue with what she saw. Over the past couple of days, she had also changed her opinion of Naruto, he wasn't the same screwup he was back in the academy. She wondered if Naruto had always been like this and he just kept it hidden for some reason. But she couldn't think of any reason why.

The Naruto now was a lot more mature, while still remaining cheerful. He also seemed a lot more intelligent then how he was back in the academy. Comparing the two versions of Naruto in her head was like day and night. But truthfully, she had never really gotten to know Naruto before now, so she couldn't really say how he was. So maybe she had just misjudged him, and same as the rest of the class.

"Alright, I think that's enough for now. Why don't we come back tomorrow." Kakashi said, snapping everyone out of their thoughts.

They all agreed, and went their seperate ways. Naruto was walking down a empty street on his way back when he noticed something odd. There was someone holding a large piece kf cloth, painted like the fence. But it was held sideways, and you could make out the somebodies head behind it as well. It was an awful excuse of disguise. He then decided to just keep walking past it, but discovered that it was following him.

He then slammed his foot down and spun around, pointing at the disguise.

"Alright, cut the act, I know you're behind there, now what do you want?!" He yelled.

"Heheheh, as expected of my rival. You saw through my disguise." The figure said.

"No, anyone would've seen through that." Naruto commented.

"Behold, it is I, Konohamaru! Grandson of the third-" Konohamaru then stepped on his long scarf and tripped, falling face flat on the ground.

He then slowly got up, resisting the urge to cry.

Naruto sighed as he face palmed as he watched the scene unfold.