Gifts and Friends: Book One, Beginnings

A/N: * Insert standard disclaimer regarding ownership of Naruto * Not mine etc, etc. This is written as a work of fanfiction, expect various differences from canon and no intention for making any money directly from this. Indirectly it would be nice if this stuff helps my writing skills enough to publish my own original fiction, hahaha.

I'm going to treat this story as something of a continuation or sequel to 'Gifts'. The last two sections for the original short story will not have happened for this story, basically turning this story completely into an AU. I've been working on this for some time now and it's going rather slowly so don't expect quick updates. I do have around 40,000 words written of 'Book 1' so far. I'm aiming for chapters of about 5k words (or a bit more) and with A LOT of luck updating once a month. I'm planning on covering roughly from the beginning of Naruto's last year of the academy up to the time skip with 'Book 1' here. My basic goal here is to extend the concept that I explored in the original 'Gifts' story of Jiraiya taking a bit more of an active role in Naruto's life. I'm also going to have Naruto learning fuuinjutsu with this story. May possibly explore various clone jutsu, especially the Kage Bunshin.

Chapter 1:

The toad popped into existence near the bottom of the small pond. The smoke of it's forward summoning quickly dissolved in the water and what little that made it to the surface was indistinguishable from the traces of evening fog hugging the top of the water in places. The frog quickly propelled itself to the surface and looked around for a few moments. Seeing the coast was clear it hopped up onto a nearby walkway and opened it's mouth wide. A hand appeared and slowly stretched out of the small amphibian. A short time later a fully grown man emerged from the impossibly stretched out toad. He looked like a completely nondescript Leaf chuunin. The man nodded silently to the small creature before it hopped back into the water and disappeared with a small ripple. He quickly faded into the shadows, easing quietly away from the now still waters.

In moments he was drifting silently through the streets of the village in a seemingly random fashion. It wasn't long before he was satisfied that nobody was following him and he headed off to one building in particular. He smiled as he turned a corner and looked at a rather nondescript apartment building. It was actually one of the better looking buildings, only five stories tall and very box like in appearance despite the twenty balconies facing the street he was on. Not even old Sarutobi knew that he was the real owner of this particular building. His 'official' residence was elsewhere in the village but he had arranged to have the eight apartments on the fifth floor to never be rented out. This gave him a nice way of staying in his home village without anyone knowing he was there. He smoothly glided up the stairs and entered the fifth floors hallway. He took note of the tells and other hidden alarms hidden throughout the hall as he headed to one door. Satisfied that it was reasonably secure he entered one of the more center apartments. He gave a quick glance around and smiled at the sight of a small pile of papers that he quickly picked up as he wandered through the apartment.

With a very soft concentration of chakra, molded in a very specific pattern he brushed his hand across one wall. The wood shimmered for a moment before framed pictures began to appear all along the wall. He gave them all a quick glance, from the oldest one showing him as a Genin with his team and Sarutobi sensei over across the wall to a couple of Naruto. There were several of him with Minato and one of Minato and Kushina close to the two of Naruto. He looked over the collection sadly for a short time lost in his memories.

A few minutes later he was relaxing on the couch, papers in hand, pleased to have found all of the timers that turned on various lights and other items that made the apartments of the fifth floor seem occupied for months on end were all working fine. His hands blurred for a brief instant and the stack of small papers was reordered so that the one on the bottom was now the top of the stack. He had completely reversed the stack with that blur of motion and sorted out a couple of pictures that were included with the rest of the collection.

Less than a half hour later he had unhappily finished reading through all of the reports. To anyone else alive today each scrap of paper would look much like a mess of meaningless scribbles and smudges. To someone who had signed the frog scroll and studied the sage arts at Myobokuzan each piece of paper was a tidbit of information. Granted those tidbits were a bit haphazard at best with long periods of time between each report. Jiraiya let out a small sigh of frustration, things here were not going the way he had hoped. He hadn't actually been in the village for over two years and even that last time he wasn't able to stop by here and check on things. One thing was certain, old man Sarutobi was not doing what he was supposed to be doing. Jiraiya was reasonably certain that it was likely the councils fault but that didn't make him any less angry.

"Screw this I need a drink." He muttered softly as he left the apartment in disgust.

In short order he was out and wandering the streets again under his 'chuunin' henge. It didn't take long before he found himself entering a nearby bar. He looked around and smiled slightly after spotting one rather distinctive patron. He glided to the bar and took the stool next to the young woman. There was no other people sitting near her so he felt reasonably safe. She gave him a quick glance, obviously irritated but promptly ignored him.

"Mitarashi." He stated quietly causing her to pull back and glare at him.

"Do I know you?" She snarled, softly but still a snarl.

"Yeah you do. I'm looking for a favor." He replied very quietly as he looked around to the other patrons of the bar.

The nondescript man bit his thumb and his hands blurred while he focused a tiny bit of chakra.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu." He whispered as he placed his hand on the bar.

Anko quivered as she fought the urge to leap from her seat. Although she kept her seat she did grasp a few kunai in her right hand while her left palmed an explosive tag that was hidden in her sleeve. Her uneasiness vanished as she spotted what looked to her to be a small frog that appeared on the counter for a brief moment before the man canceled the summons and it disappeared as fast as it had appeared.

"Lord Ji-" Anko started to say as her eyes widened.

"Shh!" Jiraiya hissed. "Nobody knows I'm here in the village and it's going to stay that way." He continued in a whisper.

"You have got to fucking be kidding me. You just summoned a damn frog on top of the bar and you want to keep a low profile? You really are an idiot." She muttered in a barely audible voice.

"That one was a toad, not a frog and nobody in here other than you has the slightest clue that it was here."

"Frog, toad, whatever. What do you want?"

"I dropped the ball on an old obligation and I'm hoping to correct that. The old man was supposed to be taking care of something that was my responsibility and I don't think he's been doing a proper job of it."

"Feh, what does any of that have to do with me?" She scowled at him.

"Nothing really, other than the fact that you owe me one and I know you can keep your mouth shut when it comes to important things."

Anko's hand drifted towards her shoulder for a moment. The damn pervert was right. He was one of the few people who had done a lot of work to help contain the foul seal her own former sensei had branded her with.

"If you try to get my clothes off I swear I'm going to cut your fucking balls off." Anko muttered.

"As attractive as you are, this is serious." Jiraiya glared at Anko in such a way that even through his henge she could tell something had really angered the old toad hermit. She paused for a moment

"Alright already tell me what you want."

"You know of Uzumaki right?"

"The fox brat? Yeah sure, who doesn't." Anko shivered ever so slightly at the venom she glimpsed at in Jiraiya's eyes when she said 'fox brat'.

"I'd like you keep an eye on him, especially this coming October tenth."

"You have got to be kidding me. I'm no fucking baby sitter." Anko growled.

"Give me a break already. I know that. I'm not asking you to take care of him or anything substantial. You don't even have to let him know you're there. In fact I would prefer that, people might notice if he suddenly found any sort of unofficial protector. Just check on him a bit from time to time. Except for October tenth. I'd like you to shadow him that day and make sure nothing happens to him. I'll even set up a bogus C-rank mission at the office requesting you on that day. I'll come up with some meaningless drivel and toss in a nice bonus as well. You can spend the whole day and evening just following him around while eating dango."

Anko looked at him with an intense expression of irritation.

"Did you fall off of one of your silly toads and hit your head?" She asked.

"No I did not." Jiraiya stated.

Anko's eyes widened slightly. The undercurrent of anger emanating from the mans voice with that one simple sentence was hard to believe. Her eyes darted around the bar scanning the other patrons. Not one of them had reacted and to tell the truth she hadn't felt the slightest psychic whisper of the massive amount of killing intent she knew was lurking just below those few words. She was both surprised and impressed that the old man could not only be that angry but manage to suppress it on a psychic level when it was so obvious to anyone skilled in reading peoples emotions through body language and voice patterns. Of course that supposed that they had to be close enough to hear the mans words. She's lay odds that if there had been any Hyuuga in the bar they would have either vanished or intruded on the conversation by now. What ever was going on with the fox brat she certainly wasn't going to do anything that added to Jiraiya's anger, in fact she concluded that she'd better stop thinking about the kid as the fox brat.

"O.K. I'll do it." She muttered softly as she turned back to her drink.

"Thanks Anko, I really appreciate this. I'll talk to you later." Jiraiya said quietly as he got up, tossed a hefty amount of cash on the bar and left.

-ooo-

Naruto was bored. As much as he screwed around and didn't pay attention in class, days at the academy were certainly better than the few short breaks they got throughout the year. He still had a week to go before classes started up again and he didn't think he be able to handle that one last week without going completely insane. He gave a pile of scrolls currently residing under his non-working T.V. a scowl. His frown deepened at the thought of trying to wring anything useful out of those scrolls, he had induced many headaches over the past few years trying to figure out some of them. With a sigh he pulled his white t-shirt on and grinned as he headed out of his bedroom area and was quickly out the front door and down all the flights of stairs to the street. With a little luck he'd be able to find and pester Iruka sensei. With a lot of luck he would be able to finagle a bowl or two of ramen out of his one tolerable instructor. Rounding a corner at a full run he collided with a large man and fell backwards onto his rear end. Looking up Naruto felt that the man was vaguely familiar but he didn't really remember him. Taking in the sight of the mans long white mustache and weird glasses that didn't show his eyes made Naruto peer intently at the really large man. The faint glimmer of a dim memory tugged at him as he looked the man over and decided he looked like some sort of high class waiter.

"Ah, it's Mr. Great Ninja himself. How are you doing kiddo? Still in the academy?"

"You!" Naruto nearly yelled as he pointed at the man, the vague memory sharpening.

"Me?"

"Uh, yeah, wait, I don't know your name but you're the guy who bought me my first real ramen at Ichiraku's!" Naruto continued, his hand jabbing back and forth as he continued to point at the man.

"That's right. In fact I seem to remember that I promised you some more ramen if you did really well at the academy." Jiraiya stated while crossing his arms and smiling down at Naruto.

His smile faded quickly as he watched Naruto's face fall and for a moment the young boy looked devastated.

"Well..." Naruto started before the man suddenly cut him off.

"Tell you what, I can tell you're not doing as well as you would like. How about I treat you anyway and you can tell me all about it." Jiraiya flashed a wide smile.

"Really!" Naruto's face lit up with a huge smile.

"Yeah, really. Come on kid." The disguised Jiraiya said with a chuckle.

Ten minutes later the two arrived at the Ichiraku Ramen stand. Teuchi greeted Naruto with a smile but eyed Jiraiya with a tinge of suspicion for a moment.

"Hey old man! One bowl of Miso please!" Naruto yelled out as he jumped onto a stool.

"Sure thing Naruto. What about you?" Teuchi asked Jiraiya as he took note of the odd glasses and sharply pressed vest.

"Hmm, you know I think I'll go with a bowl of beef ramen please." Jiraiya said through his henge.

Naruto seemed slightly nervous and apprehensive as they waited for their orders. Jiraiya looked down out of the corner of his eye and chuckled slightly knowing that the boy was dreading talking about his performance at the academy.

"I take it you'd rather not talk about the academy?" The older man finally asked.

"Yeah, it's not as good as I would like." Naruto stated with a rare burst of honesty.

Naruto fidgeted a moment and Jiraiya suddenly felt an extremely well suppressed chakra signature. He glanced around for a moment before his eyes locked onto an odd shadow along a nearby building.

"Don't beat yourself up about it kid. Hey! Teuchi-san, do you have a public restroom?" Jiraiya asked.

"Sure around the side." Teuchi's eyes narrowed at the fact that the stranger knew his name but didn't know about the restaurant's bathroom.

Jiraiya stood up and quickly rounded the corner. As soon as he was certain he was out of sight of Naruto and the ramen chef he seemed to blend into the shadows and vanished. An instant later he appeared next to the shadow he had taken note of earlier, briefly dropping his henge as he reached into the shadow and tapped the masked shinobi on the shoulder. As the ANBU startled, stunned that not only had someone gotten the drop on him but that someone was none other than Lord Jiraiya of the Sannin. Before he could react Jiraiya's henge was back in place.

"Lord Ji-" The ANBU started to say before he was cut off.

"Shh! Listen, nobody and I mean nobody should know I'm here. Do me a big favor and don't mention seeing me to anyone, not even to the Hokage. He thinks I'm over in Iron country near the Lightning border and I'd really prefer not to get another lecture about not being where he thinks I am. As a token of my gratitude you can have this." Jiraiya reached into his vest and pulled out a book that he promptly handed to the ANBU captain.

"Icha Icha Violence?" The masked shinobi asked.

"That's an advanced autographed copy. It should be in stores in about two, maybe three months though. I imagine that even if you don't care for my literature you could trade it to Kakashi and he will be deeply in your debt. I have to check a few things on the kids seal so don't freak out when we vanish after we finish eating. I promise he'll be fine and I should have him back here after about an hour or two."

"There isn't anything wrong with the seal is there?" Despite his ANBU training the man paled behind his mask.

"No, no problems at all. It's more of a checkup type of thing and I want to see a few things that I just haven't had a chance to ever look at. Sarutobi has assured me several times that there's nothing wrong with the Fourth's work. Minato was an unparalleled master of sealing, much better than even me but like I said, I simply haven't had a chance to really look it over. There are eight other Bijuu out there, even if all of them are probably sealed you never know when one might come knocking on the door. As far as I've been able to gather over the years Minato's seal is possibly the strongest one anyone has come up with yet. It's certainly something I want to know more about for a lot of reasons."

"Ah, you have my word Jiraiya-sama. Nobody will know you were here from me. This book was actually a gift from a friend of a friend who was on a caravan that arrived from Kumo yesterday. Thank you my lord." The ANBU bowed deeply, the book disappeared into his vest and he promptly vanished.

Jiraiya smiled as he sensed where the ANBU had reappeared. It was a bit further away but still reasonably close to Naruto if any of his superiors decided to check up on him yet far enough away that when Jiraiya decided to leave it wasn't likely that he could be followed. At least not without knowing he was being followed.

Jiraiya returned to his seat and other than ordering a second bowl each the rest of their meal passed in relative silence. Naruto was still somewhat subdued over thinking about his performance at the academy, despite not really talking about it and Jiraiya was content to simply sit there and enjoy the ramen.

"Ah, Teuchi-san that was excellent as always. It has been far too long since I have eaten here but you still make the best ramen I've eaten in any of the elemental countries." Jiraiya stated as he stood up, dug out his wallet, paid for the ramen while leaving a generous tip.

"So you've been here before?" Teuchi asked.

"Sadly not for several years. My work doesn't bring me back to Konoha anywhere near as often as I would like. Hey kid come along and we'll see if I can help you for the academy in some way."

Naruto eyed the man for a moment. There were very few people he trusted but something about this man seemed o.k. Besides he was pretty confident that he could vanish in the crowds and lose the big man quickly if he had to.

"Sure." The young blond said with a shrug.

The two walked off as Jiraiya concentrated on the various chakra signatures in the area. As they rounded a corner the tall older man spoke.

"Want to see a cool technique?"

Naruto's head snapped up and his eyes got wide.

"You know some jutsu? Sure! Show me!"

"Watch carefully now, this is commonly used by Leaf Ninja."

Jiraiya's hands moved slowly through a short series of seals as he concentrated his chakra. After the final seal he reached down and put his hand on Naruto's shoulder as he released his chakra and the jutsu activated. There was a swirl of leaves that surrounded and flowed around the two for a moment before they vanished. A few seconds later they reappeared in front of Naruto's apartment door. Jiraiya almost stumbled for a moment but Naruto didn't notice as he was staring at his door with his mouth open in shock.

"That was a little farther than most anyone would normally go with that but that was a Shunshin. A lot of villages use slight variants of it and usually Leaf Ninja add leaves, that can help confuse some trackers if you're lucky."

"Wow! Can you teach that to me?"

Jiraiya laughed.

"I don't know. Have you learned how to do a Kawarimi yet at the academy?"

"Well they showed it to us last term but I haven't been able to get it to work yet."

Hmm, to be honest then I can't teach you the Shunshin until you get the hang of Kawarimi."

"Oh. That sucks." Naruto replied in an uncharacteristically subdued manner.

"I guess it will have to wait then. Lets see what you've been working on then why don't we?" The disguised Jiraiya said as he gestured to the door.

"Oh! Right!" Naruto answered with a flush as he fumbled with his key, opened the door and quickly led Jiraiya into his kitchen area.

"So what kind of instruction materials do you have here anyway?" Jiraiya asked as he followed Naruto into the small apartment.

"Most of the stuff I've got here is that pile of scrolls." Naruto stated, pointing to a small pile of scrolls.

Jiraiya walked over to the pile and quickly looked over all of them. He felt a white flash of fury as he finished looking through Naruto's collection of scrolls. Not one of the ones he had given to the young boy years ago through one of his frogs was there.

"Are you sure that these are all of your scrolls? You don't have any more or have lost any have you?"

"Well I did have a few others but one of my instructors at the academy traded me a jutsu scroll for them when I first started there. Here hold on I'll get it." Naruto dug through the collection and handed Jiraiya a scroll.

Jiraiya opened and quickly skimmed through the scroll before looking at the young blond in frustration. Muttering a soft curse under his breath he counted to ten and then again only backwards before he continued.

"Let me guess, you were never able to get that jutsu to work were you?"

"How'd you know?" Naruto asked, the surprise evident on his face.

"Kid you are far too trusting. The seal sequence in this scroll is messed up and it doesn't even come close to matching the description on how to mold chakra for this. At best you might be able to mildly electrocute yourself with what is described here. I hope you don't mind but I'm going to keep this particular scroll. Many of the instructors at the academy are really no different than all those villagers that give you a hard time. Many of them are probably screwing you over. Remember they are Ninja, they make their living deceiving people." Jiraiya said softly as he pocketed the scroll.

"What do you mean?"

"Listen to this very closely Naruto. Your instructors are Shinobi, they lie and trick people for a living. It's the very definition of Ninja. Most of them dislike you don't they?"

"Yeah, I guess." Naruto said as he looked down.

"Don't let it get to you. Most of the ones that don't like you are stupid, never forget that. Just keep in mind that you should be very careful trusting any of your instructors. Whoever it was that traded those scrolls definitely screwed you and that one especially you should never trust whoever it was."

"So you're saying I can't trust anyone?"

"Oh man kid." Jiraiya paused. "No I'm not saying that. What I'm trying to say is that you have to be careful. That guy at the ramen stand and his daughter, they seem very trustworthy. The Hokage is pretty trustworthy for you although I think he should be doing a better job with your academy issues. I'm sure that there are others."

"Hey! Hey! Wait a second! You have to check one more scroll for me!" Naruto said as he ran out of the room.

In a moment he was back practically shoving a rather worn looking scroll into Jiraiya's hands.

"What's so special about this one?"

"One of the instructors gave it to me and said it should help me out but I've always had trouble trying to understand it."

Jiraiya looked down at Naruto with a frown. He opened the scroll up, fully expecting it to be another attempt to sabotage Naruto's shinobi education or worse Naruto himself. A minute or so later he had skimmed through the entire scroll and a small smile appeared on the older mans face.

"Well kid it looks like you have at least one instructor at the academy that is trustworthy. Not only is this one of the better introductions to the theory of chakra manipulation it has some good practical stuff in it. Also see these notations on the edges?" Jiraiya pointed to some additional notes written on the scroll.

"Yeah, I guess. I never really noticed them before."

"Well to me it looks like this is actually a family scroll. Something that Shinobi parents have their children study when they enter the academy."

"But Iruka-sensei doesn't have any parents, he's an orphan like me." Naruto stated quietly.

"This scroll is probably even more precious than I thought then. It is very unusual for an instructor to lend or give such a scroll to a student, especially if they had lost their own parents. Most shinobi would hold onto it until they had children of their own or would give it to one of their siblings." Jiraiya said softly as he handed the scroll back to Naruto.

Naruto's eyes were slightly wide as they completely locked onto the scroll. His knuckles whitened slightly as his grip tightened. Without completely realizing it Jiraiya just raised Naruto's opinion of the scroll, which had induced a large number of headaches for the boy. The small roll of paper just became one of his most precious possessions.

"Tell you what kid, you really want to learn Shunshin right? If you learn the knowledge contained in that scroll and learn the Kawarimi then picking up Shunshin should be a piece of cake. I'll make a deal with you, in fact you could even consider it a Shinobi mission, can you promise that you will learn everything in the scroll that your Iruka-sensei gave you?"

"Yeah! I'll do whatever it takes to master this scroll now that I know how important it is." Naruto said with barely contained enthusiasm.

"Well keep that promise and I don't see any problem with giving you this." Jiraiya smiled as he reached into his vest, pulled out a small scroll and handed it to Naruto.

"What's this?"

"Open it up and check it out yourself."

Naruto peeled open the beginning of the scroll and a smile appeared as he read the title and description that detailed the Shunshin jutsu.

"Thank you!" Naruto exclaimed as he lunged forward and hugged Jiraiya.

"Hey, hey, enough of that. Just remember to learn that scroll your sensei gave you, it covers a lot of the basics. Those basics may seem boring and dull, especially to someone your age but more often than not a shinobi with a solid grounding in the basics can often beat out a shinobi with a flashy super jutsu if their basics aren't solid. If you really have trouble with that scroll your Iruka-sensei gave you then you should ask him about it after classes. I'm sure he'd be more than willing to help you out with it. I believe you've got about a week until classes start up again. So you should take that scroll out at least once every day and simply read through the whole thing. Don't worry too much about understanding it, just make sure you read the whole thing each day. After a few days I want you to copy down every thing in it that you don't understand on a separate scroll and bring that scroll to Iruka."

"Listen, I know I promised to master the scroll Iruka-sensei gave me and I will, no matter what but are you sure about that? I mean I've read that thing a few times and some of it just doesn't make sense to me."

"Kid it's something that will help build your foundation."

"Foundation?" Naruto asked causing Jiraiya to sigh.

"Yeah, like a house. When you build a house the most important part is the foundation because that supports everything else. Without a good solid foundation it'll just collapse once it's hit with any stress. The same applies to Ninja, without a good solid foundation as soon as a ninja runs into a competent opponent they usually lose and lose badly. If you want to be a really great ninja you need a really great foundation. That scroll your Iruka-sensei gave you can give you the beginnings of that foundation. Remember this is going to be your first mission as a shinobi, learn that scroll, learn kawarimi and then learn shunshin. It's very important that you do it in that order though. We'll meet again and I'm sure if you accomplish this mission you will certainly be on the path to becoming that great ninja you were telling me about."

"I'm going to be better than great, I'm going to be Hokage!" Naruto practically shouted.

"That's a challenging goal and it means you're going to need an even better foundation. You have some of the tools you need now and you know someone that you can trust. Someone who can help you get more tools and help you build your skills. I wish I could stick around and help you some more but I think you have enough to keep you busy for the time being. I'll try to stop by Konoha a little sooner next time but I really have to go now." Jiraiya smiled.

"Really, you can't stay even a little longer?"

"Sorry kid, I've stuck around a little too long as it is."

Naruto rushed forward again and wrapped his arms around Jiraiya's waist.

"Thank you." Naruto whispered.

"Hey, none of that now. It's the least I could do to help the future Hokage right?" Jiraiya stated softly as he ruffled the youngsters hair, disengaged from the hug, gave one last smile before his hands flashed through a few signs and he vanished in a swirl of leaves.

-ooo-

Jiraiya returned to his secret apartment. He pulled out the scroll he had taken from Naruto and put it off to the side. In a few moments he had a large box of scrolls out and was rummaging through it. It only took him a minute or so to find the exact scroll he was looking for. Holding it up he smiled.

'This will be a nice touch.' He thought as he wrote out a quick note and with a bit of blood and hand seals, summoned a toad.

"Yo Jiraiya!" The bright orange toad with blue spots stated as it raised it's front flipper.

"I need you to make a quiet delivery for me. You know the chuunin Umino Iruka right?"

"Sure the kid with the scar across his nose that teaches at the academy right?"

"Yep, that's him. I want you to make sure he gets these scrolls and this note, don't let anyone else know you gave it to him."

"You got it!" The toad stated with a salute before taking the scrolls and note to promptly vanish in a puff of smoke.

Jiraiya sighed as he looked around his apartment.

"I gotta get out of here before I do anything else and the old man catches me." He said out loud with a frown.

In a few minutes everything that made it his apartment was hidden by the seals he had deactivated when he first arrived and all of the equipment to make the place seem lived in was checked and reset. With a final sigh he left the apartment, returning to the street wearing his 'chuunin' disguise and vanished in a shunshin. Before much longer he was out of the village and quite close to one of it's borders. For the first time after leaving Konoha in many years he had on a small smile.

-ooo-

The next morning Iruka walked into his kitchen half awake. His eyes popped open in surprise when he saw the bright orange toad sitting in the middle of his kitchen table.

"Yo Iruka!" The toad called out.

"Excuse me?"

"Confidential delivery." The toad replied as it handed the two scrolls and note to Iruka.

As Iruka took it warily the toad smiled and with a wave vanished in a burst of smoke. The look of surprise shifted over to mild confusion as he read the short note. The confusion gave way to a soft anger that flared greatly as he opened the scroll with the sabotaged jutsu that had been given to Naruto. He gave the other scroll a glance and immediately recognized it to be a new copy of the old scroll on basics that he had given Naruto about a year earlier. There could only be one person responsible for the toad. Iruka was puzzled by the plea for secrecy in the note that accompanied the request to help Naruto with his old family scroll. Something about Naruto's situation was even stranger than Iruka imagined. It wasn't hard to miss that the annoying little prankster that he felt a kinship with was watched over by the Third Hokage. Apparently Lord Jiraiya also had an interest in the boy. The young teacher realized that the coming year was going to be a bit more interesting than he would have imagined not ten minutes ago. Looking at the replacement scroll given to him he thought that 'a bit more' could easily be an understatement.