Naruto's eyes widened as he looked down at his feet. His sandals were in tatters, scraps of leather and cloth scattered on the grass. Flexing his toes slightly in annoyance, Naruto picked up the scraps and looked them over. "Jeez! Either these things are a complete piece of crap or this growth spurt is ridiculous!"

Naruto got to his feet, wincing slightly at how tight his clothes had become. It was starting to become impossible to consider all of this as being a simple act of puberty. Naruto wasn't the sharpest kunai in the arsenal, however, so it was taking him awhile to reach that conclusion. He scratched his head, loosening his headband slightly, only now realizing that it was cutting into his skin. He scratched at his chest, his black undershirt tearing as he did so. "Grrr! This is getting really annoying!"

He unzipped his jacket and threw it angrily to the ground, followed by his black undershirt. That done he was able to take a deeper breath, his chest inflating impressively as he did so. Unfortunately, his pants were still digging into his waist, making the relieved breath shorter than he had hoped for. He was about to rip his pants off when he realized that would mean walking around in his underwear or, worse yet, accidentally damaging both pants and underwear and walking around totally naked! That was definitely not an option!

"Guess I'll just have to deal with it!" Naruto decided, running back in the direction of the village. The once short teen was now considerably taller, his height closing in on the average adult's height! With no frame of reference around, however, Naruto was only vaguely aware of his impressive and still increasing size.

As Naruto made his way back to the village proper, Konohamaru was doing his best to find a hiding place that would fool Naruto. He was starting to get nervous, expecting Naruto to appear at any second and grab him! After checking the door to the warehouse and finding it locked, the energetic boy decided to just hide in a crate sitting outside. It was better than nothing! He moved the top of it to the side, jumping inside without looking, pulling the cover back over the top once he was fully concealed. Thankfully, there was a knothole around Konohamaru's eye sight that he could peer out of. Naruto wouldn't be able to sneak up on him this time! Getting comfortable, he leaned back and closed his eyes, ready to wait as long as necessary for Naruto to either find him, or give up.

Little did he know, he had stirred up some familiar looking green dust, the emerald particles getting sucked up into his body with every breath. There was already a fine dusting of it covering the boy from head to toe, gently glowing before disappearing into his body. There was more to this warehouse than met the eye. Something very strange was going on in the Village Hidden in the Leaves!