The Clone That Got Away: Part 1, Chapter 1

Situated upon the shore of the Land of Fire's southernmost gulf, was a swamp named Kokurin (Kanji: 黒林; English: Black Forest). As a direct result of its proximity to the gulf, it was nigh-impossible to traverse Kokurin without having to either wade through the local waters during the low tide or outright swim in the waters during the high tide. Fortunately for Naruto, overcoming such a nigh-impossibility was literally child's play for a shinobi such as himself. Even though Naruto was not putting the Walk-on-Water Technique to good use at the moment, the whiskered ninja was still managing to remain perfectly dry by leaping along the branches of the pitch black-barked trees that Kokurin was sparsely dotted with.

"That looks just like the clearing that the Pervy Sage told me about," thought Naruto aloud as his branch-to-branch leaping brought him to circular glade within the Kokurin. Strangely enough, the water of the glade wasn't anywhere near as murky as the rest of Kokurin's waters. As a matter of fact, the water was inexplicably clear of any impurities whatsoever. Naruto being Naruto, thought nothing of this as he diagonally hopped down from a branch onto the very center of the glade. "Alrighty then. Let's get this training underway. Kage Bushin no Jutsu! (Kanji: 影分身の術; English: Shadow Clone Technique)"

Much to Naruto's surprise, his performance of his trademark jutsu did not result in the usual poof of white smoke. Instead it resulted in a nuclear explosion's worth of white smoke discharging from his body, diffusing throughout the entirety of the glade, and then over-dramatically rising into a mushroom cloud. Because he was at the very center of it all, Naruto did not get to see any of the spectacle himself. But after the white smoke's ascent caused it to clear out of the glade, Naruto did get to see the spectacle's result. Strangely enough, the result was nothing but a single clone of him.

"W-w-what in the world just happened?" anxiously stammered the clone as it took a few looks around itself. It wasn't long before the clone suddenly changed from looking around itself to looking at its feet. "And what in the world am I doing with my feet?"

"Man. The Pervy Sage wasn't kidding when he said that this place might do some funky stuff to my chakra," half-heartedly chuckled Naruto at his perceived failure, Not long after Naruto did so, he couldn't help but to sheepishly rub the back of his head as he had the embarrassing thought that this screw-up of his had to have been seen by Jiraiya. "He's probably making his way here now, thinking I've blown myself up or something. Wonder if I could manage to sneak back to our camp without the Pervy Sage finding out about my little visit to this place..."

"Whatever it is that I'm doing with my feet, it's kind of ticklish in the annoying itch sort of way. I would like to make it stop; but I have a feeling that doing so would be kind of a BAD idea," mumbled the clone to itself as it continued to obsess over the Walk-on-Water Technique that it was performing through naught but sheer instinct. Naruto sweat-dropped at the clone's strange behavior before he tried to dismiss the clone from reality back into non-existence. Oddly, Naruto's attempt to dismiss the clone ended in an unprecedented failure. "Wonder if this is just what chakra feels like. If so, the feeling is a lot less comfortable than I thought it would be. It's as if I'm squeezing blood from my body like juice from an orange..."

"W-w-what in the world just happened?" stammered Naruto just as anxiously as his clone had stammered not that long ago. With a snarl, Naruto decided to have another go at it. With his hands positioned into the Tiger Seal, Naruto attempted to manually dismiss the clone rather than rely upon his apparently not-so-well-honed ability to automatically dismiss the clone through naught but his iron will to do so. Much to Naruto's now-growing frustration, his attempt at a manual dismissal round up being just as much of a failure as his attempt at an automatic dismissal. "Why isn't this working?"

"Why isn't what working?" asked the "clone" of Naruto as it finally took its eyes off of its feet and took a look at Naruto for its very first time. For quite some time, the "clone" gazed at Naruto with an expression of indifference upon its face. Eventually, the "clone" couldn't help but to blush at the sight of the exasperated Naruto. "It would appear that gender has no effect on my attraction to soft-faced blondes,"

"Who are you calling soft?" snapped Naruto at the "clone" with an indignant stamp of his foot, splashing water about him as he did so. "And why wont you go poofity, poof poof?"

"Poofity, poof poof?" echoed the "clone" in complete disbelief that Naruto was able to stomach uttering such a phrase. The "clone" then adopted a troll face as it begun to theatrically speak in a "Shakespearean" accent. "So you were trying to make me disappear? Well that wasn't very nice of you! At the very least, you could have given me a heads up about my imminent non-existence. That way I could have made peace with my God before I passed on into the great poof beyond the poofity, poof poof of poofiness!"

"Shut up you rogue clone!" angrily growled Naruto as he positioned his hands into the Shadow Clone Seal. Immediately afterward, Naruto conjured a poof of white smoke from which a shadow clone emerged. As soon as it came into existence, the shadow clone tag-teamed with Naruto in order to steadily generate a Rasengan of epic proportions! "I'll just get rid of you the old-fashioned way!"

"So you're really just going to take a brute force approach to this?" inquisitively snorted the "clone" as it perfectly mimicked Naruto's conjuration of shadow clone. The "clone" and its shadow clone then took a kneel before they begun to form their own Rasengan underneath the water's surface of all places. Naruto and his shadow clone questioningly raised an eyebrow at the actions of the "clone", prompting the "clone" to smirk at the duo in presumed triumph. "Did it even occur to you that using the Kage Bushin no Jutsu a second time could have resulted in nothing but the creation of another rogue like myself? Or was your simple mind too consumed by your rage to consider such a thing?"

"I said shut up!" roared Naruto as his shadow clone and him completed their Rasengan, clearly infuriated by the fact that the "clone" had made a good point that he hadn't even come close to thinking of. With just a nod of his head, Naruto dismissed his shadow clone and then raised his Rasengan overhead. "You ready to come back to papa?"

"Are you ready to cry for mama?" snickered the "clone" at its own lame joke as its shadow clone and it completed their Rasengan not long after the completion of Naruto's Rasengan. With a cocky grin, the "clone" dismissed its shadow clone and then raised its Rasengan overhead as well. Just like Naruto's Rasengan, the Rasengan of the "clone" was a rotating sphere of pure chakra. However, unlike Naruto's Rasengan, the Rasengan of the "clone" was situated within the center of a rotating sphere of water as a direct result of having been formed underwater. "Enough talk! Let's do this! Uzushio Rasengan! (Kanji: 渦潮螺旋丸; English: Whirling Tides Spiraling Sphere)"

"You took the words right out of my mouth! Rasengan! (Kanji: 螺旋丸; English: Spiraling Sphere)" agreed Naruto as he burst into a sprint towards his "clone". The "clone" burst into a sprint towards Naruto as well, resulting in it meeting Naruto at the halfway across the distance that had been in-between the two of them. As the both of them let out a battle cry, Naruto and his "clone" thrust their own Rasengan towards the other's Rasengan.

Much to the disappointment of the "clone", the shroud of water around his Rasengan didn't give it the advantage it thought it would. Instead it merely served as a medium for the rotational energies of Naruto and its Rasengans, ultimately resulting in the creation of a waterspout. Said waterspout wasted no time in dragging Naruto and his "clone" towards it by their feet's connection to the water. Before Naruto or his "clone" could so much as attempt to run away, the both of them found themselves being hurtled around-and-around the waterspout. By the time Naruto and the "clone" reached the very top of the waterspout, the waterspout finally exhausted the rotational energy of the Rasengans and quickly fell apart as direct result of having done so.

"Look at what you've gone and done!" screamed Naruto as he and his "clone" begun their LONG drop towards the surface of the glade's water. "This is all your fault!"

"My fault?" furiously yelled the now-appalled "clone" while it was falling alongside Naruto. "You're the one who started all of this! This is YOUR fault!"

"Did not! You started this by not going poof!"

"Oh I'm sorry for not DYING! You started this and you know it!"

"DID not!"

"DID too!"

"Did NOT!"

"Did TOO!"

"DID NOT!"

"DID TOO!"

"Shut up!" abruptly heard Naruto and his "clone" an instant before Jiraiya flashed by them, snatching the two of them into their own underneath-the-armpit-carry as he did so. It wasn't long before Jiraiya landed upon the branch of a tree situated beyond the confines of the glade and then dropped Naruto and his "clone" onto the branch with a huff. "Did I not EXPLICITLY tell you to not go snooping around this place because of the odd effects its known for having on people's chakra?"

"I don't remember you saying anything like-" was all Naruto managed to say before his "clone" socked him in the face with enough force to knock him right off of the branch and into the murky water below.

"I win," victoriously cooed the "clone", earning itself a sweat-drop from Jiraiya.

"You seem to be rather...competitive for a shadow clone," said Jiraiya more to himself than to the "clone". The "clone" absentmindedly blinked at Jiraiya for a few short moments before suddenly adopting cutesy eyes that could have put even a kitten or puppy to shame.

"Can you teach me that trick you do with your-"

"Uzushio Rasengan! (Kanji: 渦潮螺旋丸; English: Whirling Tides Spiraling Sphere)" was all the "clone" heard before it suddenly found itself being snatched into a sphere of water by the sphere's strong current and then hurtled around-and-around the Rasengan that was situated within the center of the sphere of water. The next thing the "clone" knew, it was painfully impacting against the hard trunk of one of Kokurin's black trees.

"Okay," groaned the "clone" as it gradually slid down the trunk of the it impacted against in a rather comical manner. "I probably deserved that,"

"Jiraiya Chappu! (Kanji: 自来也チャップ; English: Jiraiya Chop)" scolded Jiraiya with a heavy-handed chop to the crown of Naruto's head. A chop with the power to smash Naruto right through the branch he'd been standing upon into a fall that possessed a velocity that was high enough to bring about the rise of a tidal wave as a result of Naruto's crash into the murky water below. "As I was saying, you're a bit too competitive for a shadow clone. You wouldn't happened to be something different, would you?"

"Can't say for sure, but I doubt that I'm a shadow clone. Or rather, I doubt that I'm a normal shadow clone. I certainly feel and look as if I'm a shadow clone," responded the "clone" as it roused itself from its faze. The "clone" then kicked off of the tree it was sliding down, up onto the branch that was nearest to Jiraiya. "Like I said, I can't say for sure. But one thing I can say is this: Despite that little brawl I just had with Naruto there, I'm a friend.

"So you're a tomodachi? (Kanji: 友達; English: friend) That's all you can say for sure? Everything else is a mystery to you as well?" asked Jiraiya. After receiving a nod as the only response of the "clone", Jiraiya thoughtfully placed a hand upon his chin. "Tomodachi huh? Guess that would make you Uzumaki Tomodachi. No. That's kind of lame. Lacks any ring to it..."

"A ring eh? Let's abbreviate it to Dachi then," offered Dachi with a toothy grin on his face. "Uzumaki Dachi!"