This is a story that follows Naruto in his daily life for a while, after the latest movie "Bonds.". He's currently 17. (I think? Lol, doesn't matter, we'll just pretend he's 17.)

-Chapter 1-

Progressive talking.

"Like water from the old well up the hill, implacable, but ever so satisfying."

~R.

It was a chilly, but sunny, Sunday-afternoon in April, at around 01:00 PM.

Naruto loved Sundays, for Sunday was a relaxing day, and he always used these days to think, and ponder over things that happened throughout the week.

Naruto sighed.

'I wonder what Sasuke's doing right now,' he thought, while walking along the edge of the forest, 'Orouchimaru shouldn't need him anymore because of that scroll he brought back with him, but then again, how can I know what Orouchimaru really wants?''

Usually he would start training around noon, to get his mind off of things, but he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, so he was getting exceedingly hungry with every step.

Fighting alongside Sasuke had been extremely motivating, although he could see the power-gap between Sasuke and him clearly once again.

His stomach rumbled.

'I have to get stronger!' he said, not noticing that he had said it out loud.

'Talking to yourself again, Naruto?' it was Jirayia-sama speaking, sitting in a tree nearby, 'You

tend to do that a lot lately, it's getting a bit weird you know.'

'Oh, hi Ero-sennin, I was just thinking out loud, sorry if it bothered you,' said Naruto.

'What are you doing spying on me anyways?'

'I was just checking how you're holding up, Amaru told me you saved her from the Reibi.' Said Jirayia.

'Could you tell me what happened?'

Naruto looked down, he felt ashamed. He hadn't spoken to anyone about what exactly happened that whole day, not even with Tsunade-sama, but somehow he knew Jirayia-sama would understand his feelings, so he started talking:

'Sakura was there as well, we saw Amaru walk towards us as we went near the ruins, her eyes were red, and she spoke in a different voice than usual. All of the sudden she turned into this weird purple monster which attacked us, so Sakura attacked back, but she was knocked unconscious.' he said.

'I've heard it so far from Sakura, yes.' said Jirayia, while jumping down from the tree.

Naruto looked up at Jirayia's face. 'You gave me the bag with a seal in it, how did you know?' he asked.

'I didn't, I only gave it to you in case you'd ever need it, as a keep-safe charm so to speak,' said Jirayia, while putting his hand on Naruto's shoulder, 'Continue with your story, okay? I'd like to hear what happened next.'

Naruto turned his face away and looked at the forest up ahead, the road would be going left.

'The Reibi grabbed ahold of me, and I got a sudden shock from inside. He was looking inside me, and saw the Kyuubi,' said Naruto, feeling more and more ashamed as he continued, 'He saw it as an interesting power. It's been a while since I'd spoken the Kyuubi, or used the Kyuubi's chakra, and the Reibi somehow drew it out of me-' he stopped talking.

Jirayia looked in the same direction as him and said: 'It's not good to keep the Kyuubi bottled up for so long Naruto, same goes for emotions. If you bottle them up too long, they might burst out someday. This can be triggered by minor events, such as what happened with the Reibi.'

'That's different,' said Naruto, 'He really pulled the power out, and I lost control… Until I saw the piece of paper. It didn't have to be activated, I turned back into myself immediately when I saw it.'

'That's some serious progress Naruto, at how many tails were you?' asked Jirayia, looking somewhat amused.

'Four,' said Naruto, 'and it somehow felt good to give in to the power, it really shocked me.' he added in a quiet whisper.

'Well you controlled yourself well, I think that if you keep it at three tails you could actually start using the power, and perhaps with training from some specialists you could control yourself with four,' said Jirayia, 'maybe even more.' he added.

Naruto looked up at some birds that flew by.

'It's true that it felt different this time, especially with the three tails.' He thought.

'Don't worry Naruto, let's get some ramen okay? I can hear your stomach rumbling!' said Jirayia.

Naruto was glad Jirayia changed the subject, and felt somewhat relieved to have spoken to him.

They walked together to Ichiraku's ramen shop.

After eating Naruto felt a lot better and decided he'd better go train, so he thanked Jirayia for the conversation and the meal and left for his favourite training-spot, which was a secret cave in the forest. He liked this spot, because he was the only one that knew about it, so it was nice and quiet.

He had been working at his chakra control a lot lately, whenever he didn't have to help with rebuilding Konoha, and it was very hard for him, since he had so much chakra to mould. But Naruto isn't a quitter, and he knew that the path to a new jutsu would come from expert chakra control, so he filled up the cave with shadow clones and started meditating, before trying to mould chakra.

He knew he still couldn't make a Rasengan on his own without shadow clones, so that would be his first goal, the new technique would come after that.

It was already getting dark when Naruto headed back to the village, he wasn't sure if he had made any progress today, but he hoped that he had.

Konoha was still partially destroyed, but it was I worse a week earlier.

All shinobi contracts had been denied the past week, so everyone could help build up the city again, or help out at the hospital.

When Naruto got at the gates he saw Amaru sitting there on a rock near a small pond.

She lived in Konoha now, since her village was destroyed and all of her people were killed.

He hadn't really spoken to her at all, so he decided to talk to her for a bit.

'Hey Amaru-chan, do you mind if I sit with you?' he asked.

'Oh hey Naruto, sure, I don't mind,' she said, while throwing a rock in the pond,

'How are you? I haven't spoked to you all week.'

Naruto looked at her and got a bit lost in thought. How was he really? 'I'm okay I guess.' He thought, 'Yeah.'

'Naruto-kun?' said Amaru, while poking him in the side.

'Huh? What?' said Naruto, looking up, 'Oh sorry, I got a bit lost in thought, I'm okay I guess, how about you?'

'Could be better, but I'm glad everyone here is so nice to me, Tsunade-sama even offered me to work with her.' she said, smiley vaguely.

'I think her trust is really destroyed…' he thought.

'Tsunade might be a bit of a hard-ass but she means well, and you could really learn a lot from her.' said Naruto, also throwing a rock in the water.

'I am looking forward to it, but it might be a bit hard to let anyone in again, after what happened,' she said, sounding a bit down, 'but I'm glad I have you here, you really helped me out back there Naruto.'

She hugged him.

Naruto was surprised, and turned a little red.

'Err, no problem, err, I gotta go now! See ya!' he said and he ran off.

'That was weird.' He thought.

No one ever hugged him so suddenly, so he didn't really know what to do with it, he couldn't say he didn't like it though…

End of chapter 1