Disclaimer: Though I don't really see a real reason to write a disclaimer since I'm not making any money of this therefor not violating any laws...I Do Not Own Naruto, that is the first and only time I'm saying it...
A Life of Extraordinary Normalcy
Chapter 1: Normalcy
The sound of an alarm rang throughout the dark empty voids of an apartment, waking a energetic young man from his sleep. Though it did wake the young man he did not move nor turn the alarm off. He simple let it continue to rang, while praying that it would reverse its self so the day wouldn't come.
Sighing the man continued to lay listening to the alarm ring throughout his empty apartment reminding him that once again he was alone, once again that he would go through yet another repetitive day in a life of normalcy.
Signing another time the young man sat up, also swatting off the alarm in the process. It would of just irritate his neighbors if he simple let it continue to run and he really did want to deal with they're complains first thing in the morning.
Slowly he threw his legs to the side of the horribly destroyed bed letting them hang. The bed had been broken when he had gotten it but thanks to several dozen raids on his apartment it was left in a truly pitiful state of being, as was most if not all of his furniture. He mentally braced himself as he lowered his legs to the ground and as he new it would be, it was unbelievably cold. He often mused if during one raid of his apartment, if one of the perpetrators had created some kind of everlasting ninjustu just so he would freeze his posterior off in the morning.
He made his way to the closet that was located parallel to his bad. He opened the doors to the closet staring at the his wide array of choices he could make. He had bright orange jumpsuit or his work clothes, to which he ponder wither or not he should go work. Not like he really had a choice, ever since he was dubbed old enough to provide for himself the Hokage had stopped providing him with a monthly allowance. So thus he had bills and a rent to pay which were heavily over priced for the quality of the apartment he was paying for. Nevertheless he never missed a pay date which he was proud of, and to his surprise actually got some respect from his landlord for. She even lowered his rent by a smiget.
So he had no choice but to work if he wanted to at least keep the little respect someone actually had for him and a place to live in. He grabbed the work outfit which consisted of a plain white t-shirt and some black shorts, both of which were a little big on him. Turning around slowly he made his way the bathroom, to freshen up and change out of his Pajamas. He wouldn't take a shower knowing that he would just end up taking one when he eventually got home later that night.
After relieving himself and changing he simple stood looking in the mirror, he had nothing else to do to get ready. He didn't need to eat because he would just eat at the place he worked at. There was no reason to make his bed or clean up the clothes on the ground he never had any visitors, well ones with good intentions anyways. There really wasn't much point in cleaning up the place for people who were just going to trash the apartment. So he just continued staring in to the mirror.
He started at the blond hair man before him, the hair wild and yet orderly. The clear blue eyes, that if he stared at long enough he would feel as though he was peering into his own mind. The peculiar whisker marks, three on both sides of his cheeks. The whisker marks gave him a feral look, an animal look to him which he never liked, but strangely never disliked. He often wondered if it was in part thanks to the fox that he had these whisker marks or did have some strange cat like bloodline limit.
"Alright! Uzumaki Naruto time to show them what ya got!" He practically yelled at himself just for motivation to get him going and to help him jump start his brain. It was tough to keep motivated when you didn't necessarily feel inclined to do it but then again he truly had no choice, if only he were a shinobi.
As Naruto left he locked his apartment door, though there was no need cause if someone really wanted to trash his place then they'd either kick the door down or, since Konoha was a shinobi village, jump through the window. Once he had also found out that someone just picked his lock, said person had been his next door neighbor. Which luckily for him was just showing him how easy it was for people to pick the lock. Of course then again his neighbor was a blacksmith and a locksmith oddly enough, so Naruto wasn't really to sure about his credibility but nonetheless aware of the possibility.
Naruto wasn't really friends with his neighbors because they didn't really care that he existed but they didn't hate him to the extant like the rest of the villagers, if they hated him at all. The cause for this was simple, it wasn't that they didn't have a deep hatred for the Kyuubi no Youkai or anything to that extant but rather everyone living with in the confines of the apartment complex were consider an outcast and thus similar to him in a way. Everyone within the apartment complex had either done something or had a gift that had been and still is frowned upon by the villagers and were discriminated upon because of it. To which the few that fit into this category ended up in the only apartment complex, and scummiest, in Konoha that would take them in. The reason being that the old lady that ran the place didn't care were the money came from so long as she got it.
Naruto walked in to the lobby of the complex looking around for the for mentioned old lady. She didn't really like him but as was mentioned before respected him, but just because she was the only one that had a hint of respect for him didn't mean that he really wanted to the talk to the women first thing in the morning.
The lobby wasn't the best but it was neither the worst it could have been. On one side of the room there was a receptionists desk, were the old crone would usually be. And on the other side of the room were a pair of descent sized tables that were low to the ground. They had a cushion on one side and another for the opposite side for people to sit in. The area was meant to be a waiting room for people wanting to take up residence but it ended up being a place where a certain two residence always came to play chess.
The two people were already there playing of course. One of the two men was an old man he had to be in his eighties he had on a plain white T-shirt and White pants, he was Shinnro an ex-shinobi and apparently a good one too. The other man wore a pure white mask which covered his whole face and wore a dark black robe, this man was Kurei, a man who Naruto knew nothing about. Which was how it was for basically everyone he knew, which also for a majority of them, except for the person living right next door to him, their name or surname. The only reason he knew Kurei and Shinnro because they introduced themselves to him when he had moved in at the age of five after being kicked out of the orphanage. From what he could tell both were generally nice but heavily eccentric.
He nodded to them as they did to him, there was no reason to speak if it wasn't needed. They were acquaintances and nothing more though Naruto wished otherwise, but who would want to be friends with the demon everyone hates. So he continued glumly down the street ignoring the the glares of hate and fear pondering if something new would occur in his life of normalcy.
He just laughed at that thought nothing different would happen it would be the same as every other day. He'd go to Ichiraku, the Ramen shop he worked at and the only place that would give him work. At Ichiraku, he would do dishes, wash the floor, wash the counters, deliver food to the costumers house who were to lazy to walk to the stand. He'd throw away the trash, cook, and do anything else the boss could think of for him. He was surprised when he turned ten he was taught how to cook the Ramen and how to add the proper ingredients. Cooking he found he had a knack for and learned it quickly and effortlessly.
Now at the age of twelve, he found that he was capable of cooking vast amounts of delicacies from Sukiyaki to Shabu-shabu, which all managed to come out tasting fantastic. Though if anyone found out he was cooking the food they probably would stop coming to the stand. Just like when ever he was out trying to deliver the food to the ungrateful people. Heck in some occasion when he delivered the food he would find himself having to pay for the food because the consumer would just not pay him.
After he is done with the eight to ten hours of work he normally put in he'd head back to his apartment, change into his orange jumpsuit and head out into the crowded streets once again this time to a training ground. This training ground in particular was training ground twenty. For unknown reasons Training ground twenty was never used by any of the shinobi. It was a barren grounds with dead trees and rocking outcrops. This training ground was the closest to the Hokage mountain so the terrain was rough and if one were to land in the wrong spot they could very well end up dead. Since it was hardly ever used and hardly anyone ever came here it was the prefect spot for Naruto to train.
Since he didn't have a instructor to help him he relied on a few scrolls and books he found in the library and self taught himself. He had borrowed books which had exercises he could use to help train and control chakra, as well as how to create hand seals. There were also some books with advance chakra control and manipulation exercises that he only begun to touch after his years of practicing the basics. Practically all the books contained different and unusual theory as well so many in fact that many just give them a second glance and skip to the training methods. Naruto had done so as well until he realized he needed to learn what some of those theories discussed about in order to attempt to create a technique, which he still wasn't having much luck with.
The scrolls contained many different physical training methods and a few basic Taijustu stances. They had pictures which depicted how he should move his body and such. He used those Taijustu forms to build a different one in and of itself. The reason being that since he had no instructors his stances were mostly likely full of errors so to fix that problem he mashed the few Taijustu stances he had and made it his own.
He had even managed, though he wasn't quite sure how, to get a scroll from the Hokage that had the three basic ninjustu's of the shinobi world. The clone Technique, Substitution Technique, and Transformation Technique, which was a Genjustu technique. These three techniques were the basic techniques for all academy students to learn but Naruto who wasn't an academy student the council made sure of that, had to ask if the Hokage could give him instructions on how to preform them. It had been four years ago when he had managed to obtain the scroll from the Hokage to which he also learned why there were no such ninjustu scrolls in the library.
It was because most of the ninjustu's that were developed were either at one point or another a clan technique. The people who created the techniques didn't simple want others to learn there techniques that they poured so much of there own effort into creating and as such only passed them down through the clan linage. Of course that method couldn't stop people forever from learning the techniques and distributed to other people through audio instruction because it was also far easier to to teach it than try to explain it on a simple sheet of paper that might and probably would get stolen. The same was true for Genjustu.
Taijustu was different because it is basically how one fought in combat and people who made there own styles were always willing to teach. It was also far easier to write down. It was the same for the written instruction on how to manipulate and control chakra. People wrote down the ways to manipulate and control chakra for easy to use references which ended up being copied and set all over the world go figure.
Naruto had had at first a difficult time trying to learn the three standard techniques without the help of a instructor. He did finally master them only to realize that they would most likely be the only techniques he would learn until he could convince the old man that he was shinobi material. So he figured he'd work with what he got and see how far he could take the techniques which did not disappoint him. His training consisted of physical exercises such as one handed push ups and running through the rock terrain like it was an obstacle course. He would do this rather peculiar advance chakra control exercise that involved standing on a tip of a spire on the tip of ones toe and use chakra to spin the user in a circle on the spire, it was incredible taxing and dangerous cause the only spire in the area was up a good twenty feet in the air. After that he would working on perfecting the three basic techniques.
That training schedule usually took him two to three hours a day and thoroughly tired him out. Once he was done training he'd head back to his apartment take a nice warm, though it was cold almost all of the time, shower and put on his pajamas. He would cook some sort of meal for himself if he had the the ingredients for it. Then he would sit on what was left of the couch and read one of the books he had rented from the library which contained mostly history of the shinobi world and practice making hand seals. Yep, he was positively obsessed with the shinobi way though he might never get to experience.
That thought alone made him feel a smalling feeling of sadness still remembering the day he had been denied entry into the academy. It had been a bright sunny day and for once everthing in Naruto's life was going absolutely grand. He had woken up with a bounce in his step and had almost skipped breakfast because of the excitement. The Third had assured him that he would be granted permission to enter the shinobi academy. Why he needed permission wouldn't be known to him until a very painful beating on his ninth birthday. Needless to say the little six year old was extremely happy because he could become one more step closer to becoming Hokage and possibly make friends.
When the time for the council meeting came the kid was present and he brought a stupid looking smile with him. When the meeting began the council had asked him some odd questions, such as what are you goals and what are your hobbies, and then from those questions decided he lacked the ambition to be a shinobi and denied him access. Naruto hadn't understood what they meant and looked up to the third to see if it was true. The Third hadn't looked down to the him but he could tell he was angry, was he angry for not having the ambition to become a shinobi. He had after that been escorted out by an ANBU agent at the Hokages request. Naruto caught sight of the the Third as he started to argued with the council and one of four seemed to be on his side, he didn't get to see the rest cause he had been escorted out, but in the end he was still denied entry to the academy. All his dreams everything he had planned to work towards destroyed just like that, no Naruto wouldn't allow that, he simply wouldn't let his dreams die just because he lack ambition.
So that had been when he had decided to train himself to become a strong shinobi and also would gain the ambition and would then prove himself worthy to the Hokage himself. He'd have to make him a shinobi then. It had been tough at first but steadily he got to the point where he was now. Although he still wasn't sure if he was ready for the title of Genin he had grown strong or at least he'd like to think he had. He had never bare witness to any shinobi truly fighting so he had no clue how strong he was in comparison and he couldn't get anyone to judge because of their hatred towards him. The only who'd watch him would be the old geezer and he wanted to be absolutely sure that he was strong enough for the title of Genin lest he make a fool out of himself and waste the Hokage's time, and never become a shinobi.
So for now he'd have to be content with the life of normalcy but someday he would be great and people would acknowledge him. For now he'd be just a simple worker at a simple Ramen stand. That same stand was now in view as had continued his walk at his usual slow pace. It was funny how he had just turned a five minute walk to one that lasted for more than thirty minutes. It was fine though he still had plenty of time to eat and get a early start on scrubbing those darn chores. He still had an hour or so till the clock hit six yes plenty of time indeed and who knows maybe when the Chunnin exam rolls around in a month things will gain some interest again. Foreigners shinobi do bring fantastic tales and none of the hatred, yes Uzumaki Naruto liked foreigners.