-AN

Honestly no clever notes for this one. Not sure if I will do anything with it long term or leave it as a one shot to fester until I come back to it with some interest. But it's been bugging me so I had to get it written down.

Updated description: the first 15ish chapters are really a slow burn as we build up the setting, characters and run through some canon events. Everything goes way off the rails after that. Please stick around and give it a shot, we're having a lot of fun down the road.

-Story Start-

Naruto could admit that he was lots of things. Stubborn, hot headed, and a bit of a loud mouth. But so too could he honestly say that he was willing to put in all the hard work necessary when needed. You didn't get to paint the Hokage monument after all without having some skill after all. That being said, after his sensei had dismissed his team early after another dull day of team training, Naruto really was beginning to think they were being shafted. They could sort of work together sure, but they weren't learning anything! No jutsu, no skills, hell, even dog breath was talking about the awesome stuff his teacher was showing them. Not that he was into eavesdropping. Not at all.

Frustrated and ready for the day to be over, Naruto shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and made his way home. Maybe old man Teuchi would have a story or two for him. Course set for ramen, Naruto set off. The sun was still decently high in the sky and there was a good breeze that rustled through the trees around him. As he got into the village proper he wanted to enjoy the outside as much as possible. Though with the looks the villagers sent his way as he started making his way through the crowd that hope was dashed as well. Pulling his jacket tighter but keeping a wide smile on his face, Naruto focused on nothing else but hitting the ramen stand.

Teuchi had been around for a decent amount of time in this village, from the last war to the Kyuubi attack till now, he'd heard some crazy stories and served everyone from civilians to Hokages. That said, watching Naruto drag himself into his stand to sit with a bright but fake smile on his face never sat well with him. Already working on and preparing a miso ramen for the kid, he'd lend an ear just as he always did. "How's it going Naruto? Another hard day of training?"

"If you could call it that. I wanna train, but Kakashi-sensei says training to much would be just as bad as not training enough." Secretly, Naruto got the feeling that Kakashi didn't want to train them at all.

"Well, why don't you go train on your own then?" Ayame poked her head out from the back where she was preparing more broth, ever chipper and happy to see the young blonde, she was like an older sister Naruto never had.

"That'd be great if I knew what to train in. Sure I can work out for hours and hours, but that's it, and I can only do some much of that in one day."

"Why don't you get scrolls from the library. You're a genin now aren't you?" Teuchi mentioned offhandedly as he remembered several previous genin and chunin mentioning the ninja library.

"I….didn't think about it…" While school hadn't been the greatest for him as it was full of teachers who either saw a demon not worth training, or eventually a knucklehead who only wanted attention. No one had mentioned being able to go in the library once he was a genin. He had tried once while in the academy and been turned away but maybe it'd be different now?

Placing a bowl down and looking out at the high sun the old proprietor nodded, "Maybe give it a shot. If your sensei is giving you lots of free time, maybe he's waiting for you to take some initiative?" Teuchi had seen it before.

Nodding and already working on his first bowl, Naruto figured he could at least give it a shot. No matter what anyone thought of him, he could sit down and read when needed. He had learned the kage bushin in a single night after all. Going over the idea some more, already downing and working on a second bowl now, Naruto nodded to himself and decided it was off to the library then.

Watching the boy work through several bowls before laying down money and wishing them both a good day, Teuchi had a smile on his face as at least now the smile on the boy's face looked a little more genuine. Shaking himself and welcoming a team into his stand, he put it in his mind to check up on the boy next time he came by.

Naruto however was all but sprinting through town, dodging through people and other ninja alike as at the least he could either get this out of the way and get good news. Or get rejected and spend the rest of the night working out and beating the crap out of a training post. Moving from the market district and coming up closer to the Hokage tower, it wasn't much longer where along an unmarked red and tan building he found the library itself. High windows and a clean exterior, Naruto put faith in that hopefully things would be different this time. Pushing open the door and walking in, he was met with silence with a heavy smell of paper and wood. There was a reception desk ahead of him and ignoring the odd tingle that ran through him, he walked up to a stern looking woman at the desk.

"Uh, hello?" His voice cracked at the worst time and he really sounded more timid than he wanted to, but the woman looked him up and down all the same.

"Hmmm, first time in here yes?" Adjusting thin glasses while consulting a book on her desk, she pushed aside a scroll and looked at something out of his sight while Naruto nodded. "Genin are allowed everything unrestricted D rank and below. C rank scrolls and books are allowed with either sensei or hokage approval. Under normal circumstances anything B rank and above is not allowed to Genin outside of very special circumstances. Noise is to be kept to a minimum and there will be no jutsu practice inside. Training scrolls can be released, but copying of scrolls is out of the question." Looking at the boy in front of her, the older black haired woman raised an eyebrow, "Any questions?"

He had a ton for the tall but rail thin woman. But decided to keep it to the basics for now. He was already happy enough that he would be allowed in. "Uh…my sensei leaves me on my own a lot, do you have an area for training scrolls?"

Nodding and motioning behind her and to her left, his right, she pointed down a dark hallway, "Training scrolls for basic jutsu, chakra control, and jutsu theory are that way. Again keep to your rank. Your hitai-ate was pinged as soon as you walked in, so we'll know if you pick something up that you aren't supposed to, understand?"

"Ah, that's why you didn't ask for my id. Wait, what else did you ping?" That was new, he didn't know they could id him with just his headband.

Blinking for a moment, the woman looked him over again before nodding, "This is a protected building, so as soon as you walked through the door you were checked for genjutsu, hitai-ate forgery, or cosmetic applications. Anything else?"

Shaking his head in the negative, Naruto walked past the reception desk and made his way down quiet rows of book shelves and desks. There weren't many people in here today it seemed, and the few that were present were all head deep in books or scrolls. "Sakura probably comes here a lot.." Muttering to himself Naruto paid attention to the labels on the shelves he walked by. "Training scrolls, training scrolls, ah, training." Finding the section he wanted, he starting browsing down the rows with carefully labeled scrolls and books. Realizing just how many there were, he decided to stick to what he kind of knew and work from there. He had already been warned he couldn't go straight for the high level stuff but maybe there were some D level scrolls that could help him out. Walking further down this particular row and finding the D rank training scrolls and seeing multiple copies of everything, Naruto browsed a bit before picking out 4 that might be able to help him out. It didn't take him nearly as long to reach the front desk again, where he presented the scrolls to the book keeper. "Can I take these?"

Taking the scrolls and looking them over, the woman nodded, "Chakra control, clone theory, and basic exploding tag seals? Boys and their explosions…" Looking him over again she handed them back, "If I may ask, why the clone theory?"

Caught off guard as he wasn't prepared for anyone to be interested in his actual thoughts, he let a small grin hit his face, "I've never been able to make normal clones, but I can make shadow clones. So I wanted to see if maybe there was a reason why…"

"Wait, you can make shadow clones?" At Naruto's nod, the woman frowned, "If you would, show me please."

Shrugging and putting the scrolls back on the desk, Naruto formed the cross shaped seal and pumped chakra into it. With a puff of smoke, there stood a dozen copies, along with the appearance of several ninja with frantic looks.

"Tanaka-san, is everything okay?"

Waving the group off, the now named Tanaka nodded, "Everything is fine, I asked him to demonstrate his skill. Please, go back to your duties." Sighing as the group of 5 elder ninja blurred away the librarian sighed and handed all the scrolls back to Naruto. "Some advice, if you would like it?"

Naruto nodded, "Uh, sure." Dispelling his clones, he was absolutely ready to get out of here.

"Did your teacher mention the special skill of the shadow clones, or did you learn this on your own."

"On my own."

"Then no one has probably mentioned to you, but shadow clones have the special ability of sharing information. Anything a clone learns, you'll learn once they are dispelled. That also includes chakra control and techniques. Just, something to keep in mind." Giving the genin an appraising eye, she would have to make a visit to an old monkey once her shift was over today.

Suddenly learning that his one good skill was even more super awesome than he thought, Naruto was beaming as he bowed to the woman who actually took some time to teach him something. "Thanks Tanaka-san, uh, when do I need to have these scrolls back?"

Waving the boy away, she was already turning back to her work with a smile on her face, "Those are D rank scrolls, keep them as long as you need, but usually we'd like them back within a month. But if you do lose or damage them it isn't such a big deal." At least the boy was polite she noted as he waved and ran out the door.

Naruto was only focused on one thing at the moment though and that was that he had the chance to do something finally. He would be training properly now! Oh he was going to be busy this week for sure!

-b-

Kakashi was a lot of things he knew, a pervert, lazy, constantly lost. But he generally always had an idea of what he was getting himself into. That said today, as he strolled into practice at his usual 3 hours late, he was met with an odd sight. Sasuke was fuming which normally wouldn't be that odd but it wasn't directed at him which was. Sakura was fawning over Sasuke which wasn't new so that he could ignore. But multiple copies of Naruto running up and down trees while hopefully the real one was doing push ups with a rock on his back was not something he expected to see. Seeing though that everyone was here, Kakashi clapped his hands with an eye smile, "Alright everyone, let's get to our mission for the day."

"Kakashi sensei, you're late!" Sakura was as always, predictable.

Clones popping and shrugging off the rock, a sweating Naruto jogged up to the group, "About time sensei, what're we doing today?"

Motioning for the kids to follow him, Kakashi pulled out his favorite book, "The usual, another d-rank mission, followed by team drills. Then you're off on your own." The three genin following along behind him, Sasuke in the middle with Sakura and Naruto on either side of him, they made their way to the tower. Sasuke had his hands deep in his pockets while Sakura continued to pester him over some gossip overheard by Ino and the village busy bodies. Naruto had his arms crossed behind his head while he walked, for once not inclined to bother the pinkette. He had trained all night at their training ground before passing out, then waking up and starting up again before anyone else had shown up. At first he had started with clone theory, sure that somewhere in the scroll he might find the secret as to why he couldn't do a basic clone. But after reading through it all the answer wasn't any better than he already had a feeling for. It all came down to control, control that he didn't have. Sure he could pump chakra for days but even he knew that he used way to much. So instead that had moved him to chakra control exercises. He ignored the simple ones that explained holding leaves to parts of his bodies and instead moved on to harder ones. That was what he worked on all night and this morning, the tree climbing. Using chakra to stick to solid surfaces sounded super useful, both for ninja stuff and for pranks. So he trained and trained, dispelling clones after so long to learn what they knew and creating new ones to continue the process. The first thing he learned was that dispelling to many clones all at once was a quick way to guarantee a big headache for himself. So for now he limited himself to groups of 20 or less. Maybe as he got better he'd be able to do more at once? The ideas were already churning in his head.

Already at the mission collection desk and retrieving their mission for the day, Kakashi was doing his best to ignore the distracted and muttering Uzumaki. While he was happy at least one of his students was taking initiative, being truly distracted wasn't a good thing. He'd have to clue the kid in on how to keep at least partial attention to his surroundings. "Thank you Hokage-sama, is there anything else?"

"Yes actually. Naruto-kun, could you stay for a moment?" The elderly ninja was decked out in his white and red hokage robes today, hat firmly planted on his head. To either side of him chunin assistants were helping sort and distribute missions along with him.

Feeling Kakashi nudge him and break his train of thought, Naruto came out of his daze to see that they were already at the tower, "Uh what, what's that?"

Chuckling and shaking his head, "Stay behind Naruto, I need a word with you."

Watching the boy nod, Kakashi steered Sasuke and Sakura away. "We'll be just outside Naruto. We're after Tora again today." Without another word the masked ninja moved to guide his students out the door.

Turning his now full attention to the elder Hokage, Naruto put his hands in his pockets and grinned, "What's up old man. Ready to recognize my greatness?"

Sighing at Naruto's antics, Sarutobi shook his head, "No Naruto, though I did get some news yesterday. You showed off your clone technique at the library yes?" While not exactly against the rules the employees there were very nervous with any jutsu used within their halls.

"Ah, yeah, am I in trouble for that? Tanaka-san asked me to show I could do it after all." While it wouldn't have been the first time someone had tricked him in order to make him look bad, it really would suck if the librarian was someone who would be on the hate Naruto train.

"No no, but I have something for you." Handing over a small but sealed scroll to the boy who took it without a word and backed away, the hokage nodded, "I'm giving you access to c-rank chakra control exercises and clone theory only. Nothing more. Considering your, position, I thought it might help you to get ahead on those subjects. Nothing else for now, understand? I can revoke your access and make you wait until chunin like everyone else at any time." Giving the boy a stern look, his weathered skin pulling in a way that made Naruto shake his head quickly.

"No way, just what you've told me I can look at and nothing else. I'll be good." Not wanting to give up this good fortune, Naruto pocketed the scroll and saluted, "Anything else old man?"

Waving the boy off as the next team was walking in, Sarutobi shook his head, "Be on your way then, and I'll be watching you." Leaving the boy with that cryptic message the aging man watched as Naruto turned and jogged out of the room.

Outside was bright, and while Naruto didn't have to look hard to find his team, somehow everything felt better today. "Sorry, I'm here now." Seeing his teacher nod, they all turned to complete their turn of hunting down the dreaded demon cat of Konoha.

-AN

I don't know if I'll go that far with this, I love Naruto fics, but a super smart naruto to me, doesn't really fit well. High battle IQ naruto makes sense, but anything else is just odd. Also as much as I want to lean into favoritism Kakashi or sakura/sasuke bashing, I don't think I will. Welp, who knows. I'll for sure be updating this slower than my other fics. But updates will come more if I see interest. Till later kiddos!