Naruto frowned as he stared at his 'backup' plant. His dead plant. His literally 'stone' dead plant.

Both he and Vixen had been a bit shocked to realize that his 'plant' backups were accidentally collecting and storing natural energy, or nature energy. The same energy that his father, the fourth Hokage, had been training with in an attempt to become a 'Toad Sage'.

His mother's memories revealed that Naruto's father had a really hard time with the meditation required. A person had to become one with nature... almost zero conscious movement was basically step one. The man died sealing the fox before making any major breakthrough, and never even reached the limited success that his teacher Jiraiya the Toad Sage had reached.

The plant showed the result one got when they failed: You turned to stone.

That set both Naruto and Vixen off researching, and after they had spent a week or so talking about and reviewing the relevant memories, and they had realized several things about natural energy and sage mode in general.

First, natural energy was... lazy. Lethargic. Static. It hated to move, it resisted change. By staying still, natural energy forced itself into your body because it had BEEN there before you moved it out of the way. After absorbing enough of it, it tried to make YOU stay still by turning you to stone, the most stable and natural container of natural energy.

Once you started moving, you were on a timer because the energy would try to stay behind and would slowly drain away.

This power wasn't naturally toad-like as suggested by some, but people like Naruto's father or his father's teacher had trained in
the Sage Arts on Toad Mountain. Due to the energy being very lazy after a point some of it would simply stay with the user after long
periods of training, which was why those who practiced on the mountain took on toad-like traits. The lazily absorbed energy would
taint any new natural energy absorbed for the rest of that ninja's career.

Why then did it turn people into toad statues? It didn't. But most trainees on Toad Mountain were... well, toads to begin with. Of course
most failures were toad statues.

Thus if Naruto tried and failed (Like his backup plant had by accident), he only had to worry about becoming a Naruto rock.

The second thing the two testers had learned, was why sage mode gave such an energy boost to the user.

To prevent turning into stone, one had to run chakra around and through the natural energy. As it passed it created something like friction, and if the ratio of chakra to nature energy was just right then a huge spike of power occurred.

This friction generated far MORE energy than either components alone, and the absorbed natural energy never got used up. It was close to eternal, and would eventually escape the grasp of the sage user and return to nature.

Hence Naruto's current experimentation.

There were multiple backup plants at this point, side by side. It only took a few trials to determine how to prevent any natural energy being absorbed through microscopic movements. This allowed the plants to create a replacement body for Naruto with no issue, and he had already tested and verified that he could 'respawn' at those points. His left behind body would either dissolve or dig down and become a new plant backup for him to return to later.

That success motivated them to try and achieve Sage Mode, at least with the plant backups if not himself. After a few dozen more tests and much lost biomass, Vixen had determined how to replicate Sage mode itself safely (If not quickly) in the plants with carefully created temporary chakra coils, even though it took four hours of being stationary to set it up. That was still a success even if his father was able to achieve the same results in only 20 minutes. Heck, Jiraiya could do it in 3 minutes. Still, Sage mode was Sage mode, so they both marked it as a 'win'.

Thus reducing the time required was on the agenda, and would mostly likely require refining the ratio of chakra to natural energy as well as the rate of transfer through said energy. However, the larger issue was that there was a time limit.

The collected energy would eventually escape his grasp and like all other Sage users, he would have to stay still and vulnerable before continuing the fight.

So off and on for the last few weeks Vixen was attempting to seal natural energy directly into his cells rather than just existing alongside them. Since it never got used up in the process, this should theoretically allow infinite Sage mode since the power wouldn't escape from his body.

It didn't go well. Sealing the energy into the cells ended up causing instant stone particles.

He knelt next to the most recent test plant (Stone now). Due to his new team and their D class missions, Naruto hadn't had the time he wanted
to really focus on these experiments.

His hand caressed a sculpted leaf. "So what have you tried so far?"

Vixen pouted in his head. "Direct storage causes stone-death, so I've been using binary transfer seals. Instead of storing energy in one place, there is a set of three paired cells constantly shifting the power from one to another. This slows down stone-death, even more so if I have another set of transfer seal pairs moving a combination of Bijuu and Human chakra next to them."

She sighed. "Still it all eventually turns into stone. Changing the ratio of Bijuu and Human energy helped a bit, but the long term issue remains. And if you destroyed or damaged one of the three cells in their paired loop, it creates a cascading failure. Stone within moments."

Naruto watched the leaf break off in his hand. "Well that sounds like an issue."

Vixen nodded. "Tried storing regular chakra with the natural stuff, but it requited a very delicate ratio that seems to fluctuate and it only delayed the stoning again, probably because the natural energy was too stationary once sealed."

She sighed. "Second method has had better results, but I need your help with it. I want something similar to the Yin-Yang setup the Bijuu core uses, with one side being composed of natural energy and other side cycling either your chakra or a combination of Bijuu and human chakra."

The boy hummed. "What about only using the Nine-Tailed energy?"

Vixen shook her head. "Using only Bijuu chakra is bad, the fox once tried to become a sage before he was sealed and based on the Fox's memories, trying to go Sage mode almost always ended in explosions. He had to reform a body."

Seamlessly the boy released the plant, sat down, and dropped into his mindscape outside Vixen's cage. The bars were gone now, simply a sheet of glass with a large list of changeable options... the original seal was barely a memory anymore thanks to all the changes the two had accomplished over the last few weeks. If it wasn't for some of the more fiddly bits of the overly complicated creation, Naruto would have likely helped Vixen escape the whole thing by now... if it wouldn't cause his body to go nuts.

Moving to the side cages he glanced in. The first contained the Nine Tails chakra generator, which had resisted any attempts of duplication or modification. Stable and with output being heavily filtered then stored, it now stood separate from the main cage/seal for safety reasons.

The second cage strangely enough contained the most powerful design for chakra generating coils the boy and fox could come up with, as they had decided to remove most of his chakra network. His body now generated the sections needed automatically as he attempted to use each technique, and stored power directly into his cell seals any other time. By only unlocking a certain number of seals per ability, his control vastly improved even with his current reserves.

The last cage was the empty one, one he had planned on putting the most efficient and controlled design possible for chakra coils, one he could use with medical and illusion techniques. After stumbling on his 'generate coils as required' system however, the cage had remained empty as the super efficient design wasn't truely needed. At least the space would be useful now.

The cage was only about 10 meters cubed, but the glass front flowed over his skin like water as he walked into it. Even as the cage resealed behind him both of Naruto's hands began scripting in the room.

A base chakra coil that generated some energy, shove the output into a set of simultaneous spirals directly above like a disc. Create a pair of curved seals, transfer paired seals, ones that would shove natural chakra back and forth between the two. Add an emergency dump if it tried to turn him to stone.

His hands paused, before moving again like a dance. Not just an emergency dump, make it directed, compressed. A short range beam of natural energy basically, to force OTHER people to either adapt or become a decoration.

Naruto frowned. Now it would be too easy to run out of nature energy by accident, even if this engine worked. The paired transfer seals were also a weakness, and if one ruptured the other would fail as well. A stone generator helped no one.

Turning to the side, a separate section of the wall moved closet as he rapidly created and modified the transfer seal. Maybe if he could decouple the partners... no, that would just create a feedback loop, killing everyone no doubt.

In the end, he modified the seal to connect to groups instead of just individual targets. First there was a single 'Gather' transfer seal, which all his 'Backup Plants' would use to share collected energy between them. Areas with rich energy available could move their burden to other areas with low natural energy.

Next, a 'Bounce' transfer that would store energy internally until either there was a detected instability (Due to too much buildup or almost turning to stone for staying too long) and then bounce it to all other bounce seals for them to handle.

Finally, an 'Overflow' transfer seal that could be disabled, one that could drain the Gather or Bounce seal excess if they got to dangerous levels. It could be focused like a beam for damage or radiated as a field to encourage life in the area.

Vixen just watched in awe as the child modified master level seals on the fly and began refining them to be more efficient, smaller in size, and more robust with fail safes. She had known he would make progress once he had time to come inside the seal and focus, but even as the boy lost track of time and his project gained more and more complexity, she was astounded.

She was also hesitant to stop his progress, as he seemed to be making huge strides in design.

Naruto had a grin as he continued to work. Absently he passed designs to Vixen to replace all the collection cell seals in his backup plants with gather seals, while he continued modified the bounce ones.

Since the bounce seals were much safer to work with than the original transfer pair ones, the newly designed spiral above the chakra coil was now MUCH denser, with thousands of spirals alternating between chakra paths and bounce natural energy paths.

By default it should automatically generate the most optimal ratio between the two energies as any imbalance would activate the bouncing seal removing found issues instantaneously.

Quickly connecting the chakra paths back into the original coil, he attached overflow seals to a series of cells near his hands. Another overflow was set deep underground, surrounded by his own Biomass and set to generate a gentle field of power where his oldest and most extensive backup plant could take advantage of it.

Cautiously watching the energy as the single chakra coil began infusing the spiral with power, Naruto allowed the bounce seals to begin accepting energy from the gather seals. Each hand was hovering over different sections of line work, ready to tear and destroy sections of his own art if it seemed unable to handle the new power strain.

Vixen watched as after hours of work Naruto stood with back straight and hands demanding obedience, seals swirling below and around him as vivid colors swirled through his work.

After an initial flicker of dim gray, rich blue, and a few sparks of light yellow, the entire seal began to glow golden.

It WASN'T human chakra. Not anymore.

Somehow, thanks to a constantly changing and very precise ratio of natural energy, human chakra, and Bijuu chakra that Naruto had subconsciously used when modifying this subsection of the Grim Reaper Seal, this new combination of energy was very different from the expected spike of power planned for.

It was thick, almost as thick as unprocessed Bijuu power. Probably due to how concentrated it was. It was slow and powerful, trading quick actions for unquestioned and unrestricted dominance.

And it apparently could be sealed like regular chakra, although very little was able to be contained per cell. VERY little. And it was generating at a very slow rate.

But not slow enough.

With a yelp, he jerked backwards out of the cage as everything within began heating up to a massive degree. Almost imminently Naruto slapped a bounce seal on the whole cage, forcing any and all energy generated from within out of his system to corresponding bounce seals stored in all of his backup plants. His hands seemed to smoke from generated heat while the glass surface of the cage slowly began to cool down thanks to the energy being more safely distributed.

Vixen whistled. "That... that was interesting. Much richer than the so called 'Sage Mode' that either your father or his teacher used, by far. Probably because your newly created seal has not only greater reaction time to fluctuations in power but because your plant backups never stop supplying more natural energy for the process."

Naruto shook his head. "That ISN'T the energy used for sage mode. I think only a tiny amount of that is normally generated within a sage, and it enhances all normal energy available to the user. Since they will have been balancing their chakra and natural energy at the time, THIS stuff would cause both of those to boost massively in power."

Vixen carefully tapped part of the wall, infecting the cage and watching as the virus quickly began gathering statistics about the new process. "I've already started breaking down all the test plants that turned to stone, and I have begun examining the cells that got closest to conversion without actually changing material."

Naruto nodded, barely able to limp into her cage and relax on her couch. "I assume to duplicate them and use them to store this new energy?"

Vixen absently rubbed his back as she grew a beautiful fox tail that kept tapping changes on her screens. "Yep, going to call it Sage Energy for now even if it seems to have picked up trace amounts of Bijuu power and possibly something from being in the Death Reaper's Seal. Until we design better seals, it would be best to store that stuff in our backup plants to prevent any danger to our current body."

He grumbled as her fingers worked out some sore spots on his spine. "I have enough issue trying to use YOUR power correctly, forget super-gold-power or whatever we call it. Will it let us build up biomass though? I think that is what I'm feeling."

She nodded. "Not only does releasing natural energy allow our plant roots to grow faster and create mass, but I've been sensing my cells mutate and begin to determine signals in the power. It's still a task in progress, but soon each backup plant will be able to sense enemies, animals, wanderers... all kinds of stuff for miles. Like a weakened version of Sage Mode sensing that your father talked about to your mother."

Naruto groaned as she worked on his upper shoulder. "What do you think the gold stuff will do to it? Raw sage energy seems to boost any energy it merges with."

She shrugged. "We'll test later. Despite the complicated method used to generate it, once the energy is formed it can be sealed safely like regular chakra so far, even if I had to store small amounts for stability. I actually modified the inside of the cage into a thick layer of gathering seals, both to reduce the strain of your bounce seal outside the cage and to help distribute the new power into the backup plants."

Naruto chuckled. "So ignoring the super-sage-chakra, not only will I be able to regenerate a body when needed with our plants, but I'll be getting something like sensor abilities to boot? Probably should tell the old man about that."

Vixen absently nodded as she manually manipulated some experimental body parts to begin growing deep underground, really embedded in the soil itself. "It could defiantly help protect the village at the very least. Possibly whole countries one day, depending on how advanced these become. You could also abandon your body, make one up here at a backup, and be able to report to the Hokage during an important mission. Or we could design a creature or plant that could change color to show messages... maybe."

The golden-haired boy absently followed her actions mentally, watching as she absorbed all the testing plants into one central 'Tree', one that looked nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the clearing. Underground however, the main root went deep. Much deeper than his other backups, this one was rapidly mutating to become his main Biomass storage plant.

He sighed and relaxed into her hands as she rubbed his spine. "I wish we had more time to design stuff but we don't. It took me a couple of days to convince Sensei to let me skip practice and a D-rank mission to get today's work done. Maybe after our first C rank, something more complicated than 'Walk my dog' or 'Find my cat'. Man I hate C-rank missions."

Vixen winced, Naruto's mom's memories of those cat missions flashing through her mind. That creature should probably be eaten at some point.

Without witnesses of course. At this point, Naruto might not even complain about the idea.

~~~Prototype Ninja~~~
Hinata was the first of team 8 to see Naruto and gave a shy wave. Shino and Kurenai worked their way toward the two through the crowds behind her. "N-Naruto! How did your experiment go?"

The boy bounced up to her. Thankfully his new looks hadn't circulated through the village yet, and most of the civilians couldn't recognize the tall muscular boy in dark green and black clothing or associate him with the scrawny orange prankster king. "Hey Hinata! Yo Shino! Good Morning Kurenai-sensei!"

His teacher looked on with amusement. "Good afternoon Naruto. You missed a wonderful 'Weed the garden' D-rank today."

He gave a deadpan stare. "Ack. My heart. For I have lost much and gained little. Oh woe is I."

Hinata giggled before bumping his arm. "S-So, your experiment?"

Naruto gave a huge grin. "Mostly a success! Can't go into details here in public, but let's just say I have a green thumb." Seeing her glance at his hand he rolled his eyes. "Figuratively, I have a green thumb. Are you about to go see the old man?"

Kurenai sighed. "You should refer to the Hokage with more respect, Naruto. But yes, we are."

He waved a hand. "The Old man and I are practically family, getting a nick-name from me IS a sign of respect. But yeah, I need to let him know about the advancements I've made recently and the ones I provided to our team."

She glanced down at the 'glove' on her left hand and nodded. "I've given an update or two between missions but it is probably a good idea to give a full overview once in a while."

Shino nodded. "Indeed, the advancements you have given my hive is much appreciated. Why? Because it both protects my original insect swarms and enhances my effectiveness in battle."

Hinata just followed the rest as they turned in their latest D-Rank mission scroll and had their payment scheduled. Having worked closest with Naruto, she felt she had benefited the most as well. Her 'Headband' felt like a warm hug all the time.

Naruto threw open the door to the Hokage's Office.

Everyone froze as the door just kept going, smashing into the opposite wall.

Four Anbu agents, weapons drawn, and one surprised leader of a major village of ninjas, stared at the 'Most Unpredictable Ninja'.

He stared back. "That... was AWESOME!"

The Third Hokage chuckled. "Hello Naruto-kun, I see you haven't slacked in your training at least."

The boy walked in, waving to the confused protection detail. "Yeah, sorry about that. Since I won't lose muscle strength unless I choose to, Gai-Sensei had me stop using weights and resistance seals. We're focusing on fighting styles for my new body designs instead, but I have to get used to how much easier everything is now."

The old man made some hand gestures, and one of the Anbu vanished to handle replacement of the door. "So how was the D Rank today? Astoundingly amazing I presume?"

Hinata giggled as Naruto gave a flat look. Their team had seen the two interact for a few weeks now, and all of them felt much less tense in the old man's presence. "Ha Ha. I do laugh." The boy suddenly smirked. "But no, I got to skip today's mission to handle something I have been experimenting with and got some real results."

The Hokage looked interested. "On what level? Is it related to the items Kurenai-san has been reporting?"

Naruto shook his head with a grin. "This might be A or even S-rank. I don't mind my team knowing, but we should probably lock down again."

Several Anbu groaned. This kid had done this twice before and it was STILL annoying. Still, the Hokage gave the code so they all pulled out as the room was sealed.

The Third Hokage took a deep draw on his pipe, leaning back in his chair. His paper-work free desk always helped him find some inner-calm these days. "Naruto Uzumaki, Report."

Naruto stood straight. "Advancements have been made for the Blacklight Bloodline, ones that significantly change use in both communication and detection. As previously reported, I can disconnect portions of my body to then transform into permanent and non-viral forms of organic material, as well as some creatures. I can also disconnect portions of my body, give said portions a set of instructions, and allow them to operate independently while retaining the ability to control them from a distance if required by an emergency, clothing for example."

The old man nodded, and Naruto grinned, holding out a hand... with a small rose growing out of what appeared to be soil. "I have been experimenting with disguising my Biomass as a plant life-form, for the purpose of generating more Biomass through photosynthesis."

Everyone gaped at the very convincing flower.., even more so when it suddenly turned it's bloom to Hinata and gave a bow.

The Hokage put down his pipe and stood, went around the table, and began utilizing several analysis techniques as his hand glowed. "Astonishing... and this is not a wood technique? This is just your Biomass alone?"

Naruto nodded. "Instead of storing ALL my biomass inside me in seals, I've only kept about three times my body weight. The rest I have been storing in a few plants hidden around the village for testing purposes." The plant suddenly shifted... into a very tiny, child-like copy of Naruto. "I call them plant backups, and my Grim Reaper seal has no problem moving with whichever body I move my consciousness to."

The old man was already up to speed about Team 8 being informed by Naruto about his burdens, in fact he supported it after a serious discussion with the team, so he focused on the technique for now. "What advantages do you gain with these backups?"

The boy grinned as he let Hinata get a better view of the 'mini-him'. "Well if I was hard to kill before, it's downright near impossible now. As long as SOMEWHERE has enough mass to be my body, I can control even the smallest amount elsewhere to consume more material to recover my form."

He animated the tiny body to dramatically collapse in his hand, grasping at the sky before 'I die!'. "I can either turn my abandoned body into a new plant, have it dissolve, or I can have it do a suicidal attack. Haven't made any of those yet, but it is an option. As my memories are distributed through my Reaper seal, all my Biomass constantly get updates from my memory."

The tiny Naruto jumped up. "So basically, you would have to kill all my Biomass at all locations and in all forms simultaneously or I can just recover."

He grinned at the shocked look on the others faces. "Now, part TWO of my surprise is why I wanted to talk today. How much do you know about Natural Energy, old man?"

The God of Shinobi chuckled. "More than a little." He blinked. "Why?"

Naruto grinned. "Turns out that my plants have to be stationary most of the time and are by their very existence 'one with nature'. I was absorbing natural energy by ACCIDENT while testing this, which kept turning my plants into stone."

The old man hummed, while Kurenai-sensei was still recovering from the 'I'm basically immortal' issue. "So you found a way to block it out I assume?"

The blue-eyed boy chuckled. "Well yes, at first. Then I did some advance seal work and learned how to safely harvest and store natural energy for me to work with. It was mostly thanks to memories the Fox used to have that Vixen helped me with, but I not only managed to replicate the experience of Sage Mode, but I accidentally took it a step farther."

His miniature 'me' reformed into a representation of his new 'Sage Core'. "I used the 9 Tailed Beast chakra core as a reference, and built this. I also had to create three new types of transfer node seals and convert them to being formidable from chakra utilized in the Reaper seal itself."

Everyone was focused on the glowing power in the boys hand. Light green nature energy swirled with grey chakra in a disk, with a floating cloud of golden... something.

Naruto pointed at the cloud. "The grey stuff is my chakra of course, which does nothing but generate itself and go into a loop. Any excess is stored away for later use. The green stuff in natural chakra, the energy that exists throughout everything naturally. And this gold stuff... well, that ISN'T Sage energy. Not really."

He pointed at the swirl. "I'm still not entirely sure how the Toad Sage or his student did it." As his team didn't know his dad, and it could be used to start a war... yeah, still a secret. "But this disc is the actual 'Sage Mode' as designed and described by both. By keeping the energies balanced, which required constant adjustment at all time, you could walk a fine line between 'Nothing is happening' and 'I am now made of stone' and make this golden stuff."

All the models turned into black goo and was reabsorbed into his body, before Naruto held up both hands, glowing. "The left grey light is my chakra, no elemental transformations or anything. The right green light is raw Nature Chakra, being released by some of the seals I designed today. If I touch you with my energy, not much will happen. If I touch you with this Nature Energy, you become a rock."

Naruto dropped his hands and held up one finger, a flame of gold hovering on the top. "The final, refined product however.., is perfectly safe. For anyone. It can be stored in a very simple storage scroll, one designed to handle chakra at least."

The tiny flicker of gold seemed to draw everyone's eyes to it as it danced on his finger. Waves of comfort and warmth seemed to glow and dance in the room.

He grinned. "It doesn't do much on its own, but if inserted into a person, it massively increases any energy they possess, and Vixen and I think that it grants a low level version of regeneration, while it reduces conflicts that exist as different types of power collide. It takes a LOT of careful balancing and practice to generate even a tiny bit of this stuff, and THIS is why Sage Mode is so strong in the first place."

The virus gave a sigh as the light vanished. "At least, it is safe in theory. Obviously since I started making this 'Sage' energy like... five minutes ago I need time to make sure people who aren't immortal can use it. I would like to have permission to test it on some animals, then on some volunteers if the creatures are all right."

Kurenai blinked. "What if something goes wrong?"

He shrugged. "If the animals go strange, I'll just eat them. Not as tasty as a well cooked meal, but fresh food is always nice. Plus I am pretty sure that the creatures will just become super powerful and healthy, this is to make sure the stuff is safe before sharing it with you guys."

The Hokage chuckled as he nodded for the boy to continue.

Naruto grinned. "So not only am I making that stuff, but I am also storing both it and raw nature energy in my plants. Vixen told me that being exposed to that energy for so long is slowly mutating some of our cells so we are basically turning each of my backups into sage-level sensors, able to detect blood-lust, chakra systems, natural energy use, body heat, and anything else my cells learn to detect in the future. Vixen suggested that you could have me set up a few plants around the village as an extra security system."

Blinking, the Hokage leaned forward. "While I love the new technique you've developed, how would you be able to show the results when you were off on a mission or otherwise occupied?"

The boy tapped the Hokage's cleared desk, and a deep black goo with red veins spread rapidly across the surface stopping at the edges. Just like the miniature him from earlier, the entire mass suddenly quivered, and rose up as a replica of the Village hidden in the leaves.

He pointed near the training grounds. "As you can see, my actual range isn't large enough to get full detail except for a few dozen feet around the plant right now." Tapping the model, the entire map was filled with moving blobs, that grew more person or animal like as they neared the training area. "Right now I programmed this to swap modes when you tapped here, the Hokage Tower. It can also make targets glow."

Tapping the tower he continued. "Here only people or animals glow, this mode shows only those who used hostile intent in the last hour, and anyone trying to suppress their chakra levels.., that one is a bit buggy, but when it works it is great." Tapping again he pointed. "Then it goes back to just showing people. I had been working on this for a few weeks hoping to make a map like this, but I had no way of getting the information without putting a ton of tiny eyeballs everywhere, so this recent breakthrough really helped. Much harder to detect or block."

The Leader of the village gave the boy a very impressed expression before going into serious business mode. "Genin Uzumaki, your creation and knowledge of its workings has been classified as a Rank SS secret, and will be collected for use by the village. A one-time S tank mission payment will be deposited within your account, with an ongoing C-Rank mission once a month for maintenance. Significant work or expansion will be requested at a rate of an additional B-Rank mission as required. Do you understand?"

Naruto stood straight with a grin. He honestly would have given it for free. "Hai, Hokage-sama." Looking at the map, he tapped it and dragged the entire mass onto the floor, where it became a strange block shape with a handle. "Place this where you wish it to be set up and apply chakra to it and it will install itself in that room." Blinking he chuckled. "Oh, and just a warning, I put a good chunk of Biomass into it, so it will be both heavy to move and large after deployment. It is made of me, so if you need it to move or modify itself just explain to it what you want. It will go by the name 'Sage Map' by the way."

Chuckling, the Hokage relaxed back in his chair. "I have younger men to carry things for me these days. Continue."

He gave a quick look and pointed at Kurenai's glove. "I made a glove for Kurenai-sensei, mostly made from deactivated viral cells, at least on the outside. The inside regulates the temperature to prevent the loss of grip on her weapons and warms up in the direction of one of my special viral markers." He pointed at Hinata's headband. "Like Hinata-chan's headband, which has some. The markers are living cells I'm connected to with a special biological makeup for easy reference. When sensei applies energy to specific symbols in her glove, it will direct her to that person so we she can find us."

Waving a hand at his own headband, he continued. "Hinata and I have headbands made from Biomass with those markers, while hers also has a chakra-enabled feature that would give a quick light vibration when it detects rapidly approaching beings, hostile intent, or large groups. Hopefully that will let her know to start using her blood-line ability in time to see and prevent ambushes."

The Hokage glanced at Shino with confusion. "And why do you not have one of these headbands?"

Shino pushed up his glasses. "My techniques heavily involve bug cloning and substitution, and such a headband was a liability. Why? Because my internal hive makes enough vibrations, noise, and excess heat for any such signals to not be easily detected."

Naruto nodded. "In the end he let me consume some of his bugs and I used viral marker Biomass to make some replica insects."

Shino nodded. "Not only am I able to be found by Kurenai-sensei, but Naruto has made me much stronger. Why? Because his created insects have no natural life span, can be easily modified to meet my specific requirements, have been designed to replicate up to a certain amount from provided food I consume to rapidly refill hive reserves, and can be used to directly communicate with Naruto."

Blinking, the he looked at the nodding boy. "I can't respond without growing a mouth, but they can vibrate once for yes and twice for no for basic questions. Glove, Bugs, and headbands, I mean. We plan to set up some codes for basic commands or phrases, but haven't had time yet."

The Hokage leaned back in his chair, retrieved and lit his pipe, and sat thinking. "Could you create a more general use communication tool for other teams?"

Naruto sighed. "No, not at this time. I can't even have too many viral markers or it becomes difficult to track them. Oh I could pull something off temporarily maybe if I created some clones to help manage it, but even with Vixen's help there is only so much I can do at once." He shrugged. "I'm working on it."

Nodding, the old man gave a small smile. "Anything else?"

He shook his head. "Not at this time, Hokage-sama." His teammates also chimed in, acknowledging the end of the briefing. The old man tapped a portion of his desk, and the room unlocked, window uncovered, and his Anbu returned and vanished. "I'm glad that your team stopped by, Kurenai-san. I actually have a mostly C rank, possibly B rank mission for your team."

She jerked, missing the excited reactions of her team. "B rank!? But we have only recently finished the required number of D ranks to even attempt a C rank!"

He nodded. "If I felt the risks were any higher, or that your team was less qualified, then I would indeed be assigning a more advanced squad to this situation. But aside from the advancements displayed and the tools developed, the extra ranking is due to a theoretically neutral party that will be present in the general location."

Tossing a scroll at their teacher, the old man continued. "A few weeks back a client came in from Wave Country, requesting a team to defend him from bandits as he worked on completing a bridge. As no teams were available due to the heavy restructuring and retraining, I ended up sending an Anbu squad for initially no extra cost."

His face went stony. "The client had lied though about the mission. There was a local merchant hiring both bandits and un-allied ninjas attempting to basically starve the country into submission while taking resources and slave labor. Our team ended up taking the man, Gatto, into our custody, but in the process his hired help either escaped or attempted to attack our agents."

Puffing on his pipe, he sighed, smoke curling upwards. "The escaped survivors basically turned bandit in the area, and your job will be the capture, interrogation, and elimination of said bandits while defending the area." Holding up a hand at Kurenai's initial objection, he continued. "I know you feel it is too soon for this level of exposure, but Naruto himself has had to handle much worse and I don't want to risk someone on your team getting injured when they react to their first kill and he doesn't respond as expected."

Looking at the conflicted looks on Hinata and Shino's faces, he sighed. "I normally wait until around 20 or 30 C rank or above missions before granting a bandit clearing operation to a team, but I have been handing these out far more often and far sooner to cover a deficiency of the Academy. There used to be several desensitization courses of different nature, for medics, combat specialists, future assassins, seduction missions, and so forth. But even those courses that remain were toned down and less intense without notifying our office."

Giving a weary look at the slightly horrified team. "I do not wish for my soldiers, for the children of my beloved village, to die because of our failure to teach them how to handle the most difficult of emotions. Missions like these will have a trained and powerful ninja, your teacher in this case, to both protect you during any reaction you may have and provide personal experience and comfort after."

Kurenai grumbled. "And why this one? Why a potential B rank?"

Giving a sad smile, he sighed. "Because I couldn't trust other teams to handle this. While your students have been working, training, and accomplishing missions at an accelerated rate, several others are still recovering from falsified scores, low physical fitness, and in several cases having no experience with techniques outside their clan specialties."

Smiling at Naruto with fond eyes, he continued. "That you have a team member that is basically immortal and able to fight one of my most powerful Jonin daily on near equal terms is a completely unrelated side note."

Naruto tried not to choke up as he felt a warmth in his chest. "So basically it's because we're awesome!"

Kurenai sighed. She still didn't want to put Hinata, nor the other two, in danger this soon. But then again, some small part of her never wanted to put them in danger EVER. And it was better to let them deal with this trauma as a team in the end. Looking over the mission scroll, she gave a nod. "Alright team, meet at the main gate in two hours. Pack for at least three weeks, heavy combat level just in case."

The three students straightened. "Hal Sensei!"

As the children dashed from the room, Sarutobi gave a sad smile. While sad, it was better to have them hurt while protected rather than slaughtered in battle.

~~Prototype Ninja~~

Surprisingly it was Shino who got exasperated first. "Calm down. Why? Because jumping and being over excited will drain energy and potentially expose us to an ambush."

Naruto tried not to bounce as they walked from the gates into the woods. "But this is my first time out of the village! And we are going on a real mission this time, not just cleaning garbage or walking pets."

Hinata giggled at his high energy. "N-Naruto-kun, did you remember to bring everything?"

He nodded. "Got lots of sealed stuff in a set of new seals based off the bounce seal. The item is transferred between them all until one requests it. That means even my clones can both receive and transmit real items without danger of it being lost when they pop. I even have a few clones back at home who is testing sage energy, so if we need anything he can seal it for us and boom! Instant delivery."

She blinked. "T-Then why did it take you so long to arrive at the gate? You were almost late."

Kurenai spoke up, her eyes still scanning the area for danger. "Part of our mission, the section that could boost it up to B rank, involves Naruto using his advanced sealing ability to try and get into a section of Gatto's house, a large vault he got some expensive ninja mercenary to seal up for him. So I had him gather any materials required for that kind of analysis or seal modification."

Naruto nodded. "I also had a list Jiji delivered to me specifying places for my 'plants'. Since we didn't have much time I basically put seedlings there that would grow over time on the surface while slowly digging deeper to handle the energy I pump their way."

Hinata's eyes widened. "H-How dangerous is the vault expected to be?"

Her sensei gave a shrug. "It shouldn't be dangerous at all since it had to be accessible by a civilian, but with seals involved no one can know before the security is studied."

They talked about random ideas, things they had worked on, and so forth until Kurenal held up a hand. "We are far enough now, let's move a bit faster."

The children yelped as she lept into the trees before rapidly following, launching from branch to branch.

~~~Prototype Ninja~~~

By nightfall everyone (Except Naruto) was either lightly tired (Kurenai) or exhausted (Hinata, Shino). All along the route Naruto had been subtly dropping small balls of viral matter, which would consume and replace bushes or the smaller saplings for future backup locations.

The amounts of Biomass left behind were very small, like marbles, and would take several weeks to fully consume even the tiny plants he had left them on. That was purposeful. Aside from costing less resources, the process would attempt to be as sneaky as possible, even converting into actual non-viral wood if someone attempted to destroy or harvest the 'plant'. Its viral roots would regrow it later to recover.

None would be able to create a backup of the boy for about three months or so, not unless he sent instructions otherwise. But they would all have Gather and Bounce seals, and they would be able to add to his sensing net.

As they were sticking to a major trade route, Naruto expected the information to be very useful in the future.

Working rapidly around his two teammates, he quickly set up his tent, a camp fire, and sent twenty clones out to find wood, search for local veggies or wildlife to hunt, and get some water. Each clone was given about 10 marbles worth of material to create a perimeter sensing ring as well as mark interesting locations nearby, like bee hives, future possible camping locations, good watering locations and the like.

Conversation was brief if any as his worn out friends and teacher settled after he explained what his clones were up to, and Naruto sat on a pulled up log a clone had found while he enjoyed the sounds of the night and the friendly atmosphere.

When one of his clones had killed, cleaned, and returned with a young stag He had consumed the non-meat portions and most of the internal organs of the deer) he had quickly set it up to roast over the fire with some seasonings he had sealed into a scroll sent by one of his clones back in the village.

While they ate quietly, he felt a ping in his memories. Apparently the new Sage Map had been deployed in a room he had never seen before in the Hokage tower, and it had reported in. The map had a very limited intelligence, and all actions had to be pre-programed in unless Naruto wanted to have to control it all the time or take it over for new body.

The reporting feature was a last minute thought of his just in case someone tried to steal the thing. Anyway, according to the map it had over 85% coverage of the village at the moment, and it would take a month to grant full coverage (As his plants grew) unless he was requested to allow them to grow without concern for subtly.

He also received a listing of the appreciation and compliments his creation had received so far, which had created a surprisingly large amount of pride in the boy.

After assigning a few clones to run watch shifts for the team and to monitor the local plant sensors, Naruto consumed the leftovers and retreated to his tent, then his mind scape, then to Vixen's couch to snuggle the night away.

~~~Prototype Ninja~~~

When they had actually reached the village that had suffered under Gato, they all were tired of traveling to some level or another. On the other hand, they were all fully rested (Kurenai had stayed up the first night testing Naruto's perimeter ability, but found it more reliable than expected) and they were all well fed.

Thus as they walked toward the home of the 'Client', who had contracted for the bandit protection, they had mixed feelings seeing the locals.

Everyone seemed happier, more energetic... but even as they helped each other the obvious mass poverty and still hungry children. Everywhere showed exactly how badly the late Gato had pressed everyone into the ground. The lack of men and women old enough to work was also apparent, as well as how untrained the survivors were as they tried to pick up the slack and help the town recover.

As they passed through the town's largest square, what used to be a busy market, Kurenai felt Natuto tug her sleeve. "Permission to deploy clones for resource gathering?"

After a pause she gave him a nod, and the boy turned to one of the curious groups they had been passing. "Good afternoon everyone! We are another group from the Hidden in the Leaves Village sent to help clean up the mess Gato left behind. Could I get a few questions answered?"

As the 13 year old had a body sculpted from muscle and towered in size, most assumed he was a man of some importance and gathered around. With an open smile he began questioning.

Yes, they normally fished for food and income, but most boats had been destroyed by Gato's men to both reduce income and prevent external commerce. That was why they were so happy that Tazuna was building a huge bridge, which should be completed soon now that most of the danger was gone with Gato's capture.

No, they didn't normally gather local food anymore, most were not hunters and the few that were had been unable to handle the high demand of their products so far. It was why food still cost so much, the supply even after being unmolested by Gato was still low.

There was only really one medic, a foreign young woman named Haku with some sort of scary body guard, and medical supplies were low. And while there were several builders, almost all of them were focusing on the bridge project to try and save the village, and couldn't spend time to repair the town from all the damage it took under the jerk's thumb.

The entire situation was a bit hard for Naruto to handle, he had never received THIS much positive attention from anyone, but he forced himself to stay calm, cheerful, and on topic. Even though the original Anbu Team's achievements had basically established anyone from his village as a hero.

The crowd was stunned as the man they were conversing with nodded, made a hand sign, and was surrounded by copies. "Alright guys! I want 20 clones water walking, using bone kunai to fish. One needs to stand by the dock and handle preparation and preservation, I want twenty fish fillets stored per seal at max." As the group of clones ran off with a loud 'Yosh!' he turned to the next section. "Another 20 is to handle lumber procurement."

Turning to the absolutely shocked crowed he gave a grin. "Hey everyone! Who knows the most about what type of wood needs to be used for boat building?" The man who raised a muscled arm was brought forward. "These twenty are now temporarily under your command. They are strong, fast, and can easily handle gathering a lot of what you guys need if you can explain to them which trees are acceptable for harvest, where to store the logs, how you want the wood processed, and where to store the
processed wood. Can you help with that?"

Seeing the man nod, he had the tree group head off with him toward the forest.

Another hand sign and MANY more ninja's appeared. "Next, I want a group of 30 to scour the village, find any injured and bring them to the local doctor, and ask her what she needs supply wise. In the process, make note of any resources missing or dangerously damaged buildings, and keep an eye open for those bandits that have been around."

Turning back to the crowd he grinned. "Who has done a lot of local hunting or scavenging?"

Pulling the three volunteers, he gave them a grin. "Great! One of you show these three clones where they can set up a farming area, the other take another three clones to find and show what local vegetables are safe to eat so my guys can recognize and gather it, and the last can go with about twenty or thirty clones to show us where to avoid hunting, so we don't lower your local resources by whittling them down too much."

Feeling a few updates already come from the fishing group, he gave the remaining crowd (Which had grown by a lot during this) a huge smile. "Finally I need anyone who can cook to get up front. I have fresh fish being brought in, a few seasonings and vegetables I brought from home, and a fast growing supply of fresh water and fire wood to work with. So go get what you need to cook up a feast! If you need help carrying stuff, just raise your hand and a clone of me will go with you."

A few men and several women raised their hands, the atmosphere elevating something near party level as the crowd rapidly began to disperse, some running to get friends or family, others heading to get supplies. Even now he could see people bringing in tables, chairs, and other needs like chopsticks, cups, and more.

Turning to his smiling team, he grinned at his sensei. "Kurenai-sensei, resources are being gathered. Shall we?"

As they left Naruto dropped another twenty clones to handle the crowd. With his much more efficient chakra storing and usage method, and after several weeks of building up his chakra reserves, his clone cap was nowhere near as low as it had been at the start. Currently he could handle a bit over 500 clones easily, and since designing the Gathering and Bounce seals he had no real cap to his maximum chakra storage now. As long as there were periods of rest for him to build up his stores, he had near unlimited chakra to unleash.

Weaving between the growing streams of people heading back to the center square, the group headed toward the bridge builder's home as Naruto absently began sending marbles of Biomass through some bounce seals to his many clones in the forest and even the fishing group. One of his clones had dropped a marble earlier into the water, and it had surprisingly infected one of the local water plants in the bottom, so now they were doing it on purpose.

Being underwater and away from prying eyes, he had allowed those groups to rapidly spread, consume their host, and fully replace the surrounding plants as well. Even as they superficially looked the same, under the sand and soil they began establishing not only more sensors but backup nodes as well.

As team 8 continued walking through the town, he absently followed the updates as the clones pinged in. Several examples of local herbs, vegetables, and even a few local fruit trees had been found by the gathering group. His clones were transferring it all to a farm near the edge of town closest to the forest. Surprisingly all those D rank missions helping with gardens and so forth turned out to be useful.

He also consumed one of each item gathered this way, and tried out a few tricks. All that fiddly work making his backup plants had given him a very deep insight into how to modify at least some basic attributes of the plant kingdom.

When the local villager assisting his 'people' returned to town, letting his clones work on the farm, he consumed the rest of the fruit trees for comparison as well as a nearby regular tree or two for raw Biomass, then around the edge of the 'farm square' he rapidly formed his virus into genetic variations of them.

He couldn't do everything he wanted, there was way too much he had to know before he had that level of control, but he did make some basic changes. The fruit trees had interconnecting roots and branches, and only the lowest branches were able to grow fruit (So no climbing required for harvest). Amount of fruit buds produced was lowered, but the size of fruit created was increased.

In effect, instead of a fruit tree growing 100 fruits ranging from tiny to huge, it produced only 20ish high quality, extremely high nutrition products.

Naruto sighed as he continued receiving updates. He wanted to do more, and in fact had been experimenting with plants in his personal training area. He wanted to make fruit grow quicker, like superfast-as-you-watch speed, but hadn't had any luck. He wanted the trees to grow year round rather than seasonally, but that had turned out odd when testing it back home.

As long as he was PERSONALLY in the area, he could sacrifice Biomass to stimulate fruit growth, and in fact his clone was doing so already, but he couldn't just have clones stand around being farm tools all day. Well he could, but even then they needed Biomass to force growth and the one at the farm had consumed all surface plants inside the farm just making the trees bloom once.

At least it saved effort for the second phase of planting. His clones had his biomass grind up the soil of the farm heavily, until the rocky soil was effectively consumed into much finer and nutrient filled dirt. Even that had required one of the clone fishing squads to bring by the Biomass from cleaning the fishies.

The farm now had multiple rows of consumed, duplicated root vegetables (He couldn't change them too much, although they should stay genetically viable while also produce less and thus have higher quality produce), a row or two of herb bushes, some berry bushes, and most interestingly of all a type of grain plant that the villager helping his clones had been surprised to see locally growing.

Apparently that grain had been a staple crop for the village before Gato had burned the local field and killed the farmers who worked it (faster to cripple the local economy), and what had remained in the wild had been gathered a bit too enthusiastically by desperate people searching for food. It was easier to catch a plant than an animal after all.

Needless to say, almost half of the fairly large farm area had duplicated grain plants now, which required converting another three large trees into Biomass.

The local healer Haku had been shocked when a dozen of him had shown up with new patients, and her body guard was actually fairly intimidating with his sharp teeth and massive sword. They had both settled down fairly quickly after his local clone explained roughly what was going and he had been able to deliver much needed bandages, some medical creams, and (after some trial and error) medical herbs that she requested.

Naruto quickly passed on a command through Vixen to his farming clones, who passed requests to the hunting clones to keep an eye open for those same herbs to be added to the farm.

Thankfully no bandits had turned up yet.

As their sensei knocked on the door, he focused on the present. This WAS their first C rank client after all!

The door opened after the fourth knock, an old man reeking of alcohol stumbling slightly into view. "Damn it, this is my only day off!" Glaring slightly as he tried to stay vertical, he focused sort of on the surprised woman. "And I said NO MORE STRIPPERS!"

Naruto blinked as he watched his sensei barely restrain punching the man.

Well wasn't this just magical.