Unexpected Teachings

Chapter 1: Redirected Energy

"Hey, old man! I'm bored..."

4 year old Uzumaki Naruto whined as he swung his tiny legs off the sofa in the office the Hokage, or 'Fire Shadow'. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, sighed for the fifth time that morning.

"Naruto," he replied with the barest amount of exasperation creeping into his voice, "there is plenty for you to do in the office."

"No there's not!" Naruto complained. "All there is in here is those papers you keep writing and mouthing bad words to at all the time! There's nothing to do!"

Sarutobi's eye twitched. He had been stuck in the office the entire day because of the influx of paperwork that sprouted up in order to handle the Kyubi Festival, a day of cheer and celebration for the citizens in the village. He would probably be stuck in his desk through the night as well. It would seem contradictory that the Honored and Esteemed Third Hokage would take such a vested interest in a simple, orphaned ward of the village, but Hiruzen Sarutobi does so because Uzumaki Naruto is both the holder of Konoha's greatest military strengths and the target of the villages hate and cruelty.

4 years ago on October 10th, the almighty and feared Kyubi no Yoko attacked the great Village Hidden in the Leaves. The Nine-Tailed Fox laid waste to all shinobi who attempted to stop it, but was successfully subdued by the then-current leader, the Fourth Hokage. A knowledgeable and powerful sealing master, the Fourth sealed away the tailed beast into an infant, losing his own life in the process. That baby grew up to become Uzumaki Naruto, who grew shouldering the hate of the villagers due the Fourth's dying wish that the child be seen as a hero for his sacrifice.

That is why Naruto was currently staying in the office in order to avoid the villagers during the Festival. Emotions tend to run high in gatherings, after all. However, Sarutobi was beginning to regret his decision to house Naruto for the night as Naruto's antics were continually driving him up the wall.

'There really is no end to his energy, huh?' Sarutobi mused as he watched Naruto bound over to the shelves on the far wall overflowing with scrolls.

"Fuu... Fuui.. Fuin-jutsu?" Naruto read aloud from a scroll he had grabbed from the wall. "What's Fuin-jutsu, old man?"

Now Sarutobi was mildly surprised. "You know how to read, Naruto?" He hadn't expected a four-year-old to know how to read.

"Of course I do!" Naruto exclaimed proudly. "I gotta know in order to order the ramen at Ichiraku's!"

"Oh? And who taught you?" Sarutobi was becoming very interested.

"Ayame at the stand, of course! She's always really nice when I go there unlike the people at the orphanage and she makes the best ramen ever and she's always really happy to see me and-"

The Third Hokage held up a hand to calm Naruto and his babbling down. "Slow down there. Couldn't hear all those words with how fast you were speaking.

Naruto shut his mouth.

"While I am not happy that you have been escaping the orphanage to eat ramen-"

Naruto blushed and fidgeted. Hiruzen smiled a little at the innocent boy.

"-but I am very impressed that you learned how to read. Most don't learn until they are five or six years old."

Now Naruto was extremely happy with the Third's praise. He hopped over to the Third's chair and asked, "So what's sealing anyways?"

Sarutobi chuckled. "Well, that is a very good question. Sealing, or Fuin-jutsu, is a lesser-practiced shinobi art that involves writing out formulas that can do different things."

Naruto was impressed. "Wow! So this is like part of what you do as those cool people who jump around and throw fireballs everywhere?"

"Exactly. But sealing isn't well-known because it doesn't have that sort-of bang and flash most shinobi today want. Fuin-jutsu and Gen-jutsu aren't used very much these days because they seem boring."

"Ehhh? But if sealing is so boring, then what's so great about it?"

"Well," Sarutobi pulled out a scroll with a seal on it from his desk. "Sealing can let you store objects inside seemingly normal places or things, like this scroll."

With a brief flare of chakra, a kunai popped out of the scroll, which astounded Naruto.

"In fact, sealing is said to be the shinobi art that can accomplish anything, just as long as the user is imaginative enough," Sarutobi said as he re-sealed the kunai and put the scroll away.

If Naruto was impressed, he was in total awe now. "That is so freakin' cool! I wanna learn how to do anything I can think of!" He exclaimed as he bounced up and down in the Third's lap. How he got there, the Third had no idea.

Sarutobi was a bit overwhelmed. "Maybe I was over-exaggerating that part of sealing. There are limitations to sealing, and even the most ardent of sealing masters couldn't break those hurdles." Naruto had visibly deflated at that, but the thought still fermented in the back of his mind. "That doesn't mean you still can't learn, Naruto. But let me warn you. Sealing is an extraordinarily difficult shinobi art to master. Konoha only has one sealing master currently, and that's not a lot compared to the nin-jutsu and tai-jutsu masters the village has. Are you sure you want to learn?"

Naruto nodded vigorously. The Third Hokage laughed a little at his enthusiasm.

"And you said there was nothing to do, Naruto?" He joked, eyes dancing with mirth. Naruto simply laughed nervously and smiled. Sarutobi got up a pulled three scrolls from his shelves. "Now these are three beginning sealing scrolls, 'The Art of Sealing, I, II, and III', by Jiraiya. You can take these and read them tonight and on your spare time. All I ask is that you not make actual seals, yet, because you can't access your chakra yet."

"Catra, the stuff shinobi use to do awesome things?"

"Yes, chakra, the 'stuff' we use to do 'awesome things,'" the Third answered amusedly. "It is still good to read the theory first and you can get started now." He placed the scrolls in Naruto's small hands and sat back down on his desk. "Now, why don't you start reading those so I can get back to my work? Just ask me when you don't understand any words you come across."

Naruto nodded. He climbed back onto the sofa to start on the first scroll. Before he knew it, hours had passed as he became engrossed in the elegant workings of a most esoteric shinobi art, stopping only to eat. It was sleep that finally got Naruto to stop reading what would undoubted become the driving force in his shinobi career and his life.

As Sarutobi signed proposals and drafted rebuttals well into the wee hours of the morning, he stopped to glance at Naruto, fast asleep with his arms clutched around a beginning sealig scroll. 'Just like his father,' he reminisced as he thought back to an identical blond-haired child with the same fascination and drive towards sealing.

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The next day, the Honored and Venerable Third Hokage walked into his office to challenge the bane of any Kage's duties: paperwork. Often times Sarutobi swore that the paperwork multiplied before his very eyes like rabbits in heat.

'Honored and Venerable my ass,' he thought sourly. 'Damn paperwork is going do me in before any halfway competent shinobi will.' Sarutobi was so far into his grumbling that he had completely ignored Naruto's attempts to catch his attention.

"...ld man? Old man! Hey!"

"...Hmm? Oh, Naruto. Why are you still here?"

"I fell asleep here after reading all this amazing stuff about sealing."

'Right. I left Naruto in the office. You really are becoming an old man, Hiruzen, if you keep forgetting about Naruto, of all things.' Sarutobi cleared his throat. "Anyways, Naruto. You should be back at the orphanage now. The caretakers there will be worried about you."

"Nah, they won't mind. They didn't care the other times I left to play," Naruto replied nonchalantly, but one could see the faintest twinge of sadness behind the ever-present grin he wore, and Sarutobi noticed this too. He eyed the short blond with a sad smile.

"Well then, Naruto. I don't suppose you'd mind to stay in here today, would you then?"

Naruto immediately perked up. "Would I?" He exclaimed. "Of course I would! Thanks so much, Gramps!" He finished his declaration with a spontaneous hug, one that Hiruzen Sarutobi, pseudo-grandfather to Naruto Uzumaki, gladly returned.

"I suppose we can both get back to our own work then, Naruto?" He asked. "Sealing seems have taken your interest quite well."

"Uh huh." Naruto nodded. "But I'm going to need some help with something."

"What is it?"

"Well, I know you're busy and all, but could you help me with my handwriting? The scroll said that good handwriting was like finishing half the work for a good seal, and that bad writing could make wrong seals that could blow up in my face, and I don't wanna have things blow up in my face cuz I really like my face and-"

Sarutobi gave Naruto a pointed look, who ceased speaking a mile-a-minute. "I'm afraid I can't help you with that, Naruto. I'm going to be busy all day with this paperwork. All bloody day long." He grumbled out the last part.

"Aw," Naruto pouted. "But come on Gramps. Can't your ninja tricks help you with this at all?"

"I'm afraid shinobi experience can't help me with this blasted paperwork, unless..." Sarutobi trailed off, reflecting back on coversations with a blond-haired Hokage who always seemed to have time off from paperwork.

"I guess I'm just everywhere, Hiruzen! Shinobis can do that you know!" The Fourth replied cheekily to Sarutobi's pleas for the solution to paperwork.

'Shinobis can be everywhere? I can't possibly think of anything except-' "IT WAS THAT SIMPLE?!" Sarutobi yelled out of a pure epiphany he wished he had his first year in the Hokage seat. He started to bang his head on the desk repeatedly. "Stupid, stupid, stupid..." He muttered.

Naruto giggled. "Gramps is funny when he gone bonkers."

"Kage bunshin no Jutsu," Sarutobi tiredly let out as a solid clone of his materialized with a tangible *poof* and took his seat on the desk to write his paperwork. The real Hiruzen walked over to Naruto to assist him in his sealing endeavors. "Now," he asked Naruto, composure somewhat regained, "what's this about handwriting you were talking about?"

The rest of the day was filled with good-natured laughter and studious learning as Hiruzen Sarutobi taught and directed Naruto on the basis of calligraphy, one of the keystones to one of the most inventive shinobi arts. Unknowingly, Sarutobi was guiding Naruto onto a shinobi path that would lead Naruto onto greater discoveries and pathways that would shape him to become the shinobi the legends would wax about centuries after his death.