Throughout the next two days, Naruto continued pushing himself to improve in all areas, but spent the most time working on the sealing chains and sword fighting when he wasn't with the green beasts in the morning. On his last day off before returning to team exercises and practice, he encountered something he wasn't expecting on the way home after his Ichiraku lunch. He saw three younger kids that he knew were supposed to be in the Academy, having met Konohamaru several times over the last few years, and his two common followers, Udon and Moegi.
"Hey boss," spoke the younger Sarutobi to the older boy he had slowly started to admire ever since meeting him inside his grandfather's office several months previously, when he was treated like a normal person, and not just the "honorable grandson" of the Hokage.
"Konohamaru?" asked Naruto, "why aren't you at the Academy?"
"Umm," came the slightly hesitant and nervous looking younger boy, as he glanced around him, "we had the day off?"
"I doubt that," replied Naruto with a stern look at the three young Academy students, causing all of them to fidget guiltily.
"Oh come on boss, the Academy is just so boring," complained Konohamaru, the first to break under Naruto's glare.
Naruto just shook his head at the younger wannabe ninjas, knowing he was the same way after being in the Academy for so long and not thinking what he was learning was anything important compared to learning jutsu. So he told the three that they needed to return to class as everything in the Academy served as important towards their ninja career, and just because they didn't think a lot of it mattered, it really did. Konohamaru though was a stubborn one, and refused to listen or believe Naruto, so he quickly created a pair of shadow clones and each of the three blondes grabbed one of the three Academy students and shunshinned them directly to the front of Iruka's classroom where they all collapsed to their knees trying to catch their breath after the disorienting movement.
"Iruka sensei," greeted Naruto as the two clones vanished, "I found these three outside of class, and tried to remind them of the importance of not missing Academy lessons so they didn't fall behind their peers ...they took exception, so I brought them here myself."
"Thank you Naruto," replied an exasperated Iruka as he looked at the three students with a firm glare of his own, "I was just about to go out looking for them ...we have a geography lesson starting."
"Geography?" complained Konohamaru, "that's useless."
"Oh is it?" answered back Naruto before Iruka could start yelling at one of his most misbehaving students. "So when your mission is to a place called Wave, how do you get there? What areas do you cross? What should you pack for your outfit and camping gear? Are you going to need cold weather or wet weather gear? Are you passing through any hostile territories? What borders do you get close to? Are you willing to risk your life or your teammates because you weren't prepared?"
The entire class was looking at this young blonde ninja in shock at his rapid fire of questions, while Iruka had a slowly growing smile on his face at Naruto's ability to break something down so simply and perfectly for others to understand its importance. Konohamaru was looking at Naruto in disbelief that geography would be that important or applicable to missions they all romanticized about, having not thought about any of the questions Naruto just asked. He slowly realized that he didn't know any of those answers and when he looked at his friends who he already knew would be his future teammates, he knew they didn't have an answer either and didn't want to risk their lives by not knowing something that would be that vital to their survival and the mission success.
"Thank you Naruto," responded Iruka gratefully, as his entire class was now looking at their upcoming geography lesson with a new perspective, and couldn't be prouder of how far his young blonde friend had come, "meet tonight for dinner?"
"You bet Iruka-sensei," answered Naruto with a grin, before he used a shunshin to return to his training, leaving a pleased chunin instructor with an eager class ready to learn about geography and its application related to their ninja careers.
The dinner at Ichiraku's shared by Naruto and Iruka was quite nice, as the two orphans shared a wonderful meal with one of the few people they really considered family, and was a truly enjoyable experience for both of them. Naruto filled Iruka in on the particulars of his recent mission to Wave, that had the chunin instructor terrified at times for the danger team 7 found themselves in, but was proud of them all. They spoke about his training, and what he was working on now, and Iruka even gave him some ideas for further chakra control exercises that Naruto could work on to refine his control even more.
Naruto also mentioned that he was working on a technique that he learned his mother used, and had to explain to Iruka how he found out from Guy-sensei, who his mother was and where she was originally from. He mentioned Uzushiogakure, and Iruka and he discussed the geography of the region and its location compared to Fire Country and Wave, bringing them back to what started their discussion and gave them both a laugh. It was somewhat late when they parted ways after a nice dinner, and Naruto returned to his Facility to continue training, as it was the last of his vacation days, and wanted to make the most of it.
Over the following two weeks, his schedule remained pretty much the same, as he would get up early to do a morning workout with the green beasts, get a late breakfast and go meet up with his team for team and individual training with them and Kakashi. Then lunch, followed by a D-Rank mission or two before being left to his own devices to continue his personal training. This was usually filled with sending a mass of clones home with Sasuke to work with him, while the real Naruto went to his Facility and continued with his personal projects, finding them all coming along very well.
A late dinner usually rounded out the day, followed by more training which usually always included a large match against several hundred clones, having really seen improvement in both Lee and Sasuke after the successive days of fighting off his clones. He would then prepare for bed, and rinse and repeat, causing many of the days to blend together into each other. His progress though was not to be understated, as his sword training, taijutsu, and chakra chains really grew by leaps and bounds over this time as he focused the most on those areas.
He had a meeting one afternoon with the Hokage about the status of his clone-pins, and how happy the old man was with his new secretary Naru, and the ability to receive instant communication from teams out in the field. Their meeting also touched on Naruto's progress infiltrating the various Civilian Council members, and how his businesses were growing so well that several of them had been mentioned during the last meeting between the many Civilian Council members, who found their own businesses suffering and being undercut. Luckily, they hadn't yet planned anything to try and hurt any of his businesses, but the council was going to start looking into these upstart businesses, and see if they couldn't apply a bit of pressure to ensure they fell under their control.
Naruto's various clones had slowly been building cases against every single member of the Civilian Council now, having dirt on many of them including two that he had proof of illegal dealings, but was hoping to find even more. He provided the Hokage with copies of all his notes and files on all of the members, and was given the green light to continue his pursuit of the many well placed civilians, who had been members of the council for quite some time. They believed that several of them had by now overstepped in some fashion, and were hoping to have all the evidence they would need to get many of them in prison for all the damage they had done over the years.
The Third Hokage was quite pleased as he glanced quickly through the files Naruto provided, quite amazed at the depth of research and details that were included and he realized the importance of this task he set that would definitely shake up some of the civilian power brokers. Giving his young surrogate grandson a large smile and nod of his head in appreciation, Naruto smiled in return, glad to have been able to help his Jiji. They even got to spend an evening eating dinner together at Ichiraku's, talking about lighter topics and Naruto even hearing some stories about his mother and Uzushiogakure which he ate up completely.
After that meeting with the Hokage, Naruto stepped up his infiltration and spying on the Civilian Council members, finding more dirt and even crimes committed by several of them that went into their briefs. By the time a month had passed since their mission to Wave, the three members of team 7 were all eager for another C-Rank mission, as they could only do so many chores disguised as D-Rank missions before losing their cool. Unfortunately, Kakashi decided to drop some other news on his genin team that had them beyond excited and a little nervous, and would prevent them from going out on another mission so soon.
"Konoha is hosting the next Chunin Exams," spoke Kakashi after all three of his students ganged up on him to request a C-Rank mission, and he had to find out which they wanted more, "if we go on a C-Rank mission now ...we will miss these exams and have to wait at least another six months before you can take them again."
"Chunin Exams?" asked Sasuke with a fire in his eyes at the thought of possibly being given a higher rank and getting another step closer to his ultimate goal, "sounds fun."
"Definitely," responded Naruto in excitement.
"Um ...do you think we are ready, Kakashi-sensei?" asked a timid Sakura, the only member of the group not to immediately jump at the chance, as she had only recently started taking her training more seriously, and didn't know if she was really ready for the next step.
"Normally, I'd probably say no," began Kakashi, serious for once, causing all three genin to listen to him closely and not interrupt despite the two boys wanting to argue that they were in fact ready, "but ...as the exams are in Konoha ...we will want a show of force, so we will probably send quite a few teams into this exam. And the chance of the next one in six months being somewhere it's "safe" to send genin is pretty low, as I think Iwagakure or Kumogakure would be the next locations."
"So, if we don't take this exam, it will probably be another year until we can take another?" asked Naruto, having realized what Kakashi was saying, and knew the bad blood they had with both Earth and Lightning Countries.
"Yes," responded Kakashi with a nod.
"Then let's crush this exam, and show everyone how Team 7 rules," exclaimed Naruto excitedly, getting a nod from Sasuke, and eventually a timid nod from a still nervous looking Sakura, "don't worry Sakura, we'll help you prepare and keep you safe."
"Okay, then I will leave you with these permission forms," responded Kakashi with his customary eye-smile at his cute little genin who seemed to be finally coming together as a team and looking out for one another, "bring them signed to the Academy one week from today, all the details and instructions you need are on them."
"Yes, we are going to crush these exams, dattebayo," exclaimed an excited Naruto after taking one of the forms.
"I will give you all the week off from missions, but if you want to still get together for team training, I will be at the usual place at the usual time," replied Kakashi, giving all three of his students a fond look before disappearing in a shunshin.
"Well," started Naruto, getting both of his teammates attention before they walked off, "I'm going to continue coming to team training ...I think it's been really helpful for us ...and I think we should all step it up a notch if we are going to be representing Konoha in these exams."
"Hn," grunted Sasuke, in what appeared to be approval, as even he couldn't deny that they were all in fact getting better, even if Sakura's progress was slower than his or Naruto's.
"Okay," nodded Sakura too after a moment of thought, "but I'm not entirely sure I'm ready for these exams."
"Don't worry Sakura," responded Naruto with his usual confidence, "I can help you train a bit if you want some clones ...Sasuke has sure been using them to refine his own techniques."
"Okay," she replied with a look to both Sasuke to see if he would supply help or argue Naruto's claim, and afterwards gave her blond teammate a smile, "thanks Naruto."
With that, they made plans to return to their own training, with Naruto sending a large batch of clones home with Sasuke to work with, and leaving a couple dozen in their team training ground for Sakura to utilize as he went back to the Facility. His chakra chains were finally starting to become combat ready, and he wanted to push himself and ensure they were a useful addition to his fighting style as the chunin exams were the perfect place to re-introduce them to the world. He knew he had his work cut out for him though, if he wanted to incorporate them into his taijutsu style seamlessly, as they had the tendency to obliterate his nearby clones when they hit, and caused other clones to dispel from the chakra drain at inopportune times.
Over the next few days, Naruto started noticing more foreign people and ninjas arriving in Konoha, and made sure his thousands of civilian clones running around the village were keeping an eye out on them when they encountered someone. He continued to push his investigation of the Civilian Council Members, finding a few of them to be very chummy with several of the foreign visitors, and making sure to monitor those visitors as well, and record as much of their interactions as possible for his files on each member. His daily training hasn't changed much, as he was still doing his mornings with Lee and Guy, meeting with Kakashi and his team, and spending all the rest of his time underground working out his chakra chains.
He kept up the daily large batches of clones to fight with Lee, Sasuke, and now Sakura and noticed a decided increase in all of their spars as they continued to improve and push one another to get better. The other thing that was a bit of a surprise, was the large increase in his sword skills, as the original had stopped working on it so he could focus more on the chakra chains, but continued to improve in leaps and bounds. He eventually discovered the source as being the training Asura was doing with Haku and Zabuza, who had taken him under their wing and really started to work with him on his ability to wield a sword.
It was only two days before the Chunin Exams were about to start, when Naruto's civilian spy clones discovered a large breach of security, when following the restaurant owner, Zumi Rabichen as he met with fellow Civilian Council member Saidu Misoribo. The pair had a backroom meeting with someone who could only be a representative from a village called Sound, as they talked about bringing in 20 new staff members each for their restaurants and delivery service to arrive over the next few weeks in smaller groups. They would need to be added to their employee registers, and filed with the gate guards to allow them access as new transplants for Konoha, and they talked about how to space them out so as not draw any undue attention to them.
Naruto's clones witnessed the handing over of a large amount of money with the instruction to make sure the two elders of the Civilian Council stayed hidden on the day of the Chunin Exam finals, and allowed these new employees free reign to do as they pleased. At almost the same time as that meeting was taking place, another Civilian Council member he had been following for some time, the head of the Merchant Guild, Utane Habishi was plotting with one of his usual contacts from Wind Country. They were planning to sell off his inventory at incredibly reduced rates to the Wind Country merchant before an accident would take place on the day of the Chunin Exams, destroying several of his stores so he could make a large insurance claim against Konoha tripling his profits and trying to bleed out Konoha's coffers.
After copying all the relevant data into their files, Naruto popped a clone asking Naru, the Hokage's secretary if the old man had time for an important meeting regarding the criminal activity of three separate Civilian Council members. He didn't have to wait long until he was standing in front of his Jiji with a hard look on his face, wondering how someone who was supposed to be from here and have a role in their government would turn on the people of Konoha so blatantly. Naruto spent an hour filling in Hiruzen and three other men he called into his office after the first few minutes of Naruto's tale, his Jounin Commander Shikaku Nara, and two higher up members of Konoha's T & I department, Ibiki Morino and Inoichi Yamanaka.
By the end of the hour, they all came to the conclusion that Wind and Sound were planning something for Konoha on the day of the Chunin Exam Finals in a little over a month, and needed to figure out what it was quietly without tipping anyone off. Naruto offered to provide clones to replace the three Konoha Civilian Council Members, as he had them being watched so much that he was confident he could replicate their daily lives relatively easily. Ibiki was the only one against that strategy as he didn't think the young blond genin was up to the task, but he was convinced by the Hokage to give Naruto the chance while he would be allowed to interrogate the criminals himself and keep them hidden until they knew everything they wanted.
With this plan in place, Naruto's clones, with the help of small squads put together by Shikaku Nara, would catch all of these infiltrators they suspected were ninjas in disguise before they could successfully infiltrate the village. For the clothing merchant, Naruto would include some clone-pins with the clothing shipment going to Wind Country to try and find out the details of whatever was being planned from their end, and in return would get to move those clothing shops under the umbrella of his own civilian clothing business when all was said and done. Inoichi was able to confirm through his Clan technique, that Naruto was telling the truth, and witnessed both meetings as if he was with Naruto's clones the whole time, lending a lot of credibility to the blonde's story.
That night, while most of the village was sleeping, Ibiki led a team with Inoichi, Naruto, and one other member of their department who Naruto had met once or twice, Anko Miturashi to apprehend and switch out the three Civilian Council Members with clones. Luckily, they were all older men whose wives had all since passed, so Naruto's clones wouldn't be asked to do anything too weird, and all three switches went off without a hitch if you avoided Anko's suggestive comments. Ibiki promised that he would get any useful information he learned to Naruto, so his clones would be informed of any future plans they needed to know about in playing their parts, and the group split up long before the sunrise.
Naruto tried to put the subterfuge and the plots they uncovered the night before out of his mind on the last full day before the Chunin Exams began, and even decided to take it easy for most of the day. He wanted to be ready for anything, so he begged off Guy and Lee's final workout, and told his team members he was taking the day off to fully recharge his chakra and energy. He spent a few great meals at Ichiraku's, and even ran into Konohamaru again, who actually did have the afternoon off, though he almost caused an international incident in the process.
Konohamaru had inadvertently offended Sakura as he and Naruto were talking and ran into the pink haired genin, and in the ensuing chase ran into a kubiki painted boy from Suna with a puppet on his back. Luckily, even after the boy and his sibling teammates tried to intimidate Team 7 and Konohamaru, they were able to cool down the situation with nobody getting hurt, though Naruto and Sasuke both caught the eye of the youngest member of the foreign team, Gaara who promised to come looking for them during the exams. He was short, with sandy brown hair and the kanji for love tattooed on his forehead, had bags under his eyes from lack of sleep, and gave off a really creepy psychopath vibe that even frightened his own siblings and didn't bode well for the members of Team 7.
Despite that unusual run-in with the foreign team from an allied nation, Naruto couldn't shake everything he had learned about Sound and Wind both trying to sabotage and plan something for Konoha during the exam finals, and told his team to try and stay away from the unbalanced shinobi. Naruto had felt an unusual feeling of his own from deep in his gut when looking at and being around the younger Suna genin, but didn't have anything to compare it to, and just chalked it up to not liking the boy's chakra for whatever reason. He did however, return to his apartment earlier in the night than usual, and made sure that he had everything he could need packed in storage scrolls and ready for whatever they threw at them tomorrow during the Chunin Exams.