The Groundhog Exam
Chapter Twenty Six

by Lionheart

--
Universal Translators: On

Jiraiya and Orochimaru faced each other across the flaming ruins of Konoha, both proud men assumed attack stances, before Jiraiya declared, "The cheese is old and moldy!"

Orochimaru gave a long lick up the blade of his sword, "Into a pig, head I must stick!"

The two of them glared at each other a moment before shaking themselves and declaring in unison, "Bad Japanese!!" and going off to kill the author.

AN: You see, that's the sort of situation we are avoiding by my not using any oriental phrases I can't possibly do without.

--

The scenery in Naruto's mind was an adequate reflection of his situation. When he'd first been there it had resembled a sewer, dull and featureless and miserable, which had been a sad but telling representation of his life back then, underneath the cheerful facade.

And who was Kakashi to talk about seeing underneath the underneath yet be unable to peer through even so flimsy a mask?

Anyway, not long after he'd learned to use the resets to his advantage, things had begun to change in the landscape of his mind. Books had begun to appear in bookcases along the walls of the drier portions as he'd begun to read, and more of them as he'd learned to love it. The water drained out as his hopelessness retreated, and more features began to show up as he learned and gained new skills.

There was a concert hall in there now, with plush seats and gold plated art and everything. He had a woodworking shop with a vast array of tools out of his experience reworking his apartment. Still, it did not come close to being so extensive a workroom as existed for his more developed craft skills for working with cloth, metal and leather.

A small jewelry counter with fine tools had appeared after he had done his wives' rings, and that promised to be expanded soon. The kitchen, once nice, now promised to be both expanded and upgraded also, as did the chemistry lab for mixing dyes where a new section had been added that so far was just a bare floor with a 'Scents and Perfumes to be Added Here' sign upon it.

There was a small hospital within his mind, armed with a vast array of charts and some few medical devices, most of which did not work very well. But the anatomy models of thirty or so women lined the walls.

Art, however, filled the place like a warehouse. Countless drawings and not a few paintings almost covered the walls. Artist's renditions, some crude and clumsy, others masterfully done, with everything in between covered all of the available wall surfaces down there. And around them the halls had begun to morph until the place more closely resembled a fine mansion instead of a sewer. Windows had even begun to appear, showing forth green and cheerful forested hills beyond, representing future possibilities to come.

It was, however, to the dojo where his steps now took him. That place had come into being to represent his ninja techniques and abilities. At first, it'd resembled the sewer so closely one could not tell the difference between them, all dull and featureless and hopeless, even with a banner hung limply from one wall, labeled "Shadow Clone." His one significant ninja achievement.

Now the place was bigger, and countless throwing weapons hung from hooks upon the walls, ready to be taken down and used. To the one banner on the wall had been added many, one for every technique he'd mastered, and some of those banners were more fancy than others. As they had gone from "I barely know this" on up to mastery they went from cheap and wrinkled grey brown paper with dull black lettering and somewhat tatty, on up to some of his best examples, which were his Basic Three ninja techniques, that were expensive cloth of vivid scarlet with gold lettering, and exquisitely cared for.

Body Flicker was as impressive as they, and others were advancing. His Sexy technique, along with his Shapeshift power, made that an even six in gold and scarlet, but his mind's dojo was beginning to be festooned with festive blues and yellows.

On one end also stood a trophy case. In there had been one award, previous to his enter these resets, and that had been his initial fight with Zabuza. Now there were many other victories symbolized and remembered therein.

Still, the dummy that stood in the corner, a statue of him, wore only a yellow belt, not very high up in Konoha's ranking scale at all, a symbol of his lack in martial arts compared to his other abilities.

But that was okay, the place had come a long way in a short time and was due for more improvements yet.

The boy rolled over in his sleep and continued resting.

--

After the visit by the Hokage and the town dignitaries, there was no end of excited discussion in the upper circles of the village leaders, and this quickly spread down the ranks until even the lowest members had heard of the news.

Naruto had threatened to turn the demon fox loose on them.

It had already agreed to destroy his enemies.

Countless people who had felt no fear at all bullying a small boy with no one to protect him wept like little children themselves over the recent threat to their existence.

On the other hand, news got out that the boy had a bloodline.

Tenten's prediction came true more quickly than she would've imagined, as the clerk in the registry office dealing with the major clans and their abilities gave them the designation 'The Kitsune Clan' on their official registration of Konoha's members with advanced bloodlines.

The man did it more than partly out of bitterness.

Naruto would adopt it as his moniker of choice, wiping out the little fan signs that were all over his new house and property, to replace them with a fox head on a spiral background.

The other clans were not amused.

Naruto had, by then, completely dismantled the Uchiha properties one by one on previous resets, so he knew about all their was to know of their secrets. He'd found the 'secret purpose of the Sharingan' beneath the clan shrine, and was not all that impressed by it.

It was along the lines of "Spread misery, pain and death." Really, what would you expect of a bloodline whose highest powers could only be activated by killing your best friend? They'd created it seek a better yogurt recipe?

But he hadn't found the clan library, only proof that there was one. But even knowing it was there somewhere, he couldn't find it, which, having dismantled every building on the grounds, led him to be terribly impressed by the stealth under which they'd hidden it.

There were, however, tucked in odd corners, forgotten behind bookshelves, fallen under beds, hidden inside of drawers and just part of the general mess, a few scrolls here or there that he'd discovered on techniques.

About thirty or so, again, and not in any particular order or grouping.

A substantial few of these were on the clan's martial art style, showing him more than Sasuke's scrolls had, although still very much incomplete. The style was clearly superior to the one taught in the academy, but what could you expect from a clan whose ability was to memorize anything they could see? By just keeping hold of the good bits even a dunce could establish something, and the ninja of the Uchiha clan had all had the academy training to start with, so it would have been simple to build up from there.

However there were enough blank spots, skipped portions and incomplete knowledge of it revealed in general on that scattered collection of scrolls that Naruto did not know how to learn it just yet, although he could get started practicing on what those scrolls did show.

Most of the other scrolls covered ninja techniques that he already knew. The Paralysis one, and Body Flicker were among them, also most of his fire stuff he found other copies of.

But there were two new ones he'd never heard of before, as well as four illusions. One of the two was a Wind technique that Naruto was quite glad for, as previously his only techniques for Wind had been that sound amplifier he'd used as a microphone without speakers to carry his voice over wide areas, a Gusty Barricade for stopping thrown weapons (not that people used many of those on him, or at least they hadn't yet), and two attack forms: the big and clumsy Slashing Tornado he'd once used for cutting apart Manda, the giant snake, but was too unwieldy for most purposes, and a Pressure Bullet that shot out a ball of air for attacking over long distances.

Those were nice, but it wasn't a wide selection. He'd had almost twice that number of Earth and Water techniques. Although the scrolls he got from Sasuke's apartment had numbered thirty, and averaged six per element, it had been an average, not an exact distribution, and he'd been a little short on the Wind and Lightning departments, while being strong on Earth and Water, as far as numbers of techniques per element.

This new one, Breakthrough, was a welcome addition to an element he'd been previously short on, although it was more of that 'breathe it out through your mouth' school of ninjutsu that it was difficult if not impossible to use wearing a full face helm with a breath mask attached.

Actually, looking over that scroll Naruto considered something. This looked, in most ways, very similar to something Orochimaru did when he wanted to destroy wide areas. They both released blasts of wind in a long cone to cause massive destruction, although the snake freak's version was clearly bigger and more powerful than this one was intended to be.

They were probably related, though, like the Fireball and Great Fireball jutsu, where one was just a bigger, more impressive version of the other. Temari would know.

Actually, Naruto got a gleeful grin. Now wasn't exactly the time, but soon he could ask Temari all about her techniques! As a Wind specialist she had an impressive arsenal of one element he was currently short on.

Yes, learning some of that could be very nice indeed.

--

Hiashi was not a man used to dealing with equals. He'd had so few of them during his lifetime.

The Uchiha clan head, back when there had been one, had not been an equal so much as a rival to be surpassed and overcome, although Hiashi knew in the minds of others the Hyugas were a distant second to the glory of the Uchiha.

The other clans did not stand on equal footing with him, all being less than he was. Even his twin brother, having received a cursed seal on his forehead and not gotten the same quality of training, had not been an equal.

Hiashi's life had been unequally divided between superiors and inferiors. Those who were inferior, which was most of them, had to be properly subservient or else risk being punished. While those who were superior, which was a small list mostly reserved for the Hokage and Uchiha clan head, could be worked around and circumvented if one wanted to badly enough.

Acknowledging anyone as separate and equal chaffed and went contrary to his upbringing. Those who were strong ruled. It was the natural order of things and the reason he'd always been so harsh on his failure of a daughter.

She was not strong, therefore she was not fit to rule. An accident of birth had made her clan heiress, but he had been working to fix that and replace her with her much more powerful younger sister, Hanabi.

--

The town of Konoha was abuzz with news. There was a new bloodline carrying clan in town, that was always good news and cause for celebration. WHAT the bloodline was caused mixed feelings, to say the least.

Particularly since the boy who carried it had always evoked strong negative reactions.

To those who had no personal experience with the Kyubi's attack, it was a cause for confusion over the rest of Konoha's reaction. But, not having been there, they could not understand, even if it got described to them; which it couldn't because of the Hokage's law against telling anyone.

The mixed reaction was turning bad, however, and it didn't have far to go before it got very bad indeed. So, standing in his office, looking out over the village he had served for so many years, Sarutobi decided to do something he had felt was impossible for many reasons for a great many years to come.

Those reasons he had not shared it before now were good ones, very strong and compelling ones, absolutely crucial to the boy's safety. But if the village was going to react as strongly as they might against him those previous reasons became meaningless.

Yes, they had disliked Naruto Uzumaki before now, even been mildly cruel to him, and so many had been only mildly cruel that it had all added up to a very cruel life indeed, for the boy, but no one single action was responsible.

The Hokage had always believed that Naruto's actions could eventually win the town of his birth over. However, if they came to see his bloodline as the Kyubi reborn in flesh, that would not happen. Some impressions, once they are made, are irreversible. And if they truly decided he was an enemy...

They would make him into one, despite all of the boy's loyalty before this.

Sarutobi sighed. If only the office of Hokage was actually as powerful as everyone seemed to think it was. He had a powerful hand in issuing orders, but the execution of those orders was always up to those who ought to obey them. Sometimes their own feelings overrode his wishes, and they twisted or ignored or neglected his orders to follow their own feelings.

Even when that meant the social torture of a blameless boy, who also happened to be the only son of a hero they lovingly revered.

Without Naruto's help the demon fox could not have been sealed, and it would have destroyed Konoha utterly and completely in its fury. Without a child to seal the demon into, the Fourth Hokage would have been helpless to stop the creature's rampages.

And, being the kind, brave and generous man that he was, the Fourth had chosen to use his only son as the demon's containment vessel, believing that no other family should be made to sacrifice for his own plans, and asking only that his child be viewed as a hero for the sacrifice he was making.

A wish that had been utterly, totally and completely ignored, when it was not actively stomped upon, spat upon, or worse, by the very village he had saved.

No, the citizens of Konoha had never been rational when it came to the fox, and once they decided Naruto was the fox reborn nothing would turn them from that, and they would either drive him out or kill him, or force him to release that demon upon them once again.

They had always suspected him before, but with the new bloodline abilities registered it would go from a suspicion to fact in their minds. They would care nothing for his orders to protect or support the child then. They paid little enough attention to them now.

No, Sarutobi decided. It would turn a portion of the village against him in either case, but it was time to reveal certain information before the rumors grew out of hand. He would tell them of his successor's sacrifice in greater detail than they had heard before, and who Naruto really was, and coach it all in terms of the Fourth's victory over the Kyubi granting his line powers that he had stolen from the demon fox.

It would mean that many of the Fourth Hokage's very deadly enemies would seek the boy out and try to kill him, but better he be in danger from without than within, and Konoha was on the verge of driving out that boy forever.

And that was if they didn't kill him.

Or if he didn't actually release the demon upon them for trying.

No, they had to be told, or else they'd destroy any chances of keeping the Fourth's legacy loyal to Konoha, if there was even a Konoha left after he was done with it. Sarutobi sent out ANBU to call the town together, close the shops and businesses to get everyone possible gathered together.

He had a speech to give, and he'd give it to them exactly how he'd thought it out in his mind. He would reveal that Naruto was the only child of the Fourth Hokage, and the reasons why that had to be concealed for so very long. He would tell them again that the boy was a hero, and if they failed to listen to him after that...

Then Konoha was ruined. Whether or not it survived, if they could reject him then, it was no longer the town that Sarutobi had cherished for most of his life. And he would tell them that, too. Because if they couldn't believe him then he was passing off this hat to whoever wanted it, to take his family and leave the village of his birth forever.

And he would encourage Naruto and his new family to come with him.

--

The shocked look on Naruto's face made the Hokage feel ill.

As he'd made the announcement he'd expected some reaction, even prepared for many of those by pre-seeding ANBU here or there to whisper the right thing at the right time for him.

He had not prepared for how the look on Naruto's face stung him.

It was a though he'd let the child starve, then told him there'd been a feast laid in the kitchen all along. The "Why did you let me suffer like that" face of trust suddenly challenged by disbelief, that by retaining this information, he had actually helped to author some of the child's suffering.

Sarutobi had never thought of it that way. He'd reasoned it all out before the child was a week old and never felt the need to challenge those assumptions since. It had been for the boy's own good. It had kept him safe.

But he could see in Naruto's eyes the boy disagreed, that he had felt neither good nor safe.

To the Hokage, the minor cruelties heaped upon the boy all of his life long were just that, minor. But he had never stopped to consider what it must have felt like to the boy at the center of them, when they made up his whole existence and he did not have a whole lifetime of good experiences behind him to offset them and grant perspective.

It was not a small portion of his life, as it had been for the Hokage. It had been the entire thing, and it wasn't coming at the end of a long life full of accomplishments, either. No, it had all taken place when the boy was growing and developing, going through the process of discovering who he was - when he was more vulnerable than at any other period of his life.

A development that, Sarutobi had realized at last, had been stunted by the cruel barbs he, himself, had dismissed as inconsequential.

To Naruto, however, they'd been of great consequence. Sarutobi could see clearly in his face the boy would've far rather lived with the deadly peril, and been loved, than to have grown up as he did, safe yet hated.

And in that perhaps he was correct, as the Uchiha also had many enemies, both in and out of Konoha, yet there had been few if any attempts on Sasuke's life.

The town's opinions were thrown in turmoil again, now knowing that the child they had always hated was the only son of their most beloved hero, and just as much responsible for the sealing of the tailed beast as the dead hero they adored so.

The Hokage had also underestimated just how much they'd hated the boy, and also how deeply rooted that had gotten, because not even this revelation made their opinions swing back to where he felt they ought to be, liking and respecting the boy at last.

No, what they got was more turmoil. It made Sarutobi feel old.

And he feared he might have to start planning that move.

--

That situation was not resolved one way or another before the attack came on the day of the finals, as usual.

Naruto thought they'd be ready. He'd planned, but things did not go the way he would've wished for them to.

That day began with several thousand of his clones seeded out across the village, ready to spring out and counter enemy ninja, and that was the only reason he knew anything about that day at all.

The real Naruto had been taken out in the first moments, before any warning had arrived.

Orochimaru, knowing that Gaara, after having befriended Naruto, was not liable to help him destroy the village, had had a whole month to go seek other options, and knowing Gaara was liable to join in the defense of Konoha, he'd brought not one extra sidekick along, but several.

It started when they were all waiting for Sasuke, as usual. Many of Naruto's brides had lost their fights and that had much of his attention captured, but then the walls inside the waiting area had exploded and he knew no more.

His clones, seeded around that area as well as other battle sites, had seen enough to piece together what happened later. Some freaky bone guy with a Sound headband had broken into the waiting room where contestants stayed between their fights, and he'd taken down Naruto so fast it wasn't even funny, departing with a shot back to the other genin, something about how his master "Wanted the blond brat for his parties" and so he "was going to get the blond brat for his parties!"

Bullets and javelins of bone had slaughtered some of the other hopefuls, but they were still trying to muster a group to follow after the ninja in his escape when a woman in her mid twenties just walked right out of the wall, grabbed Hinata around the throat, and phased back out through the stone.

The trouble was, that woman was wearing a headband from the hidden village of Cloud, not Sand or Sound.

After that it would have been reasonable to assume that a large party of Cloud ninja would join with the attackers from the other two villages, but aside from that one woman, whom he'd say was a jonin, none of his clones had reported seeing any other Cloud headbands among the invasion army.

Nor were those the only shocks. There were several others. Hinata was gone before anyone realized that the bone using guy had slapped Gaara with a Forced Sleep illusion, putting Gaara under and allowing the personality of the One Tailed Demon Raccoon to take over.

That had been a mess, to say the least, as no one had even realized what was wrong before the monster was already forming out of sand, and they'd been forced to flee, fight or die. Although, for those genin, fighting and dying were almost the same thing against Gaara's demonic body.

The extent of this catastrophe had been small enough to escape notice from the stands, so the audience was largely unaware of them until they'd all gone beyond easy fixing, and by then they'd had their own problems.

Naruto had been through this battle enough times to know that a big cause for the massive casualties had been someone putting the entire stadium to sleep, where they could be killed like sitting ducks. So, not knowing who or how, Naruto had seeded that area and its environs with clones to spy out whoever did it and how it was done.

He'd spotted an ANBU in the back of the crowds pull off the technique. This time through he'd placed his clones so they were able to catch him, however.

It was Kabuto. They'd only fought for a few moments before he'd lost his mask, and it was the ninja who'd always been so friendly during the early steps of the exam, standing there wearing a Sound headband.

The shock was enough that his clones stopped fighting and Kabuto destroyed all of the ones around him, before making good on his escape.

That had only been the beginnings of this catastrophe, however. Apparently deciding that he could not count on Gaara not to be woken before he went all demony on everyone, Orochimaru had brought in more. From different parts of the village lightning gathered together to form the Six Tailed Demon Tiger, and various other elements combined to form the Eight Tailed Demon Dragon.

The Konoha left behind by these three terrible beasts was not even fit to call a crater, having been blasted so many times it was more of a dip in the ground without even so much as a recognizable burn or impact shape. The shinobi from Sand and Sound had to do nothing more than prevent Konoha ninja from escaping.

One last clone survived that destruction, having followed after the bone guy in the shapeshifted form of a normal red fox, catching up to him after the other pursuing clones had been destroyed, and when the guy apparently thought he was free and clear.

Or perhaps it was that he'd been paying more attention to the two guys in black towels who'd stopped him, the overstuffed bathrobe sort of look that made you doubt the guy in it was wearing any underpants, or pants.

That clone had survived long enough to hear the name, "Itachi," before one of the towel guys noticed their eavesdropper and pierced him with a senbon, or something. In truth the clone didn't even know what hit it.

--
Author's Notes:

Now really, here Orochimaru has arranged for the utter destruction of his home village, and one of his key pieces changed sides, but he had a whole month to prepare a replacement.

Why did so many think he wouldn't do anything?

Beast Rant:

No 8-tailed snake had appeared before the time skip. No 8-tailed snake was listed in any of the directories I use for resource material, therefore, for purposes of this story, no 8-tailed snake exists. Same goes for any badgers. First I'd heard of it was in reviews, and by then it was too late, I'd already committed to different characters.

You know, I even had a moment of weakness, thinking "Aw, it won't be so bad. If it matters to them that much I could go back and change it." But then I came up dry on all of my searches for information, and thought, "There is no way that I can get this right. Even if I tried to change it, everyone would be jumping down my throat over details I'd missed, and they'd be insisting on things that didn't match up with what I needed to continue my plot. So, might as well be blatantly wrong as subtly. I'll just go with what I've got already."

So now, I do not WANT information on Bakamoto's version of the beasts!

It all came post-time-skip, so it doesn't matter in any case, as if you've read this far you've seen my disclaimer on the first chapter of this story.

Nothing post-timeskip applies. It never happened, it will never happen, and the junk Bakamoto made up about rules of how this or that worked do not apply.

If I cared, I could even point out that he replaced 'fish' with 'turtle' on the formula several people gave me, so even he's not sticking to it very well, as by my dictionary the scientific classification of turtle is reptile, not even an amphibian, just a reptile that swims.

And he'd replaced raccoon with a Japanese raccoon dog, which just happens to be a breed of FOX!! So you've got the one-tailed FOX, the nine-tailed fox, the three tailed REPTILE, and presumably the four-tailed reptile as well on that nonsense he calls the 'official series'.

So don't even talk to me about that formula any more. It doesn't apply here!

This much I will give you, as a favor I will do you for your sakes, I will go back and switch the tail numbers I'd given mine previously, so the dragon will be eight and the tiger seven. That way you can assuage any nail-biting, as a tiger is as close to a badger as a turtle is to a fish (actually, scientifically much closer), and you purists can relax in that, at the size of snake they're using in this series, they aren't much different from dragons.

Actually, I have been told, by an actual Japanese person no less, that the 8 tails might just as well have been based on a mythical dragon as a mythical snake. Similarly, the 6 tails might have been based on a weasel, or it might have been based on The White Tiger of the West. So we'll go with that and give the tiger six tails.

This is now officially an AU, for those who couldn't figure it out before.