Iruka looked around him in total astonishment at the sea of blonde hair and orange jumpsuits that suddenly were filling his vision that previously saw only a traitor and former friend and colleague getting ready to end his life. He couldn't believe it, his knucklehead prank king of a student had truly learned the shadow clone jutsu in one evening to a level the chunin had never seen before. He had witnessed the famous Kakashi and other jonins in his lifetime spawn a clone or three before, but never the numbers he was seeing in front of himself at this very moment and it made him smile to see his worst student finally succeed in something ninja related.
That smile quickly turned into a cough as he was reminded of the injury his former friend had caused him, that led him to be practically lying in the dirt outside of Konoha in the middle of the night as a twelve year old fought against his former sensei turned traitor, Mizuki. The cough rocked his body enough that he gasped out in pain, and tried to concentrate on his young student as he watched a veritable dog pile of orange and blonde deliver an epic beat down to the chunin traitor. When his student had left the defeated and unconscious Mizuki to return to one of the few precious people he had in this village, the older chunin was still in awe at the skill of Naruto Uzumaki, the number one most unpredictable ninja, that he said something that would change the Elemental Nations for years to come.
"Naruto, I'm so proud of you ...the shadow clone jutsu ...that is one of the original jutsu of the Nidaime Hokage," Iruka gasped between twinges of pain. "It was originally created for espionage ...make sure you don't dismiss them all together ...the memory feedback is supposed to be very difficult with more than one clone."
Memory Feedback
And just like that, the Elemental Nations changed as a young genin just starting out is given a gift that will rapidly accelerate his growth to unprecedented levels due to a series of unique circumstances, bloodlines and heritage, techniques and knowledge.
Naruto's face twitches as he dismisses the hundred plus shadow clones of himself one after the other, with each one causing his original body to wince as he is continually inundated with memories of the exact same event happening from hundreds of different perspectives, and each one carries with it just a little bit of knowledge and experience. That knowledge and experience are felt a hundred times over by Naruto after ten minutes of methodically dismissing his shadow clones and assimilating the short battle from several perspectives.
"Wow, what a rush," exclaimed Naruto after the last of the clones poofed out of existence and he once again saw himself jump on the pile and this time bite Mizuki in the left hand as they attacked and beat him down.
"You'll have to tell me about that jutsu sometime, it's one I always wanted to learn," replied Iruka-sensei fondly as he watched his young student beam in praise of anyone needing to learn something from him, but then quickly remembering where they were.
"Iruka-sensei, we need to get you to the hospital," yelled Naruto once he realized his teacher was still bleeding with Mizuki's windmill shuriken still embedded in his back. "Can you walk sensei?"
"Not easily," gasps out Iruka, "but you could have some clones carry me-" was as far as he got before another poof of smoke and a dozen new clones were spreading out to help lift their teacher.
"Why don't I escort you first to the Hokage?" spoke a silent new arrival with the white ANBU mask of a cat, as three ANBU appeared around them, taking in the scene of the battle quickly, and paying extra attention to the large scroll strapped around every copy of Naruto's shoulder.
"Hehe ...yeah ...Jiji's gonna want his scroll back," answered Naruto sheepishly, just remembering where he last left the Third Hokage and wondering about how much trouble he is going to be in.
"Wait!" called out Iruka who turned to Naruto and told him to first close his eyes. After listening to his teacher, Naruto felt his goggles being removed from his forehead, and a cloth being wrapped in its place. "Okay Naruto, you can open your eyes now."
When he did, he instantly reached up, and found a Konoha hitai-ate where his goggles used to be and a smiling Iruka without his own forehead protector looking at him in pride, "you did it Naruto, you are now officially a genin of Konohagakure. I'm proud of you."
"Thanks Iruka-sensei," answered a misty eyed Naruto that instantly tackle hugged his sensei despite his injuries, as he was overwhelmed with emotion before the Cat masked ANBU cleared their throat and closed ranks around the pair before using a shunshin along with Bear to instantly travel to the Hokage's office with Iruka and Naruto in tow while the last member of the ANBU team gathered up Mizuki's unconscious body and took it to T & I, leaving ten Naruto clones standing around a now empty clearing before they each realized they had nothing to do now, and all but one dispelled themselves one at a time, still remembering Iruka's warning about the memory feedback.
The remaining shadow clone, decided to pick up all the few shurikens he and Iruka used as well as the larger windmill shurikens of Mizuki before deciding to bring them back to his apartment so he could add them to his small and now growing collection of ninja gear. On his way, he passed a pair of training fields that seemingly glittered in the moonlight due to the scattered weapons abandoned throughout the fields. Quickly adding these to his growing pile of weapons, Naruto's clone soon made it back to his apartment, and dispelled himself after putting the weapons with his others, an action that had the real Naruto realize the unlimited potential of being in multiple places or doing a multitude of things at once.
The real Naruto, had just been dropped off at the Hokage's office by the ANBU Cat, while Iruka was also brought for a quick questioning and corroborating of Naruto's story, before being taken to the hospital to give the old Kage and his young ninja time alone. The man known as the Professor for his large knowledge of shinobi life and all elements of it, was quite pleased with the events of the night as it resolved several problems he was having in regard to Naruto, that no longer caused him any worry.
With Naruto now in the Shinobi corps, he was only answerable to the Hokage, and no longer under any authority from the Village Council who had been making his life miserable since they found out about the burden he carried. It also pointed out the problem with lessening results coming out of the Academy, and discovering a traitor who was seemingly sabotaging his academy students, giving him the right for a complete audit and eventual overhaul of the Academy curriculum. It also hopefully spoke of the bias that Naruto had struggled against, and hopefully with that out of the way, and him now on the path to being a ninja, he would excel instead of struggle as he has in the past.
Plus, with Naruto now passing with the class of Clan Heirs he can include him in the team assignments, and finally get Naruto some of the help he was hoping to give him as well as reward the jonin sensei who has asked after his own Sensei's son ever since learning of him. A sure fire way to both give Kakashi the student he has been asking for, as well as the last Uchiha that the Council has demanded, and making it so nobody would have any say in Naruto's development since it would also then affect Sasuke's. The old Kage was very pleased with how things turned out, even if he went through a severe panic when first learning of Naruto's theft of the Forbidden Scroll, all had seemingly worked out.
"Do you have questions for me Naruto?" asked the old Kage after watching his youngest and newest ninja squirm in the seat he was brought to, as he seemingly struggled to get out what he wanted to say.
"Were you ever going to tell me about the Kyuubi?" asked Naruto somewhat grumbling and pouty, as he stared at the old leader of his village he always looked up to and admired as a great ninja and more importantly friend, but who he now wondered about his motives and reasons. "Are ...are y-you only friends with me because of ...it?"
"I am sorry Naruto, I was always planning to tell you when you were older," started Hiruzen Sarutobi, looking every one of his sixty plus years, as he tried to convince the young boy he cared for so much. "And I would like to think you would still be my favorite even if the Kyuubi didn't exist," he finished with a warm smile directed at Naruto, that did a lot to convince the young genin that his Jiji still cared for him a great deal.
"Thanks Jiji," answered the young Naruto, who then winced slightly as his last clone just finished dispelling himself and providing Naruto with the last hour of looting training fields for weapons and his own conclusions about being able to do multiple things at once. "I don't suppose you know something that could help me with my new clones?"
"Hmm," contemplated the Hokage, as he thought over what he witnessed from Iruka's explanation, and decided he could help his young ninja out quite a bit by expanding on what the shadow clone jutsu is really capable of, "you know what Naruto ...I think I can help you."
Over the next twenty minutes the old Kage was back in his favorite teaching mode explaining to Naruto the intricacies, variations, and options in regards to the shadow clone with its Memory feedback and more importantly as a training aid for someone of Naruto's constitution. That discussion led to areas where the Hokage thought Naruto should focus on, namely the basics of speed, strength, taijutsu, and chakra control to begin with. He also recommended that Naruto read up on all the things he didn't understand now that he could enter the Shinobi Library, and his education was no longer being hindered. After that he just reminded the young troublemaker, that team assignments were in two days on Monday at 8am at the Academy, and that he had until then to get ready and prepare for the type of ninja he wanted to be.
That discussion was surprising to Naruto when he slowly began the walk home to his apartment just as dawn approached, and thought over all the things he needed to do and accomplish before he would be taken seriously as a ninja, and decided that he should start thinking things through more and have a plan in place that he could try to follow to improve. His first real obstacle no longer mattered, as he was no longer a civilian where he was continually denied entry to Civilian stores or the Civilian Library, and could now enter the Shinobi Library on his own. Deciding that he had nothing better to do at the moment, with so many things still floating around in his head, he changed course and headed to the Shinobi Library were genins were allowed to browse the Leaf's collection of jutsu scrolls, taijutsu styles, and ninja history books.
After nodding to the scowling chunin who glared at him and his hitai-ate, he emerged inside the first floor of the Shinobi Library dedicated to genin level shinobi or higher with no real idea on where to begin. Walking into a quiet corner, he decides to simply make a bunch of clones and start grabbing things off the shelves to see what's available, and a large explosion of smoke later and their are easily 50 cones looking around the shelves before quickly grabbing the nearest books and scrolls and starting the long process of going through it all. Naruto, not being used to reading much, quickly grew bored after grabbing a book on the Warring Clans Era and banged his head against the table.
This action was mirrored by almost half of the 50 cones he created, who like him were unaccustomed to reading much and growing frustrated at the slow process but were not made of as strong of stuff as the original causing almost two dozen clones to dispell themselves with the hit to the table at almost the exact same time. The poofs of smoke were then accompanied by the groan of pain from the original Naruto, who was quickly being inundated with almost two dozen memories in an instant of all the different books he started. Surprisingly, it only took a few seconds for all those memories to resolve themselves and get fit into the brain and understanding of Naruto to where he almost instantly felt just a tiny bit smarter and more capable of prolonged reading.
Deciding to again spawn several dozen more clones, Naruto had most of them pick up where their previous clones started and abandoned their books when knocking themselves out, while the others went looking for more things to read up on. After another half an hour of this, several of the clones near one section of the library started cheering and getting much louder prompting the original to investigate the noise. It turned out that the group found several of the E and D ranked ninjutsus available to genins, including more detailed accounts into the Academy Three.
Reading up on the basic clone, henge, and replacement techniques, Naruto was able to learn a bit more about all three ninjutsus to where he was at least comfortable with the two he was already capable of but not yet a master at. One of the books actually mentioned how to truly master these techniques and make them more formidable, and he learned that his henge was done wrong forever, and nobody noticed or mentioned that the henge is supposed to be only an illusion and not a physical transformation.
Regardless, the henge and replacement jutsu were both added to the growing list of things Naruto wanted to spend more time and energy training up on. He also found a E rank Echolocation jutsu for developing skills to be a sensor, a sensory enhancement jutsu that supposedly doubled the sensitivity of your senses; eyes, ears, nose, etc., and an entire series of camping and survival jutsus that allowed you to start a fire, find water, clean or filter water, and dig or move the ground to store food and clean up campsites.
By this time, it was nearing the regular morning time and Naruto had been awake for over twenty four hours and was starting to tire mentally, but not yet physically as he was still somewhat hyped up about all of his discoveries, and all the new jutsu he wanted to try. So, he went outside for a quick snack and then spawned another 100 clones and gave them instructions to head to an abandoned training ground and split into groups and practice the new jutsus and review the ones he already had until he was more comfortable with them, while he continued to read up on strength and speed training options with the remaining 50 or so clones that were still going through books and scrolls for more useful information.
Within twenty minutes of sending out the group of clones to practice, Naruto started getting steady memories back from them after every one was dispelled, usually trying to do one of the new jutsus he just learned. He quickly realized that after every clone dispelled, and their memories were incorporated, he and his clones instantly became just that little bit better, with more experience and understanding after every attempt. With that in mind, he decided to start refreshing his clones and began dispelling all those with him, and after several moments of assimilating 50 times worth of information learned over two hours he felt increasingly better.
He then re-spawned another 100 clones with all the knowledge he had learned so far, and sent them to reinforce the first group sent to the training field to keep practicing all the new jutsu while he made another 100 to continue his reading and studying. It was almost two hours later when Naruto spawned another 100 clones and sent them to the training field to keep practicing, and in that time he had made several very important discoveries both in the library and on the training field.
In the library, he finally came across a scroll on supplemental chakra control exercises beyond the leaf sticking one they all had to learn their second year at the Academy, and that he struggled mightily with forever. After reading about the exercises, and hints and problems others encountered, Naruto finally realized his basic clone problem too, he simply had too much chakra and nowhere near enough control. Likewise, all of his jutsu were huge chakra sinks as he had no control to regulate chakra flow, and usually just overloaded them with chakra until they worked in some fashion. This worked for everything except the bunshin, which was unusable to someone with too much chakra and not enough control, and subsequently turned his illusion henge into a solid transformation as the chakra cost was ten times what anybody else ever put into the henge jutsu.
Reading up on chakra control, and the various exercises as well as the benefits and drawbacks had Naruto cursing the Academy instructors for sabotaging him with unhelpful hints about putting more chakra into things, probably to try and get him to burn out his chakra coils, a very damaging and potentially deadly affliction that affects a few people every generation. Now knowing how important chakra control is to his health, and his ability to throw ninjutsu around like candy due to his large chakra capacity, Naruto realized why his Jiji told him to work on the basics as this alone will prove the most beneficial to Naruto's continued development. With those thoughts in mind he dismisses all of his reading clones and re-spawns them with new instructions to start practicing chakra control as he finally decides to call it a day and head back to his apartment for some mental rest.
His head was definitely feeling very full, more so than at any point in his past, and he knows it's because of how much information he has just learned about so many things related to him, his history, his burden, his chakra, his ninja career, and his new jutsu. As he makes his way home, he also realized that he is in fact very weary and physically exhausted too as he feels the combined effects of hundreds of hours of training, reading, and learning starting to take its toll. With these thoughts in mind he gets to his apartment, and spawns a pair of clones to clean the absolute mess he made while he passes out in his bed before his head even touches the pillow.