Hello everyone! It has been a while since I tried a new story but believe me I've tried writing at least five new ones but none of them satisfied me and I just dropped them after trying a couple of unsatisfying chapters.
As usual I tend to make my stories centered on the main character who in this case is Naruto but this time I'm taking a different approach, our blond hero has another set of abilities that make him skilled but not really that powerful.
I've written two more chapters by the moment I'm publishing this so if there are comments I'll post them shortly, as I've already said in other stories I don't like to feel as if I was talking to myself.
Also remember English is not my born language and I'm already doing my best, if you have some constructive criticism I'm willing to read it and try to apply it but you've been warned my English is probably not very good.
Chapter 1 – A curious child
It was a normal day in the leaf village, the sun warmed the streets and everyone seemed to be minding their own business, but there was a single individual to whom normal was far from perfect, that person was none other than Naruto Uzumaki, the village's Jinchuuriki, most people treated him with scorn and indifference so a couple years ago he had decided to ignore them, living in solitude was better than living in fear and pain.
Obviously not everything was as bad as it sounded, he had a small apartment but it was all for himself, the kind old man who ruled the village visited him from time to time giving some money and food to fulfill his needs, the owners of a ramen stand were pretty nice to him and as many people were just waiting for a chance to shout at him, he had to learn to be sneaky and stealthy if he wanted to get something, he didn't stole things per se…but he used to take things the people discarded…when they weren't looking.
You could ask, why a six years old child would take things he found on the streets, well that was after he learnt the value of building things he wanted…
Everything started when he was at the orphanage, he saw that all the other kids had multiple toys but he always seemed to arrive too late because the woman giving them away always told him she had no toy left for him, years later when he was living on his own, he saw other kids playing with plush toys, with carriages and dolls yet he had none…he tried saving some of the money the old man gave him but the store owners usually told him he didn't have enough for the toys he wanted or the other times they just forbid him from entering their stores.
One day he saw some discarded pieces of wood in a corner, he saw some other people putting garbage next to it so he assumed it was a place where people placed discarded things they didn't need any more and tried to take the wood, but a man walking close shouted him accusing him of stealing things that weren't his, Naruto just panicked and ran away but later that night he returned and this time there was absolutely no one around so he just took all the wood he saw, along with a couple of dented knives and some carton boxes he used to store his loot.
He worked during all night until he could make something square with the wood and some rounded pieces of carton, then he used the glue and assembled something that resembled a very rough chariot but it was the product of his own effort which made him feel very accomplished before taking some very deserved sleep.
The other kids and some of the parents were surprised when they saw little Naruto playing with something that obviously hand-made but made him very happy, he played with the same chariot for a complete week at the park without paying any mind to the other children, instead of looking at them every ten minutes as he usually did trying to find a way to approach them without the interference of their parents.
Another day when he wasn't seen by the families that frequented that playing ground the kids wondered where he was until he arrived two days later with a new chariot, it was more detailed and he must have picked some paint because both were painted, one was red and yellow with the colors of the fire nation while the other was in different shades of blue, he stood there playing with his toys for almost two weeks until the first incident happened.
The other kids usually were aware of Naruto's presence but their parents often told them to not mix with him or interact with the boy, not matter how many times the more friendly asked their parents why he was all alone, but unfortunately there were some kids a lot less friendly and one of them decided Naruto was probably a jerk because instead of paying attention to them he spent all his time playing with ugly and cheap things so he decided to intervene, he started running in random directions until he finally ran towards Naruto, the blond boy was not aware of his surroundings until he felt movement on his field of vision and then a moving figure came close to him, stepping on one of his chariots and throwing the other to the side before crashing with him "Don't get in the way you brat!" shouted the bully when trying to regain his foot.
All the people around stopped what they were doing to look in Naruto's direction, all the adults in the surroundings were aware of what happened because the bully's intentions were very clear, in that moment the blond boy who was more than a year younger that the other boy moved tackling the bully to the ground holding his neck with his right hand, he was feeling a lot of anger because he had spent a lot of time an effort to build his toys, for a moment he thought in hurting him but then he returned to his rational state and just threw some sand at his eyes before gather his toys or what remained of them and went walking slowly to his home.
Some weeks ago Naruto had learnt the value of your own work, but today he gained other two important lessons:
There were some people who were mean no matter if you did nothing to them.
His anger was dangerous so he needed to avoid that feeling if he didn't want to hurt anyone.
From that day on Naruto never returned to the park, in the next few days he would gather more materials to create a ladder to reach the roof of his building and spend all the afternoons playing there.
As it was expected, the Hokage found about this development and grew worried when three days later Naruto hadn't returned to the playground so he went to visit the resident Jinchuuriki, he knocked the door for a while until Naruto heard the noise and shouted from the roof, the Hokage just jumped and gave him some company, he asked about the incident where the other boy destroyed his toy but Naruto just answered he didn't want to deal with that mean boy so he preferred to stay home away from mean people. The Hokage knew isolation was not a natural response for a six years old child but Naruto was anything but normal and from what he heard the blond was aware of his initial reaction and desisted from his initial intention to choose a harmless one, the Uzumaki did not spoke about the incident or his feelings about it, instead he spent a long time explaining about the things he had done with his own hands and the process undergone each of them.
Sarutobi realized Naruto had found something he was good at, something he could put an effort and be rewarded for that so he decided he would give the boy the tools to excel at this hobby he had found. At the end of that day the Hokage left Naruto's department with mixed feelings on one hand he was worried for his isolation but on the other hand he was glad the boy had found something that made him happy so he decided to support him.
During the next morning Naruto heard someone knock on his door again, which was very unusual, so he went to open this time and found a masked ninja with two large boxes "The Hokage send these things for you, and said he hoped for you to be happy with the path you decided to take" informed the ANBU ninja before giving him the two packages.
Naruto was happy and curious with this gesture so he opened the first box and saw many pieces of wood in different shapes, some saws, nails and different building tools, this was a great gift because it would improve the quality of all the things the blond made from this day on, then he went to the other box and saw the inside…to find many books, at first he thought books were boring but when he saw their covers "How to build toys" "How to build furniture" "How to create your own garden" all the books were about creation of useful things so the boy decided he would give them a chance because it could allow him to have some nicer things.
…..
..
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Time passed flowing around everyone and now we find an eight years old Naruto entering the ninja academy, it would be four years of studying, learning and getting the skills to survive in the harsh world they lived in, the blond was used to be on his own so he arrived into the class, got into the first row to be able of paying attention and not be disturbed by other people, within half an hour the classroom was filled with many kids he remembered vaguely from his days at the playground, fortunately there was no trace of the bully that antagonized him.
The other kids, being some of the clan heirs, also remembered the blond boy that always played by himself at the park, they had long forgotten the warning their parents gave them about him so instead of rejection now there was only curiosity towards the kid.
Naruto carried his things in a handmade backpack composed of wood and leather, he also had a wood box to store his lunch and his pencils, he listened carefully to what the teacher was saying and the moment he didn't understood something he raised his hand to ask but the teacher just looked at him with disdain and ignored him, the Uzumaki just looked at his eyes and lowered his hand, he already knew some people was just mean and there was no use in wasting your time with them, he would try to find the answers he needed from books or from the old man Hokage who had said many times before entering the academy his door was open in case he needed help.
Days passed without anything out of the ordinary, the blond went to the academy every day, listened a man talk the whole morning, ate his lunch in a roof alone and then practiced whatever they had prepared for the afternoon, that was until the teacher explained the many uses of chakra and one of them was to make more resistant tools and sharper weapon edges.
The next day Naruto was absent from the academy, the teacher was surprised when the blond did not report because it was his first day of absence but he thanked to the gods for not having to endure his presence at the front of his class that day, the weird thing came the next day when he missed the class again and the same happened the next day.
At the end of the first month the chunin teacher presented the first-year students' grades to the Hokage who liked to see how the new youngsters were doing in case someone seemed to be unfit to become a ninja or needed some special help "Why Naruto's space is blank?" questioned the village leader fearing some foul play against his protegee.
"I had forgotten to inform you Lord Hokage, but the brat had skipped school for the last eight days" replied the chunin looking at the ground, Sarutobi looked at him but the man was hiding his face in shame, there were specific rules that said if a student missed three days or more without any notification he had to inform the Hokage or his assistant to find what was happening with the student, especially during the first year when they were exploring their areas of interest.
"I'll only let his one pass but if you fail to be fair with Naruto once more, you'll be doing D-rank missions until he becomes a genin" warned the Hokage, before motioning one of his bodyguards "Have a tracking team at the ready in case it's necessary" said before departing from his office, he needed to check on Naruto to at least see he was doing okay.
The old man moved at high speeds to reach Naruto's building, he jumped to the last floor and gave an extra high jump to see if he was on the roof but he wasn't there so he opted to knock the door and after waiting a couple of minutes he heard some movement on the inside, then after the sound of steps a very sleepy Naruto opened the door "Hi old man…what are you doing here?" asked the blond
Hiruzen asked if he could pass because he wanted to talk with the boy and he invited him inside "Naruto, your teacher says you had missed many days at the academy, can you tell me the reason for that?" questioned the Hokage this time.
Naruto looked at the ground for a moment and then took a long sigh "You got me…I skipped classes because the teacher told us about chakra on one of his lectures and I had to try it, you know if it could make tools more resistant and edges sharper it could help me build more complex things so that night I tried the exercise" and he took a book on his table explaining the basics of chakra in terms of physical and spiritual energies and how to unlock that for the first time, at this point Sarutobi was very interested because it seemed Naruto had been able to awaken his chakra just with the book's instructions which meant he was very skilled or had tons of chakra, but considering who his parents were it could be both "When I unlocked my chakra I experienced an amazing feeling, my body felt stronger so I used some saws and the wood felt like butter, I could even cut pieces of metal so I was doing some adjustments to my clothes" explained the blond before going to his room and come back with a new outfit. The Hokage had seen him wear those orange clothes but supposed he just wanted to draw attention, then the Uzumaki explained those were the only one he could buy so he made some dye from plants following the gardening book instructions and dyed them into a black outfit with baggy pants and a short-sleeved t-shirt, then he showed the old man some metal guard he was finishing with the leaf symbol for his shoulders and gloves "I had to practice really hard to get the leaf symbol right on those but the result was worth it" said an accomplished Naruto, the Hokage had expected many things but not this so he was kind of disarmed there, he decided to just give the boy a hug.
"I'm quite proud of you my boy, your skills had improved a lot" stated the village leader watching his progress "having said that, please try to don't miss your classes or you could miss an important piece of knowledge for your future or even your building skills, you can tell your teacher I allowed you to have a free afternoon per week but that's all I can give you without stunting your growth" concluded the Hokage getting a smile and a nod from the blond.
"Deal" replied Naruto happy with all that development.
The next day Naruto would return to the academy, when the teacher was checking who was present and who didn't he looked around to see a girl behind his seat "Pssst hey, could you tell me what topics I missed?" asked the blond trying to put a smile on his face.
To his bad luck, poor shy Hinata couldn't answer him, she just got red and started babbling some nonsense and this time Naruto was who misjudged someone.
"Oh…never mind, excuse me for disturbing you" apologized Naruto with a new scowl, he saw people talk to each other all the time but most of times he tried it the people wasn't helpful at all. In the end, he thought asking his teacher was no use and the same applied to ask one of his classmates so he just payed extra attention to what the teacher said.
"Well, today I'll not give you any lectures, instead you'll try to unlock your chakra again, those who can do this already should do it again to exercise your ability to draw your chakra while the rest has to reach your inner core and bring your power to the surface" explained the scarred ninja "Naruto, you have missed the previous days but we're trying to unlock everyone's chakra-" Iruka was going to explain the process when the blond interrupted him.
"I can already do that" said Naruto taking a breath and channeling all the chakra he could grab from his inside, the result surprised Iruka and some of the chakra sensitive kids like Shino, Hinata or Akamaru, Naruto's chakra was more potent than Iruka's and those four individuals picked this fact.
"Okay…well done…you should try and practice how quick your chakra answer your call" said a very confused and surprised Iruka, at first he expected the blond to fail miserably for being absent for so long but it seemed he had a ton of chakra, for a moment he considered the idea of accusing him of using the Kyubi's chakra but his presence felt very natural just like his but more potent, there was nothing of the raw malice and killing intent of the Kyubi, he had felt those on the dreadful night of its release so those were feelings he remembered clearly.
Naruto had been using his chakra and channeling it through his tools so without even being aware of it, he was training his chakra control from the very beginning, during the afternoon they went to the back yard and he saw some discarded shuriken in the distance so he made a mental note to not forget about them.
During that night the blond modified his usual route and using a malfunctioning lighter he picked from the streets months ago and fixed he scanned through all the training courses the academy had taking all the tools he found into his pack, in the end he found nine shuriken and three kunai plus a medium amount of ninja wire, the stayed awake very late in the night sharpening the weapons and trying to learn how to use the wire, he overslept but decided he would still go to the academy and arrived after the first break, Iruka looked at him but said nothing and resumed his speech.
With a few days Naruto realized there were little things a chakra reinforced kunai couldn't cut or slice so he was able to make a qualitative jump in his manufacturer skills and for the first time he was able to create a working gear, he had disassembled some watches in the past out of curiosity so he knew how they worked. The first thing he made was a real-size chariot with pedals so he could fit inside and move around the village, his first problem was the direction, his first run was incredible fun until he crashed with a wall, fortunately he wasn't too fast and the chariot didn't suffered almost any damage, the next thing he did was to add a direction system to turn around and rectify his path, this time his fun met no limits, for a whole month Naruto would spend one or two hours moving around the village in his chariot, at first the people thought it was from a rich person but within the days they figured out who was inside and decided to ignore it, the blond was very careful to not hit any person on the streets and only raised his speed in open and empty places.
The third Hokage saw Naruto playing around the village in the chariot but as he didn't do any damage he denied any action taken against him, the blond was participating in the academy and how he used his free time was up to him. Some bold people even demanded for the chariot to be taken from him as he should´ve probably steal it but the Hokage warned that people with imprison them for breaking the law the next time they came up to him with something as unreasonable as that.
Naruto was pretty happy, he was as lonely as the first day but now he spent most of his time working on something so he didn't have much time to reflect on his loneliness, after the chariot he did a canon he filled with anything he found, first he used some scrap metal he picked up from the market district and they were fired through compressed air, but after that he worked on the cylinder to make exclusively for firing kunai, he put a kunai inside pulled a small chain and the weapon was thrown at very high speed, higher than he could muster at his early eight years of life so that was the first weapon the created with his own two hands, so far he felt pretty accomplished.
The other kids in the academy didn't make much of an effort in getting to know Naruto, for most of them he was just the lonely blond boy who always brought things to the school, sometimes were new clothes (with different colors or metal ornaments), other times were action figures or even mysterious boxes, no one knew where he got all that from because it was a very known fact the he was an orphan but not even one kid suspected he could be able to make all that by himself.
The ninja academy, the blond realized, was very simple because all what you needed to do was learning some specific historical events and then came the practical portion where you needed chakra to perform the exercises and a mild physical condition to pass, the blond was about average in all of that but the truth was the fact he could do really well in test if he really tried studying but he usually spent most of his time building things, after the real-size chariot Naruto realized he had built his first machine and with the kunai launcher he could say he had successfully built a weapon, despite how simple it was.
Even for an eight years old kid, it was obvious chakra had an incredible variety of uses so he spent many weeks trying to read and find information about atypical uses of chakra, the first thing he found was ninjutsu but he had already seen that, then came physical enhancing and he also knew that and its variant the ability to enhance objects, but searching deeper he found kenjutsu, the use of chakra in the weapons wielding styles, genjutsu or the use of chakra based illusions but then he found about sealing, puppeteering, tracking, summoning, healing among other wonderful things so he was shocked with how versatile it was.
The blond tried finding on his own means information about all those uses but the things he could get his hands on had very limited information so he decided he would go to the Hokage, who was called the professor so he should probably know something about those fields of specialization. Hiruzen was very surprised to see Naruto in a time he should be at the academy but he was following his grades and he was very comfortably in the middle of his class, the old man suspected that position was only due to the lack of focus but he supposed developing other abilities was part of his growth too. "What a pleasant surprise Naruto…although you should not be skipping classes" greeted Sarutobi getting a caught look from the blond who had the decency to look ashamed "What brings you here my boy?" questioned this time the Hokage
"Well, after doing many things with the tools you gave me after using some chakra I was wondering about all the things you could do with this power and wanted to find more about different abilities that used chakra" explained Naruto making the Hokage gladly surprised, because the Uzumaki wanted to improve himself but the pace the academy kept was too slow and general for his wandering mind.
For a moment, he thought about giving him more books or something but in the end, he decided as this was the first time the blond came to him for guidance he would give him some time "I think it'll be better if I show you about some of the things I've learnt over the years" said the Hokage signaling some of his ANBU to prepare his personal training ground.
He motioned Naruto to walk alongside him while talking about the time when he was able to cast almost all the ninja techniques people from the village knew with the exception of those clan-specific and the blood limits, then came the natural question about blood limits and the old man proceeded to explain about those who were born with some special traits as the members of the Uchiha and Hyuga clans, the Uzumaki complained a little but then Sarutobi told Naruto neither the fourth Hokage or him had any blood limit and they were still capable of becoming the top ninjas of their generation and that did the trick, the boy was deep in thinking about how awesome a ninja had to be in order to be elected Hokage and how the old man and the fourth had developed their skills on their own.
"Pay attention Naruto, I'll start showing you the three basic ninja styles" said the Hokage walking some meters away from the blond "this is ninjutsu, the most used style…Fire Release: Great Fireball" shouted before exhaling an incredible large and hot ball of fire, it was capable of completely destroy a training dummy very similar to the located at the academy, there was no need to say the blond was incredible impressed "Then comes taijutsu or the art of physical hand to hand combat, there are some special techniques but in essence it consists in enhancing your body with chakra" explained Hiruzen before using his left foot to stomp the ground, he did a loud sound and nothing happened but then he exchanged a look with the boy and channeled chakra on his right foot then he stomped the ground with it and destroyed a portion of the ground he hit creating a small tremor "That is the difference chakra can make" added to prove his point, at this point Naruto was speechless, he knew about ninjutsu and taijutsu but watching the real deal was another thing "Next comes genjutsu or the art of illusion, this can deceive people and allow for advantages in combat but some very skilled people is able to hurt their opponents with them" informed the Hokage before doing hand seals and trapping Naruto in an illusion lightbringer was called and made Naruto see nothing but light from all directions, he was very disoriented and after calling the Hokage for a few times he dispelled the technique.
Doing things this way allowed Naruto to see what could a good ninja do with any of the styles the Hokage would show him.
"After the main three come other useful but not so popular fields of specialization, one of my students is the most renowned medical ninja in the word for her ability to heal people with chakra" introduced the old man before taking a shuriken and making a cut on his hand, but then he channeled green chakra on the other and closed the wound leaving a very thin scar "But as you see my skills in that particular field are not so great" added referring to the scar, Naruto apologized for making him wound himself but the Hokage said it was nothing and kept on with his demonstration "Next is also one of the field another of my students excels at, it's sealing and despite being very difficult is also a very rewarding field" explained the Hokage before taking a scroll, drawing something on it with a brush and then place the same shuriken he used to cut his hand on the center of the drawing "seal" said the old man doing a single hand seal and the shuriken disappeared, Naruto was confused but the Hokage gave him the scroll and told him to channel some chakra into the drawing, the blond did so and was speechless when the shuriken was visible again "Along with ninjutsu, sealing is one of the most versatile uses of chakra because with enough skills and experience the user can do almost anything from storing items, creating barriers or complex mechanisms" added the village leader providing further information on the topic "Now comes another field one of my students is famous for" said with a sad face this time "summoning technique!" and bit his thumb before a large sealing array was visible on the ground and a human sized monkey appeared next to him "excuse me for summoning you Tenka but I was showing young Naruto about summoning" excused himself the Hokage who was very respectful with his companions.
"There is no need to excuse Hiruzen, teaching the new generation is a duty all of us should fulfill" replied the monkey surprising Naruto with its ability to speak and think like that "Young ninja, summoning is a ritual you do after finding a clan of animals willing to lend their strength to you, it's based on respect, trust and mutual cooperation, please never forget those principles" intervened the summon before saying goodbye to Sarutobi and Naruto and returning to his home.
Little Naruto believed it would be amazing to have an entire clan of partners and friends, being so lonely he valued company and support very highly.
Then Sarutobi grabbed a bo staff placed on the training ground "despite being mainly used for the swords techniques", kenjutsu is using chakra in combination with a weapon and then he did a forward thrust with the bo and it extended almost ten meters "I prefer a blunt weapon as the bo staff because of the ability to create a range where no enemy can enter without being pummeled" explained this time the Hokage "I can't really show you a tracking technique as those are not that visible but they allow you to find some people or objects either by scent, sight or chakra signature among other means".
Naruto was relieving all the things the village's leader had shown him that day when the old man asked about anything else so he tried to remember "I also read about puppetry and kinjutsus" replied the boy.
"Well…puppetry is an art from the sand village where they create strings with their chakra to control puppets and other weapons around the battlefield, I cannot perform that but I've known very powerful ninjas from that village, one of the advantages I think it was is the ability to control or manipulate things without having them in your hands…" explained the Hokage moving his hands as if he was resembling a puppeteer making a kunai move in the air following the trajectory he wanted, then he took a firm position with a serious face "As for kinjutsus they are special techniques forbidden for most ninjas because either they are too risky for the user or break some kind of law being too atrocious" said this time with a menacing tone "I'll only show you one…it's called shadow clone technique, it creates physical copies of its caster but requires an incredible amount of chakra, so much that a person without high chakra reserves could die creating just a single one" proceeded to tell the details before doing the handseal.
"Shadow cloning technique!" shouted Hiruzen before creating two copies of himself
One of the copies patted Naruto's head while the other picked a leaf from the ground to prove their tangibility, the blond thought this jutsu was very useful to do many things at the same time but decided he would try to be older before asking the Hokage to taught him it.
I hope you liked it, please leave some comments with your thoughts
PS: I have no idea how to work with a beta, if someone could give me some pointers that could help improve the quality of the story