During dinner the night after arriving, where the ninjas were finally introduced to the whining and ungrateful Inari, Tsunami's son, Naruto asked about Uzushiogakure, and where in relation to Wave it was. Kakashi knew it was relatively nearby, but not too much having never gone there before or after it was destroyed, but Tazuna surprisingly knew quite a bit. It was actually made up of several islands to the north-northeast on the far other side of the island, and long ago controlled and protected Wave as one of the islands that were under its control. When asked if he ever knew of any Uzumaki's or ninja of Whirlpool, the elderly bridge builder could only shake his head, though did mention an elderly woman named Emiko who lived on the outskirts of the village who used to tell stories of Whirlpool Village.
Kakashi knew he would probably get chewed out by the Hokage upon their return, but gave Naruto permission to send his clones to try and find that woman and learn a little more about his Clan's history. As long as the real Naruto wasn't venturing into dangerous places, Kakashi was okay with his clones doing all the reconnaissance they wanted in and around Wave and even the surrounding islands as long as they were henged as civilians, or didn't have anything that tied them back to the Leaf. Naruto's instant agreement and excited face, should probably have been more worrisome to the jounin leader of Team 7, but he figured that the clones would disappear if they encountered any trouble, and as long as Konoha wasn't blamed, what did it matter to satisfy his cute genin's curiosity.
After dinner then, Naruto went outside to the clearing he found and trained in the other night, and spawned a large batch of 2000 more clones, all looking completely non-descript that he sent out with orders to find the Ruins or whatever remained of Whirlpool, while he sent a very small group towards the village to ask around and locate this Emiko. He then began his own physical workout that while not as intense as when he trained with the green beasts, was nonetheless very demanding and had him dripping in sweat half way through. By the time he wore himself out, it was quite late at night, but he was still somewhat hyped about his possible discovering of his Clan's history, that he ate some jerky to restore his strength a bit before spawning another large batch of clones to add to the others and returned to the house for bed.
When he woke up the next day, he again had many memories to go through from the day and night before, and was super excited that his clones located Emiko, and would make contact today. He also learned that he found the location that he thought was Zabuza's base, but managed to keep clear of it, as he didn't want to test his stealth and infiltration skills on a jounin level opponent that almost defeated Kakashi. Instead they maintained a perimeter watch on the well hidden base in the hopes of learning more and keeping tabs on the enemy until Kakashi was told and a plan could be put in place.
After another wonderful breakfast, this one much larger than previously, and helping Tsunami with preparations and cleanup, Kakashi took Sakura to the bridge for guard duty and let the boys have the day for training. Naruto actually offered to provide Sasuke a couple hundred clones if he wanted any one-hit opponents to practice with and take a break from the constant training in his water walking, which his teammate happily agreed to. He told Sasuke and his clones he left him, to not waste them on large scale ninjutsu hits, and should probably work on taijutsu as despite limited durability, having the numbers they did would give the Uchiha a nice workout and change of pace.
Leaving a smirking Sasuke, who he could tell wanted to prove his superiority by easily defeating the Naruto clones, the original blond simply laughed at how difficult his clones were going to make Sasuke work and get in a lot of practice in his new Hariken taijutsu style. That his clones would also be able to study and learn Sasuke's own Clan taijutsu style in the process, was simply a bonus that would only help the original improve on his taijutsu and overall experience. While his clones were keeping Sasuke busy, Naruto instantly followed the knowledge his clones provided to first check out that Uzushiogakure Temple and then head to Emiko's house to try and ask her about his Clan's history or anything she could remember of the Uzumaki Clan.
The dilapidated temple was not much to look at, and had been overtaken by the surrounding forests and elements to where it was almost impossible to tell what it originally was, but the Uzushiogakure Spiral carved into the stone plinth above the interior mantle of the only door was clearly visible. Forming some clones to help elevate him up to the carving, Naruto ran his hands over the carved spiral and felt a weird feeling of his chakra seemingly being pulled into the spiral and decided to push some chakra into the carved symbol. Instantly Fuinjutsu script started to appear around the spiral as it kept taking more and more chakra, and Naruto had a brief moment of panic when it didn't instantly stop and he could no longer remove his hand or stop the pull of chakra.
Luckily, he wasn't too low on chakra at the moment and within moments the chakra pull slowed to a stop and he could pull his hand away from a now slowly opening spiral, surprised that the Fuinjutsu took so much chakra so quickly and glad he had chakra in spades. Once the spiral had opened completely, there was an elaborate storage scroll inside the spiral that was also marked with the familiar spiral, and he couldn't believe his luck at finding something from Uzushiogakure. Pulling the storage scroll out, the carved spiral instantly closed back up, and Naruto could only look on in shock at the amazing find and couldn't wait to explore what it contained.
Feeding another large chunk of chakra to the Fuinjutsu script on the storage scroll, he was glad his chakra was so abundant as he didn't think many of his contemporaries would have had enough for even one of the seals, let alone two. When the scroll opened, he was met with a large puff of smoke that cleared to reveal two smaller scrolls, one that contained written notes on Fuinjutsu and the other a technique labelled Uzumaki Adamantine Chakra Chains. Knowing how valuable these were and how precious to him specifically, Naruto quickly re-sealed the two scrolls and looked around the temple for anything else before moving on to his next stop, the elder Emiko.
Following his clones' instructions, he soon found himself outside a small somewhat run down house on the edge of the central village that he was hopeful would lead to some more information about his Clan's history and the history of Whirlpool. After knocking on the door and waiting for some time, an elderly and seemingly blind woman with long grey hair and a stooped appearance answered the door with the lined and weathered face set in a scowl.
"Hello Emiko-san," greeted Naruto respectfully, not wanting to upset the seemingly already glaring older woman, "Tazuna-san the bridge builder said that you might be able to tell me some stories of Uzushiogakure and the Uzumaki Clan?"
"Why would I do that?" she snapped rather harshly, giving Naruto a slow glance over where he couldn't actually tell if she was seeing him at all.
"I recently learned that my mother was Kushina Uzumaki of Uzushiogakure," started naruto quietly, "she settled in Konoha to study under her Aunt Mito Uzumaki, the wife of our First Hokage."
Naruto didn't know why he explained as much as he did so freely, but something about the older woman made him be completely honest and forthcoming, and her almost inaudible gasp and the increase in her attention on him as he spoke made him think he did right. All of a sudden a strong pulse of chakra swept out from Emiko and blanketed the area around them for some seconds before the feeling went away, and a seemingly younger looking older woman was in the elderly lady's place. She still had long grey hair and aged wrinkles, but now carried herself much straighter and with much greater vigor than before as she quickly ushered Naruto into her house, closed the door and sent another much smaller pulse of chakra through an elaborate set of seals that lit up every square inch of the cabin's interior walls for a moment before fading.
"So, you are Kushina's son?" she asked as her now much more alert eyes took in his face, "a ninja of Konoha?"
"Dattebayo," answered Naruto happily knowing she at least knew some information on his Clan, causing Emiko to let out another barely audible gasp and unknowingly solidifying his claim with the verbal tick that was often found among Uzumaki Clan members.
"Your father must have been incredibly strong to have trumped the red hair of the Uzumaki Clan," she responded with a nostalgic look on her face as she continued to study the young blond. "Though there is very little doubt in my mind after hearing you and feeling your chakra."
"My chakra?" asked Naruto curiously.
"Uzumaki's have very dense and vigorous chakra, though your's is greater than most, and has something else in it too," she spoke evenly as she continued studying the young blonde's face, and noticed his slight flinch at the end of her statement and wondered what that was until she remembered why Kushina was sent to Konoha in the first place, and wondered if her son now was the container of the Kyuubi as his mother was before him. "It's one of the reasons Uzumaki were so sought after ...their dense and vigorous chakra was some of the only ones that could handle the Bijuu."
"Oh," whispered Naruto as he realized what Emiko was talking about, and was rather self-conscious about his status as a jinkurichi.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of my boy," she replied to his seeming depression at the mention of his incredible burden. "What you do is very important, an incredible burden, and enormous responsibility ...but remember, it is you who control your actions, and you who decide how to deal with the burden you've been given."
Naruto ended up spending over an hour with Emiko, learning all about her stories as a young girl in Uzushiogakure, as a cousin to the Uzumaki Clan, she inherited some of their longevity and sensing talents but was never allowed to study their Family Fuinjutsu, and never became a ninja herself. She worked as a young school teacher, pre-Academy age and helped train sensors for the village she was born and raised in. When it fell, she along with hundreds of others, all fled Uzushiogakure for parts unknown, settling all over the Elemental Nations and hiding their link to Whirlpool to avoid their many enemies.
She wasn't a huge fan of Konoha, as their closest ally who wasn't there to help when they were invaded by Earth, Lightning, and Water Countries simultaneously in fear of their growing power and control of Fuinjutsu, but had gotten over her grudge in the years since as she realized that it wasn't specifically Konoha's fault. She told Naruto several stories of Uzumaki Clan members she knew, and described the Adamantine Sealing Chains after Naruto mentioned them in order to try and learn a bit more about them if he was going to try and learn the technique himself. She also showed him on a map, exactly where the old village was located, and told him she had never ventured back out of fear of discovery and was content with the life she lived now.
Naruto was understandably pretty emotional and worked up after the storytelling, wondering why she wouldn't want to reconnect with her past, but realized as a non-combatant, she probably didn't see much point in returning as there wasn't much she could do about it. He thanked her gratefully for her time and stories, pleased to have at least met and talked with her about Uzushiogakure, and promised to keep her secret past from everyone. In return, she thanked him for seeking her out, and was glad to get to know and talk with him, encouraged that the Uzumaki Clan wasn't completely gone from the world, and gave him a small scroll describing her sensing abilities and how she developed and taught them to others, hoping he would have some use for it in the future.
By the time he returned to his little training clearing near Tazuna's house, it was well past lunchtime, and he cooked a pair of rabbits over a fire pit as he was worn out emotionally and needed some food to keep training. He then spawned another large batch of 2000 clones and had them all start working on the new leaf spinning exercise Kakashi gave them, using the next few hours until the work day was done to get in as much training as he could. By the time dinner was approaching and he knew Tazuna, Sakura, and Kakashi would be returning back to the house, he left those clones still working on the spinning leaf, to return just in time to see a battered and exhausted Sasuke emerging from the clearing he was using to train.
His smirk was hard to conceal as Sasuke saw him and gave him a glare at the difficult time he had fighting the seemingly countless Naruto clones, who were all much better than he had thought. Naruto was pleased with their progress in the Hariken style, and the experience he gained fighting his teammate, who was always the best of his class in taijutsu and who had only gotten better since becoming genin. That 250 of his clones could hold their own against him in a taijutsu only battle was a pretty impressive feat, one he was glad to exploit in order to train in his new taijutsu style and continue to get better, and prove to Sasuke that he wasn't the dead weight he often thought the dark haired boy felt.
Dinner was another amazing meal, provided by Tsunami and a Naruto clone who was happily learning everything he could from the amazing chef, and they were all filled in on another day building the bridge. After dinner, Naruto asked to speak with Kakashi, who decided to have the whole team meet together to learn and talk about whatever issue was brought up. They went out onto the porch, and Kakashi turned towards his young blonde genin and asked him what news he had.
"My clones have located Zabuza's base," spoke Naruto plainly, not boasting as he may have months ago, "and Gato's Compound."
"We can take the fight directly to them?" spoke Sasuke with excitement, as he thought about getting another chance to fight and prove himself.
"Not yet," responded Kakashi with a look to his three students, "I am not yet recovered completely ...and even injured Zabuza is much too tough for the three of you."
"I have clones watching both bases," continued Naruto into the silence after Kakashi's statement, "they can continue to monitor and learn more about them, to see if we can find a way to end this conflict on our own terms, and not just defend against the unknown."
"I think watching and learning more about both groups is a great start," answered Kakashi with a nod to Naruto, "how goes the training I gave you all?"
"I'm still working on chakra control," responded Naruto easily, as neither of his teammates immediately spoke up.
"Water walking is coming along," grunted out Sasuke.
"I've been studying all the medical texts you gave me," continued Sakura with a glance to her team, somewhat insecure about her contribution versus that of her teammates and didn't really want to add anything unless she was sure not to make herself look bad to Sasuke.
"Good," answered Kakashi after giving all three genin a lingering look, "I want each of you to make some progress before we take any offensive action, and I'll need to scout out the bases myself before we do anything. Now, I'm going to rest ...don't stay out training too late," he finished with a long look at Naruto who just smiled sheepishly.
While Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura all headed inside to rest or study or whatever, Naruto high-tailed it to his customary clearing and got out all three of his recently acquired scrolls. He took turns opening them all, and holding them in his hands as he spawned over 500 clones each with a cloned copy of their individual scroll to learn and study from. After doing this for the Uzumaki Fuinjutsu scroll, the Uzumaki Adamantine Sealing Chains scroll, and Emiko's Sensing Skills scroll, he still had enough chakra to spawn another 500 clones that he spent the next few hours working with on updating and incorporating different taijutsu moves they learned over the course of training with Sasuke.
There were many areas of improvement for some of the existing Hariken moves he knew, and Sasuke also indirectly pointed out some of the deficiencies in his forms and certain move combinations while tearing through his clones. He went back over everything he could from the original Hariken scroll Guy had put together for him, and made a few corrections that worked better with his style of fighting. He incorporated more devastating offensive moves that sacrificed some defense as he usually fought among teams of clones who he could easily sacrifice in order to get in a better quality attack, and leaving his opponent more vulnerable to follow up attacks from other clones.
He was basically evolving a single person fighting style into a style that worked better in group fighting, as he had clones to spare for defense and disrupting an opponent and could do things that most single people couldn't unless insanely fast. He was also adding and adapting some of the moves he saw from Sasuke that he thought would fit his own style as well, expanding on his basic style and hoping to make it uniquely his own. It was a few hours later when Naruto was about ready to turn in, when a particularly violent memory flashback from one of his clones hit him like a punch to the gut.
A pair of his clones had witnessed a waitress at one of the few open bars in the town that was often frequented by Gato's thugs, being raped in an alley and instantly charged in to attack the pair of men performing such a horrible act. The knife of one of the attackers that they had used to frighten and intimidate the poor girl got a lucky hit on one of the clones in the struggle causing him to vanish in a puff of smoke. Luckily, there were other clones nearby that quickly came and overwhelmed the two monsters and freed the terrified girl.
Naruto knew he couldn't leave the two now unconscious rapists in the alley, and didn't know exactly how to cover up their disappearance so he sent out the order for his clones to assume their identity. He then had them hide the two now tied up scumbags and bring them to an abandoned building where he had clones work on interrogating and learning a bit more about them both, to better assume their identities. It wasn't an ideal situation, but there was no way he was letting the two escape justice, and this might also help get him some clones on the inside of Gato's organization.
The original Naruto decided to send out another batch of clones before returning to Tazuna's house to sleep, thinking about whether or not he wanted to try and create a blood clone that could stay in the area to help the people of Wave even after they were gone. He would think on that while also reviewing the progress made by his clones into the three new scrolls he acquired, happy with everything he was achieving and learning that better connected him to his Clan and mother. He returned to his room at Tazuna's, trying not to disturb Kakashi and Sasuke too much, though he knew they both noticed his arrival, and laid down to sleep still thinking about everything he and his clones were working on.
When he woke up the next morning, again Naruto spent some time going through the memories he acquired from the thousands of clones he still had out and around Wave including those interrogating Gato's thug rapists. He also had several hundred memories of his clones trying and failing to get across and through the violent whirlpools that surrounded the location of the former Uzushiogakure, and realised how the area got its name. Luckily, not all the clones perished in the attempt and several dozen made it across the treacherous sea to reach the mainland near where Emiko said the original village once stood.
Other memories included several hundred attempts at learning Emiko's sensing skill so far unsuccessfully, reading and practicing the beginnings of the Uzumaki Fuinjutsu journal not too unlike the one he had from Mito Uzumaki, and countless attempts to recreate the Uzumaki Adamantine Sealing Chains. He felt like he was closest to getting the chains, since he didn't appear to have the prerequisite skill set to become a sensor in Emiko's style, and Uzumaki Fuinjutsu was on a whole other level of difficulty from the basics which he was still working on. The Chains had an element of Fuinjutsu to them as well, but were a much more internal and intrinsic application to each user as per the notes he had, and felt it would be the most likely to understand and accomplish if he dedicated more time and clones to it.
Getting up and getting started on his day, included helping Tsunami set the table and prepare breakfast for everyone, which included ignoring the whiny Inari who constantly tried to tell them to give up as Gato was unbeatable. Naruto had heard it enough times that he was past trying to convince the kid that ninja operated on a level that far exceeded any civilian, but was tired of wasting his breath and dealing with the spoiled kid that had so much more than Naruto himself ever did, or that most of the people of Wave had currently. Instead he talked with everyone else, and made plans to continue his training, and today was going to have his clones direct a Kakashi shadow clone to both Gato's Compound and Zabuza's base to scout them out himself.
As it was Sasuke's day to guard the bridge with Kakashi, they left shortly after breakfast with Tazuna, after the silver haired jounin created a shadow clone that Naruto would take to scout out the two bases. The young blond also used that time to fill Kakashi's clone in on his little adventure the night before regarding his clones that stopped a woman being raped, and subsequently infiltrated Gato's thugs. Kakashi wasn't too pleased that Naruto went ahead with the plan without consulting him first, but recognized that there weren't too many other options and offered to go visit the prisoners after their scouting to take care of them for the younger ninja.
Gato's headquarters were fairly straight forward, and Kakashi was able to within minutes find out everything he needed to infiltrate the area, and probably could have done just that as a clone and walked away without a scratch; it was that pathetically guarded. Zabuza's base however, was a different story, and Kakashi's clone spent an hour testing several possible points of entry and decided that they would continue to play the waiting game to see if an opportunity presented itself for them to make a move. Then Kakashi's clone went to the abandoned house Naruto kept the two rapists tied up in, and delivered shinobi justice after a brief interrogation making sure Naruto's infiltrating clones had all the relevant information to succeed before killing the pair and cleaning up any presence they left behind.
Kakashi's clone then returned to the original Naruto's clearing, where he watched unnoticed for several minutes as his young blonde student had several groups of clones all training at once on a pretty diverse number of skills. He was mostly interested though, in the large group that was seemingly refining and practicing taijutsu, as he recognized both the Hariken style of Kushina, as well as elements of Sasuke's Uchiha Interceptor style incorporated together. It took a minute for him to see what Naruto was doing, incorporating more variety into the Hariken style, and finding unique ways to utilize the massive amounts of clones he employed to set up attacks and supplement his lack of speed with more clones working in tandem and coordinating their tactics.
He was honestly really impressed with what he was watching, and wondered if maybe having him go to Guy for some remedial taijutsu help was the best decision he ever made in Naruto's development. Knowing the Uchiha interceptor style, even better than the lone Uchiha on their team, Kakashi soon interrupted the practice to show Naruto a few other variations and moves of the style he thought would fit well with what he was trying to accomplish before telling him to continue the good work and dispelling. Naruto gladly took his sensei's suggestions, and was soon adding even more to his newly developing style with a large grin on his face at how well it was coming together.
For the rest of the morning, through lunch, and into the late afternoon, Naruto constantly kept spawning more clones and having them work with him on taijutsu, and when he wore himself out physically, he would join the group continuing to work on the Adamantine Sealing Chains. Just before dinner time, after feeling like he was getting close, but having trouble getting the technique to work, he had a breakthrough born out of his frustration and exhaustion. He threw his hands out and yelled at not seeming to get past the last step, and was completely unprepared when a thick golden colored chain appearing to be completely made of chakra seemingly erupted out of his chest.
The glowing golden chain only travelled about six feet from his chest and within seconds had broken down into little modes of light and disappeared, but he had done it, and quickly tried to replicate the feat. It took him a few more minutes until he was able to replicate that first success, and watched as a chain about the thickness of his wrist seemingly grew out of the center of his chest for about six feet before it started losing cohesiveness and began slowly disappearing into light. For the next ten minutes he replicated the chain several times, each time getting it to reach out and last a little longer than the previous attempt, and couldn't stop the happy smile that came to his face.
With his beginning success, he charged all the remaining clones to continue practicing bringing out the chains and trying to figure out how to make them last longer and grow. He then returned to Tazuna's house just as the bridge builder, Kakashi, and Sasuke were arriving after the long work day and joined them all at the table. During dinner, Kakashi brought up the question on how they wanted to proceed, as after scouting Gato's headquarters, was fairly confident that his genin could single-handedly bring down his operation and eliminate the businessman as it wasn't much different than a relatively skilled group of bandits.
Tazuna instantly put in a request for them to take out Gato, and save the people of Wave, but Kakashi also raised the point of the missing nin he had employed and how they would need to be accounted for. Naruto put forth the suggestion that they try to pay off Zabuza and his crew with money recovered from Gato, thinking the businessman had plenty for that and still leave the people of Wave better off than they were currently with the rest. Sakura actually agreed with his suggestion, until Sasuke complained that they should be taking out Zabuza as well, and shifted her approval to her crush's idea even if it terrified her.
Kakashi was really starting to wonder if he shouldn't put in a recommendation to have Sakura removed from the ranks of ninja as she just didn't have the proper mindset for it and completely just did whatever she thought Sasuke wanted. He could then send Sasuke to T & I for therapy and re-conditioning as he was a psychopathic loose cannon and flight risk, that only thought about his own revenge and never worked well within the team. He would gladly take Naruto as his apprentice, the blonde had shown he was willing to put in the hard work and learn to get better without any of the ridiculous hangups he had to deal with in regards to the other two, and would make him into a first rate shinobi of the Leaf.
He genuinely liked Naruto's suggestion too, as eliminating Gato would solve their current mission to protect Tazuna. Using the businessman's own money to pay off Zabuza and any other missing nin in Gato's employ, would eliminate any threat facing him or his genin, and any extra money could pay the higher rank mission, and leave plenty for Wave to get back on it's own feet. The more he contemplated it, the better that plan seemed, and decided that they would start the planning of it tomorrow as he still had some kinks to work out, and wanted to be a little more rested and ready to step in if he needed to help or save his young genin.