Your idea of "Fun with Anko" was apt. _ The Sandaime gets a bit more of a heads-up on trouble courtesy of the old ninja. Naruto can solve problems with explosive tags. All in all, a good chapter.

Poor Sakura, we discovered she had a dad, only to lose him a chapter later. Hopefully she will be able to handle it. Naruto's anger was that of a young man, not a child. Not as mopey as he was in canon when Jiraiya bought it, either. I suppose that's why Sandaime cut him some slack. Iliked your version of Danzo's back story, which was close enough to canon. Danzo had the nerve to backstab people, but he forgot the Scottish clause to stab enough times to make sure his enemies were all down and out. Nemesis is a right proper bitch sometimes... Shin's lessons in life & love were awesome. _

Crossing the Professor is a bad idea; crossing the Sandaime and giving him an opening in return is the last bad idea a lot of people ever had... Nice job on showing the ruthless old ninja leader behind the mask of the kind old man. Wow, Naruto really showed, Inari, didn't he? Poor kid, he'll need some time to get over that one. Naruto drily hitting the "flames of youth" was good, as was Tenten's response. _ Yes, women are scary. Was Tenten supposed to be only jealous of Naruto hogging the mission, or was she worried over him risking his neck in a solo run?

The fight with Zabuza & Haku was fun, if only because it was so different. Female haku is a lot of fun, ne? _ Naruto learned a valuable lesson about teamowrk and camaraderie on this one. Maybe he was being too "old school" there? Gai-sensei is still a great teacher. Damn, lost 1 of the old men, but he definitely went out in style.

Heh, sending Team Gai on the Wave mission has been rarely used. They could probably have done it with less effort, too. But then, why leave Naruto out of it? I suppose you had Naruto throw the explosive tag to spare yourself a battle scene? _

Heh, Danzo got impatient, and stupid. So did Sasuke, for different reasons. At least Sakura was trying to become a better shinobi.

Being a bookworm-primary in school, I feel for Sakura in this chapter. At least she learned her mistakes before having to face the World. *sigh* Boy you really stripped Sasuke of his dark glamor, didn't you? Bet you got blackballed by the fan clubs here. O h well, they wouldn't get the point, either. _ Now that I think about it, you were one of the first people to point out to me in a story that Kakashi was reluctant to train up his "cute genin" because he didn't want them to become child soldiers like he had been. It was nice of him, but if he'd put dedication ahead of compassion, maybe things wouldn't have been so bad.

The reverse grip does help in the slicing cut on an advance, but that's for advanced students. Beginners hold their blades edge-up and forward. _

"Hinata-chan is still weird though." _ Naruto's humility does him credit, but he'll have to do better than that to win his kunoichi princess. It seems like Naruto has given up on his dream, but he may achieve it in the end. After all, Sandaime picked his dad to be Hokage based on ability, ne? Wow, you outed Danzo as an A-1 hypocrite already? Fast work. Then again, a lot of fans have suspected that Danzo was behind the effort to make Naruto fail out f the Academy, so he could scoop up the jinchuuriki for his own use. Good thing Naruto met up with Team 13, ne?

I was suspecting that Naruto would let Sasuke take his shot, and give him the beatdown to make him realize the reality of things. Naruto didn't do it though, which is probably the real difference between the two of them. Not surprisingly, the bell test was very different. Kakashi was impressed with Naruto's ability and maturity. Naruto slammed Sasuke and Sakura, but didn't dismiss them entirely. He let Kakashi apply the lesson, and encourage the others to do their best. Well, at least Sakura might try, yeah. _

This is a good beginning; a small child in need of strength finds 4 old soldiers who decide to pass along their knowledge to a willing student. Stories like this were popular when I was younger. They were coming-of-age tales focused on boys older than Naruto in this chapter, but the end result was the same, I think. A young man capable of walking tall "against the wind" as Bob Seeger would say.

I agree with your comments on the utility of long swords by ninja. If Naruto wants to learn a blade, they will help him, but he won't have D&D style ideas of invincible blades. Actually, helping young Naruto learn to use his full ninja repetoire without the encumbrances of popular fiction could only help him.

Poor Naruto triggered his own revelation about the Kyuubi without waiting for Minato-sensei. That was different, and a little scary at first. Ino went and proved why the Sandaime had to make a law... *sigh* OTOH watching Iruka officially unable to explain the truth of the Yondaime's death shows the drawback of said law. Having Hinata use the crisis as an opportunity to express her feelings to Naruto was considerate, and rather cute. _

Please don't kill Hinata!

Update soon please! This is brilliant~!

Hugs & Kittens,

~Wizard

i'm definitely subscribing to this

This story is amazing, in that it is the first to feature OC's that I've actually grown to care about. Most excellent work.

Here's a funny scene that popped in my head while reading this: say Naruto goes along and tye-dyes the Hokage's robes. Hiruzen, in all his wisdom and grace, just says fuck it and puts on the hippie robes and dances to disco. Just a thought, haha.

Until next time...

NIGHT SHADE, The Patient One

Wow. I can't believe you killed off Sasuke with the cursed seal. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that before. That's what I love about this story: it's unpredictable. Please update again soon!