Title: New Future of the Legends

Author: Nakora-chan

Email: nakora(dot)chan(at)gmail(dot)com

Rating: T (may end up M later on)

Pairings: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Summary: Three years have past since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.

Warnings: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

Chapter One: To Pry A Mask Off

"They won't be after you for at least three or four years from now."

"That's the kind of thing a fool would do!"

"If that's what it meant to be wise, I'd be happier living as a fool…"

"A fool is a fool, but only a moron would do something like that."

"Watch me…"

"YO! GAKI! Get over here!"

He looked around, and a smile lit up his face as he looked to see his sensei beckoning him. Running over to his teacher, he was immediately rewarded with a swat to the head. In his usually slightly slurred voice, his sensei scolded, "Just what did you think you were doing, gaki?"

To his surprise, he returned his sensei's swat with a swat of his own, causing his sensei to cringe in pain at his 'so-called' tender head. Narrowing his eyes, he complained to his sensei, "Looking for you. Were you at the bathhouses again? I wouldn't be surprised if you also went to the bookstore to see if there was anyone buying your books so you could force them to take you to any good 'research' sites."

Immediately, the boy's sensei blushed a deep red before toughening up and regaining his 'almighty' status. He straightened his back so that he could gain whatever height he could over his growing pupil that would soon be towering over him. Coughing into his hand he said aloud to no one in particular, "I don't think this is the best time for that." He immediately received a glare, but ignored the death glare he was receiving from his student. Spinning around to face the other direction, he marched off and called to his student, "Let's go. I want to be there by nightfall."

"OI! Where are we going anyway? You still haven't told me."

Turning just his head to look at his pupil, he grinned impishly and held up his hand to his mouth, pointing at his student. Laughing deviously, he snickered, "You must be stupid—" Again a swat came for his head, but he dodged it just in time. "I know something that you don't know, gaki."

Giving a quick and mild glare to his sensei, he started walking down the road that they were taking out of the small town. Taking a few more steps, he turned back to his teacher and gave him a full out death glare. "You didn't tell me! You knew all along, you pervert! Why couldn't you tell me we're going back to Konoha?"

Step… step…

"It has been three years since you've last seen this place."

He looked up at his sensei and gave a bright smile, "Yeah."

Slipping out of the pair of geta he wore as shoes, he nimbly jumped up onto the nearest electrical tower without stepping onto other buildings. Hands in his pockets, he looked around his home village and murmured, "This place hasn't changed much, has it?"

From the ground, his teacher grinned, "He certainly is more cheerful today, isn't he?"

Taking in his surroundings, he gave a full out grin as he decided what his next order of business was going to be. To any regular shinobi, they would have just seen a static blur around him, and to any regular civilian, they would have seen that he was just standing where he was just a moment ago.

The next thing that happened was people screaming in hysteria.

He only snickered mischievously and asked to the person that had been spying on him since had first entered the village, "What do you think, Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi looked up from his book and smiled under his mask. He lazed about on the roof of the nearby building, the infamous orange book in hand. Waving off the situation, he shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

Hiding his impish, evil grin behind his hand, he pointed at the Hokage mountain and said, "It does when your name is on it, Kakashi-sensei."

"What!" Kakashi did a double take when he saw that what had happened to the Hokage mountain.

"He has you there, Kakashi." Jiraiya jumped up onto the roof of the building opposite of Kakashi and sat down carelessly. He tossed the pair of geta that had been left on the ground to the owner with practiced ease. Jiraiya said, "Don't make me carry your shoes, gaki. It's enough that I have to buy you a new pair every single time that you go to the bathhouse."

Closing his book, Kakashi eyed the pair and told them, "You'd better go see the Hokage and Sakura." Looking pointedly, he said, "Sakura especially."

The two nodded. Slipping into the pair of geta, he jumped onto the roof beside Kakashi and said, "You haven't changed a bit, Kakashi-sensei." Reaching into his inner pocket, he rummaged around for something. "I have a present for you." He pulled it out and showed it to his genin teacher.

Kakashi stared at it with wide eyes. "What! You… H-How… Th…This is…"

He nodded, "This is the brand new Icha Icha Tactics, unreleased edition," and then he frowned thoughtfully. "I don't really see what's so great about how Ero-Sennin writes, but hey, if it floats your boat, then by all means, go for it."

The silver-haired jounin sweatdropped. The person in front of him still didn't understand the wonders of the Icha Icha Paradise series. Taking the brand new book, he immediately snuggled up with it. "Don't worry now, precious. Kakashi-kun will take care of you now. Kakashi-kun will make sure that nothing bad happens to you."

Just watching Kakashi stroke the book fondly was enough to make him go green and sweatdrop.

"Alright, Kakashi-sensei."

Jumping down from the rooftop, he landed agilely, his clothes all a-flutter. The way that his clothes moved in the air suggested something not so human about it, as if he could control the wind and maybe the air itself. Without a sound, he had landed on the ground and without the slightest puff of air as he settled onto the ground. Gracefully, he dusted nonexistent dust and dirt off his clothes and looked up at both of his sensei's following him onto the ground.

Smiling brightly, he said, "Let's go see Sakura and Tsunade then."

Several steps behind their mutual student, Jiraiya and Kakashi lagged behind so that they could talk without Naruto accidentally overhearing, or at least that was what Kakashi thought.

Jiraiya kept looking at his student with an unreadable emotion flitting past his face every few moments. He said quietly, "I'll leave him to you, Kakashi."

Kakashi, who had started reading his new Icha Icha Tactics, glanced at the Sannin out of the corner of his eyes and silently urged the older man to continue.

"Akatsuki has been growing impatient, and they'll very soon be coming after him." Jiraiya looked quickly in Kakashi's direction before returning his gaze to the back of his pupil. "I need to leave and gather as much information as I can."

The jounin could only nod, taking in the information. Finally, he looked at the Sannin and asked, "Can he handle the Akatsuki?"

With the largest smirk that ever landed on the Frog Hermit's face, he told the other, "You'd be surprised with what he can do."

"You know, Ero-Sennin, it's not nice to talk behind people's back, especially when said person can hear you as loud as day."

Both men looked at their student's still form; he had apparently stopped walking when he started talking to them. Jiraiya could only chuckle at Kakashi's bewilderment and told his student, "And it's rude to eavesdrop into someone else's conversation."

"It's not rude when that conversation is about said person." He had turned to look at his sensei's catching up to him. Suddenly, a brighter smile lit up his face and he exclaimed loudly, "Oi! Tsunade! Sakura! You two don't want to be hiding where you are! If my nose isn't wrong, I believe Akamaru peed on that wall two days ago."

"EEW!!"

Coming out from the cross of the intersection, Tsunade stepped out in front of them, a small smile gracing her features. "I see that you're back."

Sakura walked out after Tsunade and peered curiously at her newly returned teammate. Surprised at the many changes, she still gave him a sweet smile and whispered, "Okaeri, Naruto."

"Tadaima."

Sakura studied Naruto. He had drastically changed. He didn't seem to be the loud and hardheaded twelve-year-old from three years ago; rather he was the composed and content fifteen-year-old of now. He didn't sport the hideous orange jumpsuit or anything similar to it. He wore a traditional black kimono, covered by an unusual white haori. Tilting her head to the side, she realized that the haori was designed with flames licking at the bottom, and with his half of his back to him, she could see the kanji for "Rokudaime Hokage" centered down on his back.

His hair had grown, and from what she could tell, he hadn't cut it for a long time. It was still remained as spiky as ever. She scrutinized her teammate a little more closely and noted that his face was maturing to look like the man in a portrait hung in her sensei, Tsunade's office. Her teammate's ever-blue eyes sparkled with intensity, but past that, she could see something that wasn't there three years ago.

With his hands clasped inside the folds of his kimono, he smiled at her and she was suddenly overcome nostalgia. Whatever happened to him out there outside of Konoha had utterly changed him; she suddenly would miss the overly loud determination that he constantly spewed out. She realized that aspects of Naruto would never appear again, such as his proclamations of undying love; as endearing as they seemed to be, they annoyed the hell out of her (and Rock Lee still spewed all that mush).

Fully turning to her, he asked, "How are you doing, Sakura?"

She smiled in return and replied, "I'm great! Everyone was wondering when you would return. We had started expecting you half a year ago." She knew that the smile on her lips didn't reach her eyes; she really didn't know why, maybe it was there was no '-chan' added on.

Chuckling lightly, he explained, "Ero-Sennin kept on running off to do his 'research' and then we had to outrun mobs of furious women, and husbands who were mad at Ero-Sennin for spying on their wives." He shuddered, "It was enlightening experience, to see how husbands can be so possessive of their wives."

Quickly noticing something, she put a hand up to her head and measured herself up to him. "You've grown."

Naruto straightened up and pulled out a completely bandaged hand to compare their heights. Glancing at his hand, Sakura noted that not even Lee bandaged his arms completely to the tips of his fingers before she shifted back to Naruto.

He smiled and said, "Yeah."

Sakura kept on smiling, but inwardly, she didn't want this. This small talk wasn't enough. They weren't connecting.

"Nii-chan!"

Everyone looked towards the voice.

"Oiroke no Jutsu!"

Instantly, she heard the perverted laughter of Konoha's legendary pervert, and she restrained herself from punching that man to kingdom come, all for the fact that he was one of the legendary Sannin and Naruto's teacher.

She looked at the appalling sight of a naked female and gawked as the female turned into an older Konohamaru. The boy smirked and asked proudly, "What do you think of that?"

Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she noted that Naruto's smile didn't reach his eyes and that it wasn't a happy smile. It wasn't a smile except for the literal meaning of a smile. It was fake and broken.

In a soft voice, Naruto reprimanded the boy, "You shouldn't be doing those things anymore, Sarutobi Konohamaru-san."

The young genin boy's smile of glee disappeared and he looked at his idol in surprise and hurt. "W-what do you mean, nii-chan?"

The smile still on his face, Naruto repeated, "You shouldn't be doing those things anymore."

Sakura looked away from the sight. Konohamaru just stared at his boss, his model, his nii-chan in surprise and hurt before he hid his face behind his hair. Looking sadly at the genin, she wondered why Naruto was being so cruel to the boy. Even though she thought that this side of him was better than him being a pervert, she didn't want anyone to be hurt by this new Naruto.

"Hehe…"

His smile suddenly changed and turned into a full-blown vulpine grin. Pointing at the Hokage Mountain, he told the genin, "You should be doing stuff like that."

Everyone looked.

"NARUTO! YOU IDIOT!"

THWACK! BOOM!

A well-known crater was made in the middle of the street, dust and debris flying out of the cloud. Grabbing Naruto by the front of his clothes, she shook him violently and yelled out, "YOU IDIOT! YOU HAVEN'T CHANGED A BIT! WHAT ABOUT THE WONDERFUL FEELING OF RESPECT I HAD FOR YOU JUST NOW?"

"Maa, maa, Sakura, calm down. Konohamaru here is terrified."

She looked towards a scared stiff Konohamaru hiding behind a defensive Kakashi.

Once the attention was directed away from him, Naruto simply pushed Sakura's hands away from him before dusting himself off.

Tsunade scowled at what Naruto had done to the Hokage Mountain. The entire mountain was sporting a spectacle of colors; the colors would shift every so often so that after each blink of the eye, the faces of the Hokages changed color. On top of that, there were various messages like "Kakashi loves reading porn to little children" or "Jiraiya peeks into the women's bath at two o'clock in the afternoon" that would scroll across the faces of the Hokages.

Noticing that Naruto was calmly brushing Sakura off, she warily watched him. His actions were certainly very changed; he moved nothing like he did three years ago, and there were certain things that he did that really put her on edge. Like the way that he closed his eyes every so often, and the way that he kept his bandaged hands free at all times, not doing much with them.

Finally, she focused everyone's attention, "Now that the pleasantries are all over."

"I'd like to say something before we go on, Tsunade."

She merely cocked an eyebrow.

Everyone looked at Naruto in question. It wasn't like him to interrupt something that he didn't know of. It was strange that he failed to add any suffix to end of Tsunade's name; there was something off about the lack of a suffix.

Calmly, Naruto held a hand out and said, "I want the keys to the Estates, Tsunade."

Tsunade froze. Out of all the things she expected him to say, she never in her right mind expected that. She could feel the blood leave her face as her brown-colored eyes widened to the fullest extent.

No one dared to speak, some not knowing that the young man meant, the others completely caught off guard at the demand.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she observed Jiraiya and thought, 'Damn you Jiraiya to deepest pits of hell'; his face was bland and uncaring. He knew about this all along; he knew that Naruto would pop that question, despite not knowing when.

Quickly regaining her composure, she asked, "Why do you want keys, Naruto? The only estates in Konoha belong to the Hyuuga and the Uchiha clans, and you know as well as I that you aren't the head of either—"

Naruto shook his head and cut in without any malice in his voice, "You know what I mean, Tsunade." With his hand still held out waiting, he repeated, "I want the keys to the Estates."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Quit the act, Tsunade," commanded Naruto gently. "You also know why I'm just calling you Tsunade."

Sakura shook herself out of her stupor and reprimanded Naruto with a light frown, "Be a bit more respectful towards the Hokage, Naruto."

Turning his head to look at Sakura with a slightly annoyed gaze for a moment, he told her, "Sakura, please stay out of this. This has nothing to do with Tsunade being the Hokage."

Seeing her apprentice bite her lip to keep back the retort, Tsunade couldn't help but acquiesce. She sighed, closing her eyes, "Alright, Naruto. You win."

"What is this I'm winning?"

She gave him a look.

"Ha ha… right," he laughed the matter off with many disbelieving looks directed towards him, scratching the back of his head in a cheerful manner. Dropping his hand, he asked, "Where are the keys anyway, Tsunade?"

"At my office," she replied just as serious. "We'll get them once Kakashi gets a good scope of your teamwork."

Naruto shook his head in disagreement and reaching into the depths of his sleeves, pulled out a scroll. He handed it to Tsunade and told her, "My mission report."

Tsunade took the scroll handed to her and leered skeptically at the boy. "It still doesn't exclude you from training, gaki."

Smiling, he reached into the other sleeve to pull out several papers and handed them to Tsunade. He carelessly said, "And this… is my jounin status application."

Not even bothering to look at the papers, she stared at him, blinking furiously. The others, save Jiraiya, openly gawking at him. That was certainly unexpected. From out of the blue, he had pulled out jounin applications; in her mind, Tsunade mulled over when the next Jounin Exams took place. The next Jounin Exams wouldn't take place for another half a year, but that point was moot. The boy wasn't even a chuunin; he was barely a genin when he left, so there is absolute no reason why he was applying for jounin now.

Sakura burst out in protest, her arms flailing around to support her point. "What do you mean 'your jounin status application', Naruto? You're not even a chuunin. You're still a genin."

Gesturing towards the papers he handed to Tsunade, he told everyone, "Those papers say everything."

Rifling through the papers, she skimmed through the contents making sure that all the necessary areas were filled in and all the necessary signatures were made. Stopping at one particular page, she browsed the contents before reaching the part that explained exactly why he was applying for jounin status.

Looking up from the papers, she gave the boy a cock-eyed look. "Sealing mastery?"

Naruto nodded enthusiastically and grinned. "Yup! All I need to do is get tested!"

Sakura, peering over her sensei's shoulder, repeated, "You're a seal master, Naruto?"

"Once I take the test and pass it, I'll be a bonafide seal master on par with this old bag of bones," he replied, gesturing to Jiraiya at his last comment.

"Damned gaki… be grateful!" scolded Jiraiya half-heartedly. "You wouldn't even be thinking of learning seals if it hadn't been for…" He abruptly cut himself off.

This caught everyone's interest, especially Tsunade's. She was just about to tune out the rest of the conversation if it hadn't been for Jiraiya speaking up and bringing up a delicate subject that he had to drop so suddenly.

"If it hadn't been for what, Jiraiya?" she prompted, knowing that whatever made Naruto go into seals had something to do with Naruto's condition.

Jiraiya shook his head and waved his hand thoughtlessly, trying to push the matter aside. "It's in the mission report the gaki gave you. You should read it as soon as you have time." In a quieter voice, he murmured so that only she could hear, "Since he's applying for jounin status."

She nodded in response, taking note of Jiraiya's advice. There was something about the way that it unnerved Jiraiya that got to her. Everything about her fellow Sannin seemed to be normal, but there was a rigidity in his posture that wasn't there three years ago and occasionally his fingers twitched in apprehension. But apprehension of what?

Jiraiya, Naruto, and Sakura stood before Tsunade, who sat behind her desk.

From his spot on the wall, Kakashi did nothing and said nothing as he looked on.

Clasping her hands together, Tsunade seemed to be nervous of whatever she was asking. From what Kakashi saw so far, she hadn't even taken a peek into the scroll that Naruto had given her before handing her the jounin status application. Even though he hadn't heard what the other Sannin had whispered into her ear, Kakashi knew that whatever he had said had unnerved their Hokage.

"So, we'll need to finalize your return to Konoha, Naruto."

Naruto had his hands clasped under his kimono sleeves, similar to a monk's peaceful posture. His posture was schooled to have absolute control, it seemed, and his face was bright with a smile. Just the way that he smiled caused a wave of wistfulness, but he waved it aside. He might be sad to have lost the bright laughter Naruto had three years ago, but this new Naruto brought with him a sense of hope and future that he hadn't felt in a long time.

Naruto nodded and said in return, "I'll be living at the Estates, and I'll try to stall off the contract for a while."

The contract? What contract? Sure, Naruto had the frog-summoning contract, but why would he stall of a contract? Kakashi quickly surveyed the faces of Tsunade and Jiraiya just to get maybe a hint of what was going on, but true to his beliefs, their faces showed absolutely no sign of anything save a solemnity.

Tsunade asked, "Why can't you seal it away?"

"The contract doesn't work like that," Naruto shook his head. "It'll come out in the end. Apparently one of the signers was a seal master."

Sakura, who was looking at the three, who knew what was going on, asked, "What's going on?"

Finally noticing her apprentice, Tsunade smiled wearily, "Sorry, Sakura, but I'll need you to leave the room."

Nodding, Sakura left with a backwards glance towards her shisou and her teammate.

Without looking at him, Tsunade asked, "Would you leave the room as well, Kakashi? This is something just between Naruto and me."

Kakashi, hiding behind his book, nodded as he jumped out the window, but staying nearby just in case there was something of importance he needed to know. It was still unusual, though, that Tsunade would keep something from him when it concerned Naruto.

Skimming through his memories, he smiled at the new Naruto. Naruto was certainly like his sensei now; to think that soon Naruto may leave the world all together and his sensei's legacy would be gone weighed heavily on his mind. Naruto was supposed to have come back maybe half a year ago, but Naruto and Jiraiya had stayed away for the full three years. Why did they? Did Jiraiya know something about what was happening with Akatsuki and Orochimaru that no one else knew about?

He sighed and rubbed his temples. Gosh, even without being there, Naruto could still bring him headaches.

There was still the issue of Naruto's skill. Since the boy had cut off Tsunade when she was about to announce his return to Kakashi's team, he had no idea where Naruto was skill-wise. It was impressive that he was applying for jounin status with seal mastery; no one had gotten a seal mastery since the Yondaime. For those that had tried to get a seal mastery, none of them were even remotely near mastery; personally, he hadn't even tried knowing the level of seal knowledge required for mastery.

Just the way that Naruto had moved for the short period that Kakashi had observed the blonde was enough to convey the power and speed the boy now had. His grace and skillful way of moving showed years of training and experience, but Naruto's open hands worried him.

At no point for the time that Kakashi had watched the boy had he clenched his hands at all. Sure he had closed his hands, but there was no accident and unconscious twitching of hands. Naruto appeared to be controlling his very basic instincts with willpower alone, which amazed the jounin.

"Don't worry. I have everything under control."

Kakashi glanced back into the Hokage's room to see Naruto and Jiraiya still standing there in front of Tsunade. Both Sannin looked troubled by whatever Naruto had said, and the jounin briefly wondered what Naruto had said.

Knowing that whatever they were keeping both him and Sakura out of was important, Kakashi sat down on the roof outside the window and read his new Icha Icha Tactics.

Jiraiya looked at the boy that he had been traveling with for the past three years. He certainly wasn't the boy that he was three years ago. Their journey had changed him too much for either of them to turn back; some things turned out for the better, some for the worse.

Thank goodness Naruto had lost the orange jumpsuit after they arrived at their first destination. He would have cried to the gods to spare him the pain if the boy hadn't gotten rid of that hideous thing called clothes. But then, Naruto's decision for a new outfit was a result of what happened as they were on their way to their destination, and it was no wonder that the boy did choose something that reflected the darkness of the world surrounding him.

Everyday for the past three years, he has been agonizing for what happened the first week away from Konoha. That it happened so close to Konoha still weighed terribly heavy on his mind, and that he had never thought to go back to Konoha for medical aid when he should have and when advised… he never got over it and probably never would.

That first week, though, had made the boy who he was today, and it was a heartwarming feeling to see the childish, loud-mouthed boy a strong and awe-inspiring young man. Though the first week had been hell for Jiraiya, the resolution that Naruto had come to at the end of that dreadful week was the result that Jiraiya could live with for all his pain and guilt.

Turning his attention back to Tsunade and Naruto, he heard Naruto continue on in his explanation, "The ones sent to capture me will have Hell to deal with when they try to capture me."

"You do know the full ramifications of the contract though, right, Naruto?" Tsunade asked in a concerned voice.

Naruto nodded and replied, "Don't worry. I have everything under control."

Tsunade looked at Jiraiya with a heavy look, and he could only shrug in response. He, after all that had happened, had taught the boy the best he could for three years, and there were some things that Naruto knew that he didn't, considering the fact that he had to leave the boy at their first destination so that both of them could recuperate from that first week and so Jiraiya could gather information.

Sighing, Tsunade moved the subject somewhere else. "Okay. I'll move you back onto active status, and I'll need to schedule a time to test you for your seal mastery."

The boy nodded in response with confidence and a smile on his face, his pride in his abilities evident on his face.

Jiraiya smiled; the one thing that he was certainly proud of was Naruto's mastery of seals. It seemed that all of Jiraiya's apprentices ended up being seal masters, both the Yondaime and Naruto. But the circumstances that led to Naruto's mastery of seals would always strike a nail through his heart.

"Just how are you going to test me?"

Tsunade looked up at the boy with slight surprise and smiled. She explained, "Since you're also applying for jounin status as well, you're going to have to show proficiency in all areas: ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu. I'll have several jounin sit in on a spar and have them evaluate your skills. After that, you'll have to present a seal that you created within the past year and demonstrate it."

Nodding in understanding with his famed vulpine face, he suddenly asked, "Can I present the seal now and request for a specific jounin to be at my test?"

She blinked in confusion and at the suddenness of the request. Mulling over the request, she said, "I don't see why not."

Jiraiya smirked. So the boy was going to present that seal; that seal was definitely a hard one to create since there was no live seal specimen the boy could use to test his new seal on, so Naruto had to go off of whatever he remembered and whatever Jiraiya knew.

Naruto reached into his sleeves to pull out a very thick notebook and several papers on top of the notebook. He quickly explained, "The notebook is full of all the notes that I used to create the seal, and those papers are just the official documentation about the seal."

Raising an eyebrow looking at the boy in speculation, Tsunade picked up the official documentation and started reading it. The silence was refreshing for once as Tsunade read, and as she read on, her eyes widened, surprise and shock smack dab on her face. Pointing the papers at the Naruto, who smiled and remained calm, she asked, "You do realize that this has never been done before?"

"That's the exactly why I'm presenting this jutsu for my seal mastery."

"If it doesn't go according to plan, the subject will die and you'll have to face the full consequences. You know that right?"

The boy nodded.

Tsunade leaned back into her chair, threw the papers down on her desk, and glared at them before turning her glare to Jiraiya. "You just had to give him the idea, didn't you?"

Jiraiya shrugged and shoved the issue aside, "Technically, I didn't give him the idea. It was something he thought about while he was doing a training exercise. All I did was give him knowledge of the other seal."

She narrowed her eyes and asked suspiciously, "And why kind of training exercise would he be doing that led to this idea?"

All the Sannin could do was laugh in response and offer a weak response, "Water walking?"

THWACK! BOOM!

Naruto grimaced as his sensei went flying out of the Hokage's office through several walls of thick stone. He muttered to himself, "That has got to hurt."

Dusting off her hands, Tsunade turned to Naruto, who stood scared stiff. "Now, where was I? Oh yeah, your seal mastery." Her demeanor changing all of the sudden, she asked, "What about the safety precautions?"

"There's a safety net within that seal."

Both looked at the dusty and thoroughly beaten Sannin coming back in through the big holes in the walls. Rubbing a bruised cheek, Jiraiya glared fearfully at Tsunade as he explained, "The boy had no test subject for the seal since there were so few people that had the other seal, and right now there are only two people with those other seals."

Tsunade nodded in understanding. "Tell me about this safety net."

"Basically, the preliminary seal implements a fallback in case the first seal is linked too closely to the subject's charka system. The secondary seal will be the actual seal that destroys the first seal by fundamentally strangling the first seal, cutting it off from a charka supply, then nullifying the important points of the first seal. The final seal wraps everything up and prevents the first seal from ever being used again."

The entire room was quiet as both listened to Naruto's thorough explanation of his creation.

Finally, Tsunade blinked in stupefaction before smiling. "Well, I'll say."

Jiraiya smirked proudly at his apprentice. Sure enough, his latest apprentice was definitely going to get his seal mastery. The boy probably would get his jounin status as well; the only thing that he worried about was the boy's genjutsu. Everyone knew of Naruto's weakness when it came to genjutsu; he might be good enough to identify and break out of a genjutsu, but he like hell wasn't good enough to perform a jounin level genjutsu. He mentally sighed.

God, he really needed a drink.

To be continued…

Author's Notes:

I'm finally finished… After weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks… well you get the idea, this chapter has been finally finished. I've changed the entire story. I originally was going to start off where I had stopped, but then my computer just had to crash on me and I had to reformat the entire thing. I lost YEARS of work just from one single crash and I mopped around for weeks. Then just when I thought I was getting back onto my feet, my computer had to crash AGAIN and I had to reformat AGAIN, losing another round of hard work. Right now, I'm still afraid that my computer will crash and I have to survive through another experience of reformatting. I pray to whoever is up there in Heaven and to whatever is holy that my computer won't crash and won't have to need to be reformatted. That last sentence will just probably come back and bite me on the butt when I'm done with everything.

As I said, I'm rewriting the entire plotline of New Future of the Legends. The plotline will essentially stay the same but I'm rewriting the entire thing so that it'll feel a lot better as a story for me. I've really gotten into the use of point of views, and it gives some pretty good insights of what happened during the three years of Naruto's absence. I can't say that I have all the characters out of character, but I try to keep them canon. But the entire point of AU is that it is not canon. All of you can tell that I went by canon for some parts of the chapter, and I'll be using some events in canon but I'll be going by my timeline of AU.

Just about every break in the chapter signaled a change in point of view and if you can't tell whose point of view it is, I'll just say right now. It was: general/omniscient, Naruto without any use of his name, general/omniscient, Sakura, Tsunade, Kakashi, and finally Jiraiya. For a while I was thinking of using Konohamaru's point of view, but decided not to because there was no point of using his point of view save to show how much Naruto has changed. I'll probably do that in another chapter if Konohamaru ever comes back into the picture, which I'm sure he will.

Jounin status is basically when a shinobi is trying out for special jounin, like Anko and Ibiki are special jounin. Technically, Naruto won't be a full-fledged jounin until he takes the Jounin exams, but he'll still be called a jounin since he's a special jounin.

You'll find out about the seal that Naruto made in later chapters. I'll explain more of it when it comes time for Naruto to demonstrate it.

I tried not to make Naruto too super strong, since then there wouldn't be too much conflict in the story. I know it seemed that he is very powerful, but he's only powerful in some aspects. Like how I put in with Jiraiya's point of view, I emphasized Naruto's weakness with genjutsu so he isn't totally strong like I made him out to be in the previous version of New Future of the Legends. Hopefully, that'll make Naruto more bearable for those that don't really like him all too powerful. I'm really trying to balance out Naruto's character and power right now, but it's really hard when I come face to face with my fangirlism.

So, I hope that you liked this brand new revised chapter. It'll probably be in the next month that I put up the next chapter. I'm very busy with school and homework nowadays, and I still have to fix up my website since I haven't done anything with it since last year. I haven't done anything to this longer than I have with my website so I thought for the loyal Naruto fans out there that I'd do this first.

If you have any questions or concerns that you need me to address immediately, just email me or send a review (which I really want by the way) and I'll try to respond as quick as I can. Just to let you know, I'll probably address all questions in my author's notes or in the story itself, so don't worry too much about some things.

This chapter hasn't been beta'd so I'll need someone to beta this chapter as well as the rest of this story for me.

Review!