Naruto woke up screaming.
The sound tore out of him before he was even fully conscious. One hand already clamped over his right eye. With fingers pressing hard against skin that was whole and unbroken... yet somehow still didn't feel like it. His heart slammed against his ribs, breath coming in short, ragged pulls, and for a few seconds he genuinely couldn't remember where he was.
The arrow. The wet give of the socket. The way the world had gone white then red and then nothing at all on that side. With blood running hot down his jaw while hollows closed in around him.
He blinked hard, once, twice, and the ceiling of his apartment slowly resolved above him. The same water stains and crack running along the corner near the window gave the boy a sense of safety.
Just his own ragged breathing filling a room that was too quiet in a completely different way than Lordran's quiet ever was.
Once Naruto calmed down, he shuffled toward the bathroom. As he scrubbed lazily at his teeth, his half asleep reflection stared back at him. His hair stuck out at odd angles with toothpaste foam dripping down his chin. His mind was somewhere else entirely, replaying the rush of everything that had happened over the past few days.
After brushing, he made his way through the maze of his clutter toward a glass of water. The mess was part of the apartment's charm, as far as he was concerned. His plants, though, those were a different kind of beauty entirely.
He took a swig of water and sprayed it out across the small garden crowded onto his windowsill. He owned a proper watering can somewhere in the mess. He just liked doing it this way more.
"Drink up, my little babies."
Naruto formed a hand sign with a grin. Naruto Style: Water Garden Jutsu. He took another swig and sprayed the rest across his plants.
Maybe it was the death and decay he'd spent the last few days wading through. But standing here now, surrounded by something green and stubbornly alive, meant a lot more to him than it used to.Once the plants were watered, he eyed the rest of the wreckage covering his floor and sighed, summoning a handful of clones.
"Clean this up."
The clones glared at him but didn't argue, muttering something about unionizing as they got to work. Naruto rummaged through his inventory while they did.
[ The History of the Uzumaki Clan. ]
The book looked old in his hands, its edges frayed, and the leather cracked with age. A faint red spiral sat pressed into the center of the cover.
"Is it disrespectful to read something this important in here?" He shrugged the thought off almost immediately. "Some of my best ideas happen on the toilet anyways."
[ My name is Tobirama Senju. The year is 572 of the Amatsu Calendar, commonly known as the end of the Warring States Period. ]
"Tobirama Senju? Isn't that the second great stone face guy?" Naruto could practically feel Iruka's disapproving glare from somewhere across the village for how casually he'd just thought about Lord second.
[ With the formation of the first village, many more will follow. That is the nature of the world; it changes, for better or for worse. Many clans have shown interest in joining my brother's village. And he has sent me on a diplomatic mission to the Uzumaki clan to offer an invitation. It would give us an incredible strategic advantage should other villages emerge, though I doubt my brother considers any of that. He simply wants to extend his hand to our distant cousins. ]
"Distant cousins?" Naruto froze at the idea. "Wait, am I related to the first and second Hokage?"
The more he sat with it, the more the frustration crept back in.
Distant cousins to the founders of the village, he thought bitterly, and not one word about the Uzumaki clan in the entire academy curriculum.
His fists clenched. He hadn't exactly been the academy's star pupil. And some small, generous part of him tried to argue he'd probably just missed the lesson.
Yeah. Right.
That thought lasted about as long as it took to form, but it was still just enough to keep him from marching straight to the Hokage's office and failing the hawk's test. Instead, he took a shower to cool off. Normally he preferred showering in the rain with nothing but a bar of soap, standing out on the balcony while the villagers below complained... again.
Naruto didn't want to assume the worst about every single person in this village. But the more he learned about himself lately, the less certain he was about anything he used to take for granted. Stepping out of the bathroom, his eyes caught the spiral pressed into the Uzumaki book's cover again. The same spiral carved into the center of his Konoha headband.
"Clone number one, grab that Uzumaki book and skim it for anything about the spiral in the Leaf symbol," Naruto said, toweling off his hair.
"Why not just read it yourself?"
"Because," Naruto huffed, "I just got out of the shower. I don't want to ruin the pages. God, am I stupid or something?"
The clone raised a finger.
"Not. A. Word."
The clone flipped carefully through the brittle pages for a few minutes before it finally spoke.
"Okay," the clone said. "There's a bit near the middle that actually talks about it."
"Well? Don't leave me hanging, read it!"
[ The spiral was the crest of the Uzumaki. When we designed Konoha's symbol, Hashirama insisted that we include it. ]
Naruto and his clones went quiet.
[ My brother, dramatic as ever, believed this symbol represented our unity. The two separate paths spiraling together, and growing stronger with each turn. ]
The shadow clone tossed the book at him with a smirk. "Here. You can keep reading this while I take a break."
Naruto barely caught it, too preoccupied to question the sudden insubordination.
[ The Uzumaki Clan have a strange relationship with the Senju Clan. There is a blood connection, and the Uzumaki have never denied it. Yet they care nothing for it. When the Senju waged war on the Uchiha... ]
Naruto blinked. "Wait, why did Sasuke's clan fought the Senju?"
"You really need to fix ot knowledge on stuff like this." The Clone said while eating ramen.
[ The Uzumaki never once offered assistance, nor asked if they could help. They remained distant, almost indifferent. If you ask me, let them stay on their islands. With villages rising, it's only a matter of time before they come crawling to Konoha for protection. ]
Naruto's lips pressed into a thin line, irritation bubbling up. "Screw you, asshole. What makes you so great anyway."
He felt a strange pride settle in despite the insult. His clan's stubborn independence read like something etched into their very bones. The Uzumaki didn't take orders from anyone.
He turned a few more pages.
[ It has been a week since I was granted an audience with the clan leader. They rejected Konoha's offer outright. ]
Naruto snorted, picturing exactly how frustrated Tobirama must have been.
[ I sent a message back to the village, and now my brother has ordered me to remain with the Uzumaki. "Learn their culture and history," he says. "Make friendly relations." My brother's hope for kinship borders on naive, but I will do as instructed. That is what a shinobi is meant to do. Follow orders. ]
"Bet you hated that, huh?"
Naruto smirked, flipping through page after page until something made him stop.
A drawing filled most of the page. A bearded man, his head covered by a hood, spirals of intricate fuinjutsu seals radiating outward from him like a halo. Bright strands of red hair peeked out from beneath the hood.
The figure looked unsettlingly alive, like the drawing itself was staring back at him.
[ The history of a clan can often be inferred from its folklore. The Senju have the tale of the Yang God. The Uchiha have the tale of the Yin God. Interestingly, the Uzumaki have the tale of the Hanged Man. ]
"Creepy."
But he couldn't stop reading. His grip on the page tightened.
[ According to the Uzumaki, the Yang God Ashura, had two sons. One loved battle and adventure. The other was inquisitive seeking knowledge above all else. When the time came for a successor, the scholarly son chose not to fight his brother for the title. He deemed the position worthless for what he actually wanted. His brother became Ashura's successor and founded the Senju Clan. ]
Naruto blinked, stunned.
[ The man traveled the world in search of any and all answers. And his journey brought him to the islands of the Land of Whirlpools. It was here that he hanged himself to summon the God of Death. ]
"Is the Uzumaki clan somehow related to Lordran?" Naruto genuinely wondered. "If they could summon the God of Death, could they reach a land full of the undead? What even was Lordran, really?"
[ For nine days and nine nights, he hung there, asking his questions of the Shinigami as it waited for him to die. Yet, on the dawn of the ninth day, he still lived. The Shinigami, impressed by the man's resilience and unyielding vitality, offered him something no mortal had ever earned before. A fragment of divine knowledge. The God of Death taught the man how to summon him at will, a privilege reserved for the brave and the damned. The Shinigami taught him the secrets of the Sage of Six Paths. ]
[ A way to manipulate chakra using written words. Outside the Uzumaki Clan, this became known as fuinjutsu. Within the Uzumaki Clan, it was revered as the Art of Runes. ]
[ This man became the founder of the Uzumaki Clan: Oden Uzumaki. ]
Naruto stared at the words, his heart pounding as they settled into him like an anchor.
This story resonated with him in a way he hadn't expected.
It was about someone carving out his own path through sheer stubbornness. The founder of his clan wasn't important because he was Ashura's son, or because of some grand legacy attached to his name. He was important because of what he'd done and what he'd earned.
It reminded Naruto of his own story. Just an orphan with dreams too big for the life he'd been handed. But that had never stopped him before, and it wasn't about to start now.
He turned the page, sinking into Tobirama's drawings of daily life in Uzushiogakure.
An Uzumaki village of large, communal homes that seemed to welcome anyone through their doors. Wide open doorways framed with colorful banners fluttering in the breeze. Naruto could almost hear the laughter spilling out of them, families sharing meals and stories under the same roof.
Another page showed a festival, people dancing beneath rows of glowing lanterns, wearing intricate masks in honor of the God of Death.
Naruto grinned at a drawing of children gathered around buckets of ink.
He chuckled and flipped again, landing on a group of craftsmen carving shields reinforced with seals.
Then his laughter actually bubbled up out loud when he found a drawing of a small Uzumaki child practically drowning inside a bowl of noodles. Not quite ramen, but close enough that it didn't matter. Naruto could almost picture himself in that exact spot, surrounded by family, sharing meals and laughter like it was just an ordinary Tuesday.
For a moment, the image alone was enough to bring tears to his eyes.
[ I once asked the clan leader why the Uzumaki Clan's crest is a spiral. ]
Naruto wiped his eyes and kept reading.
[ A whirlpool holds its shape, unchanging. But a spiral breathes and grows, shifting with every turn. What begins as a simple swirl transforms as the vortex gives way to the spiral... ever deeper, ever evolving. ]
[ For even if it seems to spin the same way, every turn carves a new path. The floor beneath it changes. The air thickens. The scenery shifts. In each twist lies a new truth. In each descent, a hidden strength. So too does life shift and flow, bound not to the flatness of fate, but to the living spiral of choice and change. The Uzumaki walk this spiral, unbroken and ever reaching. ]
Naruto closed the book, the words still echoing in his head.
The Uzumaki walk this spiral, unbroken and ever reaching.
He felt, for the first time, like he actually understood what it meant to be one. The spiral wasn't just a symbol. It was a way of living. A reminder that every hardship and every turn, carved a new path forward instead of closing one off. The Uzumaki didn't cling to the past, and they didn't stay rooted in one place waiting for things to happen to them. They grew. They adapted. They endured.
They didn't break.
They just kept reaching.
Naruto rose from the couch and wandered over to the window. Below him, the village stretched out in quiet stillness, bathed in the soft light of dawn.
"I'm an Uzumaki," he murmured, placing his hand gently over his eye. Pain wasn't going to be the thing that stopped him. Not tonight, not ever. "And the squire of Oscar."
He exhaled slowly.
The spiral never ends, he thought. It just keeps going, deeper and stronger with every single turn.
"And so will I, dattebayo."
Meanwhile, deep beneath Konoha's streets, the sewers stretched out in a utilitarian gloom. Thick iron pipes ran along the low stone ceiling, rusted at every joint and dripping in a slow, uneven rhythm that echoed in the narrow passage.
The walls were rough hewn stone reinforced with old wooden support beams. Dim light bled in from grated openings far above, cutting the darkness in thin, angled shafts that barely reached the water pooling along the tunnel floor.
A masked shinobi moved through it; footsteps silent against wet stone, until he reached a blank stretch of wall deep enough that no patrol would ever have reason to walk this far. A quick series of hand signs later, the stone shifted and split apart, revealing a passage descending further into the dark.
He walked deeper before finally kneeling.
"Lord Danzo," Sai said, presenting his report. "Hiruzen Sarutobi was observed from a distance in conversation with Naruto. Based on my observations afterward, there is a notable divide forming in their relationship."
Danzo said nothing, his expression unreadable, as though the outcome had already been fully expected.
"Continue."
Sai went on, laying out Naruto's nightmare in flat, clinical detail, along with his reaction to the Uzumaki clan journal. The old shinobi remained silent through all of it. There was no telling whether any of it pleased him or not. His face gave up nothing.
"Lord Danzo, if I may ask," Sai said, eyes lowered.
"Continue."
"Was the journal real?"
"It is real," Danzo said. "But deliberately altered, in specific and calculated ways, to test him."
He let the silence stretch a moment before continuing.
"Reality is not what happened, Sai. Reality is what a man chooses to believe happened. And what he is willing to act on because of that belief. A truth no one accepts might as well be a lie. A lie enough people build their lives around becomes the truth."
Sai nodded understanding that they altered the journal to see which version of Naruto's own history he would choose to carry forward. That choice tells them infinitely more about the boy than any rumour ever could.
If Naruto had reacted with suspicion toward the inconsistencies. Root would have needed an entirely different approach. Since the boy hadn't caught the alterations at all, that told Danzo something too, though Sai didn't press for exactly what.
"Are the runes real?" The pale boy asked instead. "The ones mentioned in the journal."
Danzo's eyebrow rose fractionally, the closest thing to genuine curiosity Sai had seen from him in some time.
"I don't know," he admitted. "Tobirama sensei did report that the Uzumaki clan possessed some manner of specialized seal they referred to as a rune. What it actually was, or what it could do, no one outside the clan ever learned. And the Uzumaki took whatever they knew to the grave along with everything else."
Sai nodded once, filing the answer away without comment.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
"Continue to observe the boy. Any new developement is to be reported as quickly as you can."
"Yes, Lord Danzo."
A Few hours later, Naruto strolled into Training Ground 7.
"You're late!" Sakura yelled, pointing at him.
"Kakashi was gonna be later anyway. So, I did some light training."
The sweat soaking through his shirt delivered the stench of evidence of how "light" that training had actually been. Sasuke noted the lack of fresh scrapes on the boy's hands, but plenty of cuts torn through various parts of his clothes. Like he'd healed the body underneath while leaving the fabric to fend for itself.
"What kind of training did you do?"
"Naruto Uzumaki's Patented Shadow Clone Squadron Training."
Sakura and Sasuke gave him identical blank stares, nowhere near matching the pride radiating off him for the name.
"And what did that involve?" Sasuke asked, genuinely curious what the class's dead last had been doing to get this strong this fast.
"Oh, I assign roles to a group of clones," Naruto said, shuddering slightly at the memory. "Like, one clone comes out swinging a sword, another one stays back and throws kunai or fires arrows."
Arrows. Sasuke's attention snagged on the word. He wondered, whether the idiot actually knew how to use a bow or not. The young uchiha had learned archery when he hunted boars with itachi. He'd sworn off the weapon entirely because of exactly what it reminded him of every time he picked one up. But watching Naruto use armours, sword and more, Sasuke found himself wondering if maybe it was time to reconsider that.
"Yo, teme," Naruto called. "Wanna spar?"
"Hn."
Sakura watched as Sasuke stood.
"I've been training a lot. Your tricks won't work on me this time."
Naruto's grin widened as Sasuke's Sharingan flared to life.
"Guys, come on, you two fought yesterday!" Sakura didn't want to get caught in the middle of whatever this was again. "We're a team. We're not supposed to fight each other."
Both boys ignored her completely.
"Oh my. What a lively team I've been handed."
"Kakashi-sensei, do something!" Sakura shouted.
"You two, there will be no sparring until I say so," Kakashi said, eye curving into an upside down smile.
Sasuke clicked his tongue in annoyance. Naruto just shrugged.
"I already beat the emo once. Guess I'll back down. Bullying someone weaker than you isn't very knightly of me anyway."
Sasuke's glare could have melted stone.
"Alright, everyone, sit down. I've got today's plans to go over."
The three of them settled onto the training stumps.
"A shinobi team is an investment from the village," Kakashi threw that out. "Do any of you know what that actually means?"
Sasuke couldn't be bothered to care. Naruto was clearly trying to think it through.
"It's because of the jonin," Sakura offered.
Both boys turned to her, equally confused.
"A formal jonin-led genin team isn't the standard outcome for everyone," Kakashi explained. "Most of your graduating class won't pass a bell test at all. Depending on how the jonin rates them, they'll either get sent back to the academy or filtered into the genin corps."
The three of them went quiet at that.
"The ones who do make a genin team get treated differently after that point," Kakashi continued. "Jonin are elite ninja to the village. Just having them teach a bunch of snot-nosed brats means the village is actively losing money. That's why it is an investment. The expectation is that you'll grow into the next generation carrying this place forward." He made sure his eye lingered on Naruto just slightly longer than the others while he said it. After everything, the kid needed to hear that he was worth investing in.
Naruto and Sakura both perked up visibly. Sasuke allowed himself the smallest smirk.
"Which is why I've put together individual training schedules for each of you covering the next three months," Kakashi said, handing them out. Each schedule was broken into training days, off days, and mission days. It was more than any of them had expected from a man who always looked like he'd rather be reading porn.
Naruto hummed, already trying to figure out how he was going to squeeze Lordran into whatever this looked like. Sakura swallowed hard, wondering if she'd even be able to keep pace. Sasuke frowned down at his own sheet, which read, in its entirety, for the first full month:
Rest days.
"What the hell is this?"
"Lucky," Naruto said, leaning over to peek at it. "Kakashi-sensei, can I swap schedules with Sasuke's?"
"No. I built these around how each of you is actually going to improve," Kakashi said. "Now then. Let's get started on individual training."
A small cloud of white smoke popped around the jonin a moment later.
"Oh, you're gonna use shadow clones to teach us."
One of the clones motioned for him to follow.
"You know how to use Body Flicker?"
"Yeah?"
"Then keep up."
In a single flicker of movement, the two of them were gone, deeper into the trees.
"So, what awesome jutsu are you gonna teach me, Icha Icha fanboy instructor?"
Kakashi's clone sweatdropped at the nickname. "Do you know how important a solid foundation actually is for a shinobi?"
Naruto nodded. If Oscar had beaten one thing into him over and over, it was exactly how much the basics mattered.
"Think of it like this," the clone said, tone as unbothered as ever. "I've seen genin who could pull off a beautiful B-rank fire jutsu and still get taken out by a chunin with nothing but decent footwork and a kunai. Flashy techniques are the roof. Fundamentals are the foundation holding the roof up. You can have the nicest roof in the Elemental Nations. Doesn't matter if the floor gives out the second real pressure gets put on it."
The man handed him a folder instead of waiting for a response.
"What is this?"
"Just read."
An uneasy feeling settled into the blonde's stomach as he scanned the page.
Taijutsu skills: BGenjutsu skills: FNinjutsu skills: A
He skimmed past the rest, not particularly eager to read every single detail laid out about himself.
"These aren't the same scores I got at the academy."
"Of course not," Kakashi said. "This is my evaluation."
Oh. A small, involuntary smile crept back onto his face. Kakashi's read on him was worth a hell of a lot more than any academy report card ever had been.
"Guess I'm awesome."
Before his ego could fully inflate, Kakashi popped it without hesitation.
"Alright then, Mr. Awesome. How do you break out of a genjutsu?"
"I don't need to. It doesn't work on me."
His Knighy crest made sure of that, though he wasn't about to explain the full mechanics of it right now.
"What's the importance of hand signs in ninjutsu?"
"You can't perform a jutsu without the right hand signs."
"Name five other villages. What are the chakra natures? Why does chakra control matter as much as it does? What's the best way to improve hand sign speed? At what angle do you need to throw a kunai to get a clean forty-five degree deflection?"
"..."
The boy looked thoroughly overwhelmed.
"The basics might not look impressive," Kakashi said, "but the further you push into advanced techniques, the more your fundamentals end up carrying you. Skip them, and eventually something blows up in your face."
Naruto's mind flashed to being set on fire by the Body Flicker.
"I trust you, sensei. So teach me."
"So, are you planning to use shadow clones to speed through the basics?"
"...Yeah. How'd you know?"
"Iruka mentioned you'd used them to learn Body Flicker."
Naruto rubbed the back of his head, blushing slightly. "I'm just using what I've got."
"That's fine, and honestly smart," Kakashi said. "But you need to actually understand the dangers and limits of what you're using, not just the upside."
"What dangers?" Naruto hadn't run into a single problem yet.
"When a shadow clone dispels, all the chakra split between the clones returns to whoever's left, keeping the total evenly distributed. Along with that chakra comes every memory the clone experienced while it existed, which is what lets the original remember everything as if he'd lived through it himself."
"I already know that. Dattebayo."
"What you might not know," Kakashi continued, "is that stacking multiple clones' worth of memory onto one mind puts real strain on it. Extra hours, sometimes extra days of lived experience arriving can push someone into unconsciousness. Which means the actual safe window for this kind of training is a lot narrower than it looks, and a lot more exhausting than people realize."
Naruto wasn't fully convinced this applied to him. He already had workarounds. Estus could handle the mental fatigue the same way it handled everything else. Or worst case, he could just sit at a bonfire and let it burn off. But Kakashi's next words stopped that train of thought cold.
"There's also the kyuubi's seal to consider."
"What about it?"
"That same mental stress puts pressure on the Kyuubi's seal. The more you push shadow clone training past safe limits, the more that stress accumulates, and the more opportunity it gives the Kyuubi's chakra to bleed through."
"...How do you even know that?"
"I looked into the Fourth Hokage's sealing work, and Jiraiya-sama's notes on it," Kakashi said. "The seal's stable right now, which is the only reason none of this has caused a problem yet. But nobody actually knows exactly how much additional mental strain it would take before that stability starts to slip. Better to stay well clear of that line than find it the hard way."
"...I understand," Naruto said quietly, nodding. "So how many clones can I actually use?"
"Two for studying, since we don't want to flood your brain with more information than it can hold at once. Twelve for physical training."
Naruto still looked a little skeptical, but he nodded anyway. "Okay. So what're we actually doing first?"
"We're fixing your taijutsu."
"But I use a sword in a fight."
"And a sword doesn't do you any good if your footwork falls apart the second someone closes the distance and takes the blade out of the equation," Kakashi said. "Taijutsu isn't just punches and kicks. It's balance, distance control, reading an opponent's weight before they commit to a move. Every single one of those skills carries straight over into how you handle a sword. A swordsman with bad taijutsu just means a swordsman who gets thrown off balance the first time somebody actually closes distance on him properly."
He paused, considering something.
"That said, I'm not the right person to teach you sword work specifically. I'll find someone who actually knows kenjutsu to handle that part."
"Eh, but you had good sword skill when we fought in the bell test?"
"Too much effort."
The boy sweatdropped.
"Leaf Style Close Quarters Combat," kakashi continued. "Leaf Style CQC was formalized under the Second Hokage. Tobirama Senju didn't care about elegance. He cared about efficiency, speed and reliability. What works when things go wrong."
"And things always go wrong in the field." Naruto said touching his eye while Kakashi narrowed his eye.
Kakashi had a feeling that getting Sasuke to function as part of a team was going to be an uphill battle. The boy was too absorbed in his own goals, while isolating himself out of some misplaced fear of what closeness to others might cost him.
Ironically, for an Uchiha, he was extremely tunnel visioned.
Sasuke's body had been strained to the point of breaking. The cumulative result of relentless, unbroken training since the day Itachi wiped out the clan. According to ANBU surveillance reports, the boy hadn't taken a single full rest day in years. It was wearing him down in ways that weren't visible yet, but would be soon.
And now, with his Sharingan awakened, things were only going to get worse.
Itachi had once described the moment of Sharingan awakening to Kakashi as something close to a surge of adrenaline. A burst that pushed the body past its normal limits while burning through reserves far faster than it should. There was always a point, eventually, where the body simply couldn't sustain the pace the eyes demanded of it.
Right now, Sasuke was seeing rapid, almost unnatural growth. But if he kept pushing at this rate without any real recovery, that growth would stall out entirely, leaving him burned out and broken.
Sasuke was a risk to himself.
Every action he took, every decision, screamed the same single word underneath it.
Revenge.
And with Naruto growing stronger by the week, displaying abilities none of them fully understood yet. Sasuke's complex was a fire with no shortage of fuel left to consume. The more progress he watched Naruto make, the harder he'd push himself in response, right up until he'd stagnate. Naruto would keep climbing. And Kakashi had no idea yet what that gap would do to him once Sasuke actually noticed it.
Thank god Inoichi caught this before it became a real problem, Kakashi thought. Spotting these patterns early had never been his strongest skill. But Naruto's effect on the rest of the team was something they had to plan around now.
"Sasuke-kun, what's your favorite food?"
"Why am I not training?" Sasuke asked, frowning.
"I figured kids liked being lazy. You should try acting your age once in a while."
"Just show me something. I'll copy it with my Sharingan," Sasuke said flatly. "Then you can get back to your 'reading'."
This brat, Kakashi thought, eye curving into its usual smile.
"My cute student. Do you know what actually separates a regular shinobi from a genuinely dangerous one?"
Sasuke considered it for a moment. "Mindset."
"Nope," Kakashi said, popping the p. "Knowledge."
Sasuke nodded understanding right away what the man mean. Despite the problems in his mindset, he was still a prodigy underneath all of it.
"If you understand exactly what an enemy can and can't do," Kakashi continued, "they stop being a mystery. Either they become manageable, or you realize fast enough that running is the smarter option. Either way, you're the one making the informed choice instead of finding out the hard way."
Sasuke was fairly certain Kakashi already knew he understood this much. So why bother explaining it at all?
Unless...
"I don't actually know anything about you."
"Ding, ding, ding. So what can you do about that?"
"Spy on you."
Kakashi pulled out his orange book and giggled behind it. "Oh my, Sasuke-kun. I really don't need any more little kids turning into my stalkers."
A vein visibly pulsed in the uchiha's temple.
"You're welcome to spend the next month tailing me around if that's how you'd rather use your time," Kakashi said. "But there's a much faster way to get a real read on a shinobi's capabilities."
"You mean the bingo book," Sasuke said.
Every shinobi nation maintained a bingo book. Though calling it a simple list undersold what the thing actually was. In practice, it functioned as a running piece of military intelligence. Filled with combat profiles, bounties and suspected capabilities of famous shinobi.
However the books were flawed by design.
A shinobi who barely escaped an encounter with their life intact rarely gave a clean, accurate account of what they'd actually faced. Fear did strange things to memory. By the time an entry made it into the official record, it had usually passed through enough frightened, half-remembering mouths that the line between what a shinobi could actually do and what people believed they could do had blurred. Which meant the book could just as easily get a shinobi killed for underestimating a threat as it could for overestimating one.
Beyond the profiles themselves, the books tracked bounties and status on anyone worth the paperwork.
In the field, chunin and jonin flipped through these things constantly, cross referencing a stranger's fighting style against known entries mid mission.
For the average shinobi, it was rare to earn a significant entry with a ephithet. As the book became something closer to a political instrument than a combat record. A name attached to a large enough bounty, or a dangerous enough profile, functioned as a deterrent all on its own. Something village leadership had to actively account for whenever elite shinobi got deployed.
"Do you know what my epithets are?"
"Multiple epithets... just like Itachi's," Sasuke muttered, mostly to himself.
Itachi had accumulated a string of bingo book entries and a small collection of names to go with them.
God of Genjutsu.
The Red Crow.
The Demon Hand Uchiha.
The Clan Killer.
"You know, it's a shame you never bothered doing a background check on me," Kakashi said, almost fondly. "Itachi went out of his way to learn everything he could."
Something in Sasuke's composure cracked.
"What did you just say?"
"When Itachi served under me in ANBU, he ran a full background check on me. Kakashi of a Thousand Jutsu, they call me. The Copy Ninja." Kakashi lifted his headband, revealing the Sharingan underneath. "Kakashi of the Sharingan."
For one brief second, something like hope flickered across Sasuke's face.
"You... you're an Uchiha?"
"No," Kakashi said calmly, watching that hope shatter as quickly as it had appeared. "This eye was a gift from a dear friend during the Third Shinobi War, right before he died. The clan wanted it returned after the fact. Your father was the one who insisted I be allowed to keep it. He honored my friend's final wish over the clan's claim to it."
At the mention of his father, something soft passed briefly over Sasuke's expression. For just a moment he remembered chasing after a man's approval he'd never quite managed to earn in time. Then the memory kept playing forward. His parents on the ground with Itachi standing over them.
"Teach me everything you know."
Kakashi held an unreadable expression. "I already gave you your schedule."
Sasuke stared at him like he'd been struck, confusion and anger spreading across his face. "You can't be serious."
"That's my first order as your instructor. Go... Rest."
"I can't. I have to—"
The jonin cut him off by slamming him back against a tree, forearm pressed to his throat.
"Listen to me," Kakashi said, releasing his killer intent that froze Sasuke in place. "I am your jonin instructor. What I say is law for this team. If you can't accept that, you're welcome to join the average genin corps instead."
Silence.
Kakashi let him drop, and Sasuke's hand went immediately to the reddening mark on his throat.
"Here's the truth, Sasuke," The white haired man said. "I am the only shinobi alive who can actually get you to where Itachi is. And I've decided I'm not going to."
"No, you can't—"
"Yes, I can," Kakashi said, already turning away. "In fact, I've decided I don't want to train you at all. Pack your things. As far as I'm concerned, you're going back to the academy."
"Wait!"
The jonin paused, glancing back over his shoulder.
"...I'll do it," Sasuke said, jaw clenched, fists trembling at his sides.
Kakashi watched him struggle visibly with the idea of doing nothing while the world kept moving without him. Why does he want me held back when Naruto and Sakura aren't? The question was written across every line of his face even though he never said it out loud.
"Let's pick this back up in a month."
"Hn."
I hope I haven't misjudged you, Kakashi thought, turning away and already mapping out the rest of his evening. He'd stop by the memorial stone first, like always. Grab some salt-broiled saury and miso soup with eggplant on the way home, something warm after a day that had taken more out of him than he'd let on.
And, well, if he just happened to pass the bookstore on the way...
Kakashi allowed himself a small giggle at the thought of the new Icha Icha volume waiting on the shelf.
A reward for a job well done.
Author's Note: And with that, the chapter comes to an end.
Q: Why did I have Naruto get his eye pierced?
I got this question after the last chapter.
The brutality of it wasn't there just for shock value.
This is the exact area of the game where my own avatar got headshot so badly that I've basically decided the crossbow hollow is secretly Hawkeye from the Avengers in disguise. If you've actually played this section, you already know exactly what I'm talking about. You will get headshot at least once here. It's basically a rite of passage for every Souls player, in my opinion.
I figured it'd be fun to let Naruto experience that exact same brand of suffering firsthand.
Q: Why is Kakashi a better teacher than in canon?
Before I answer, I want to go on a quick tangent about one of my biggest pet peeves in fanfic. When a canon character starts behaving in ways that don't track with who they actually are. Like the Naruto fics where Kakashi is comically evil and hunting Naruto down because he secretly blames him for Minato's death or whatever. I hate that trope. You can call it fanfic or AU all you want, but I've never understood the appeal of flattening an interesting character into a caricature.
So, to avoid sounding like a hypocrite here: why is Kakashi an actually competent teacher in this story?
Simple. Hiruzen.
I think I've made it fairly clear over the last few chapters that, because of everything going on with Naruto, Hiruzen is actively supervising Kakashi and making sure he steps up as Naruto's anchor to Konoha.
Unlike canon, where Kakashi coasted through his teaching until Shippuden, here he's got the Hokage directly pushing him to actually be better.
Q: Does Sasuke know how to use a bow and arrow?
Yes. In chapter 580, there's a flashback of Sasuke and Itachi hunting a boar together, and Sasuke uses a bow and arrow in it. Plus his susanoo uses a bow and arrows.
Q: Why did you nerf shadow clone training?
I didn't.
Every limitation shown is straight from canon.
When a clone's memories return, the mental exhaustion and stress that clone accumulated comes back with them.
In chapter 318, Naruto passes out multiple times while learning to cut a leaf with wind chakra. He passes out again in chapter 320 during the waterfall training.
In chapter 322, during shadow clone training, Naruto unintentionally released three tails' worth of Kurama's chakra before it got suppressed. In chapter 329, one of his clones is shown with the Kurama chakra cloak active during that same training arc.
So nothing here is nerfed. I just laid out the actual canon dangers of shadow clone training instead of glossing over them.
Q: What do Itachi's titles mean?
Titles and nicknames are one of my favorite parts of this series i.e. the White Fang or the Yellow Flash etc.
Itachi never got an official canon nickname, unfortunately, but given how strong and infamous he is, it felt like he should have had one. So I made a few up for this story.
God of Genjutsu.
Pretty self explanatory. Itachi stands head and shoulders above everyone else in the series when it comes to genjutsu, to the point where an epithet like this feels almost canon.
The Red Crow.
Also fairly self evident. Itachi's signature technique involves crows, and his Sharingan is red. Red Crow.
The Demon Hand Uchiha.
This one's more niche. Itachi consistently shows off ridiculous precision with kunai and shuriken throughout the series, so I built a nickname around that specific skill set.
What do you guys think?
Q: Why did you take inspiration from Norse mythology and add it to the Uzumaki Clan?
Mainly because the Uzumaki already have a lot of Norse-adjacent qualities baked into canon if you squint at it.
- They live on an island nation, much like Norse coastal settlements, thriving in relative isolation while adapting to a harsh environment around them.
- Their fuinjutsu already feels like a natural parallel to Norse runes. Both function as magical symbols capable of shaping reality around the user.
- The red hair ties in well with Norse imagery too.
- And their reputation as fierce warmongers, which comes up in the Minato one-shot, lines up nicely with the battle-hardened spirit usually associated with Vikings and Norse culture more broadly.
That said, this isn't a full deep dive into Norse mythology as a whole. You won't be seeing Loki, Thor, or the Nine Realms show up, and this isn't quietly turning into a Ragnarok retelling. The Norse inspiration is exactly that, inspiration. It's a way to give the Uzumaki their own distinct cultural identity, something that feels powerful, mysterious, and worth digging into on its own, without stepping outside the themes and rules Naruto's world already runs on.
There's also the fact that Naruto's going to be crossing into other worlds throughout this fic. I thought it'd be fun for the Uzumaki to have a cultural identity that stands apart from the general Japanese aesthetic everyone else in the setting shares.
Does that mean the Uzumaki are somehow connected to Lordran? I'll let you all find that out.
And yes, Oden Uzumaki is intentionally meant to parallel Odin from Norse mythology.
Oden. Odin. You can see where what I did therer.
The Hanged Man story is a famous piece of Norse myth in its own right too. Odin sacrifices himself by hanging from Yggdrasil for nine days and nine nights to gain the wisdom of the runes. Oden Uzumaki hanging for nine days to summon the Shinigami and gain the knowledge of seals is a direct parallel to that.
Q: Who are the Yang and Yin Gods of the Senju and Uchiha?
I really like stories where families or entire cities end up with their own unique folklore attached to them. In the shinobi world, canonically, most people know about the Sage of Six Paths in some form. There's plenty of room in-universe for that folklore to get contradictory and messy depending on who's telling it. But what about his sons?
That's where the brief mention comes from, showing how the folklore around Ashura and Indra has developed differently within each of their respective clans over time.
That's It… For Now.
I want to thank you all for taking the time to read, comment, and follow along with this story. Your feedback means more than you know, and it helps push me to make each chapter bigger, sharper, and more true to the worlds of Naruto and Dark Souls.
Until next time,
Praise the Sun.
\-Adam-/