AN: Thanks a lot, to all those who have followed and favourited this story, and a huge thanks to the people taking the time to review, much love! (still, no Beta, if you are inclined to use your time helping me correct my chapters, please let me know)

Chapter two - Sleeping Sun

For my dreams, I hold my life
For wishes, I behold my night
The truth at the end of time
Losing faith makes a crime

Naruto suddenly woke up to the sound of insistent knocking, robbing the sleep out of his eyes he took a moment to realize who and where he was, when the knocking came again he quickly jumped out of bed and ran to the front door, unlocked it and opened it to see who it was.

Outside stood the ANBU who had picked him up yesterday, he was a tall man with short brown hair, he was wearing what to Naruto looked like standard ANBU gear, in one hand he had two small scrolls.

''Good morning Mr. Uzumaki, I am here with breakfast, some clothes and stuff you need in your kitchen'' the man said in a neutral tone, Naruto opened the door for him allowing him to enter.

''Good morning Sir Falcon, please come in, the kitchen is over there'' Naruto said pointing towards the kitchen.

Falcon entered the apartment and closed the door behind him ''I will first unseal the clothes I have for you, there are three pairs of trousers, shorts, t-shirts, and shirts plus two sets of sleepwear and six pairs of underwear'' Falcon said before dropping down and unsealing the clothes on the floor ''Please put these in your room and get dressed while I make breakfast'' Falcon said before he stood up and walked into the kitchen.

Naruto brought the clothes to his room, all the shorts and trousers were black while the t-shirts and shirts were navy blue, changing into a new pair of underwear he put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt since the weather was warm, even in the morning, he put his old underwear with his old clothes and gathered them together so they could be thrown out.

Walking back out and into the kitchen Naruto found Falcon boiling eggs and noodles, the noodles appeared to be in some kind of soup from the fragrant aroma in the air, without turning towards Naruto, Falcon spoke up ''We will be getting you some furniture for your apartment when you have eaten, as well as some footwear'' he said as he kept his focus on the food he was making.

''Okay'' Naruto responded before taking a seat at the table, a minute passed in silence before Falcon finished making the food a brought a bowl over for Naruto, in it was soup, noodles, and two eggs, he guessed they were soft boiled.

''Thank you for the food'' Naruto said before digging in using chopsticks, once the noodles and eggs were gone he drank the soup from the bowl before placing it down.

''That tasted great, thank you'' He said before Falcon took the bowl and placed it in the sink a filled some water into it.

''You are welcome, now let's get going. Since you do not have any footwear yet, I will be carrying you on my shoulders until we buy them'' Falcon said, and Naruto was not given any time to react before he found himself on the shoulders of Falcon with his arms on Falcon's head to help to keep himself balanced.

The two made their way through the village until Falcon headed for a small footwear shop, they bought Naruto two pair of sandals, Falcon put one pair in one of his pouches, while Naruto put the other pair on, after that, they made their way towards the distract that held the furniture shops.

The two spent the better part of two hours going between different shops to get the furniture for Naruto's apartment, Naruto had been happy once they had gotten him a closet for his bedroom and a small couch with a table for his living room, but Falcon insisted that they all the furniture he would or could need while growing up. They ended up getting two couches, a table to put between them, an armchair and a bookcase for his living room and a closet for his bedroom.

After helping to put the furniture in place for Naruto Falcon told him that he would be back in the evening to make him dinner and that he could find his lunch in the fridge before he left.

After Falcon left, Naruto sat down in his new armchair, which was very comfortable, and started mulling over how he should proceed now that he had learned to call upon his chakra, after going over it for a while he decided that getting the shadow clone down would be his best option since physical exercise and chakra control seemed to be the best and safest way he could make sure to be as good a ninja as possible in the future.

With that he decided to go over what he knew about the shadow clone technique:

The clone used chakra to create physical copies of the user, which he assumed meant it had a relatively high chakra consumption seeing as it used the energy to make physical clones.

It spread the chakra equally between the creator and the clones, which meant that if you made to many clones depending on your chakra level you could kill yourself.

There was only a single seal for the technique, which would hopefully make it easy to use.

He would get the memories of the clones once they dispelled, this one the main reason why he wanted to get his hand on the technique as early as possible since he could speed up any all learning.

Putting his hands into the form of the seal, he concentrated on exactly what he wanted to accomplish with his chakra, before pushing as much chakra as he could towards his hands.

Several seconds passed and nothing happened, which while it did not surprise him, made him feel kind of disappointed, after mumbling about how nothing as never easy, he started to try again, he spent the rest of the day, only pausing for lunch, attempting to create a clone without any success, but he had gotten slightly better than feeling his chakra which he decided as at least progress of a kind, even if he did not feel any closer to actually getting the technique down.

Falcon stopped by and made dinner, and Naruto decided to ask Falcon any and all questions he could think of about being a ninja, resulting in him Falcon telling him to shut up and eat when he had finished cooking.

Falcon left after cleaning up after Naruto's dinner, but not before letting Naruto know that he or another ANBU would come over in the morning.

Naruto spent the rest of the evening until he started to feel tired attempting the shadow clone technique, he took another shower before going to bed, he really liked his bed, it was super comfortable.

Xx-xX

''Reporting in'' Falcon said kneeling before the Hokage in Hiruzen's office, giving him a signal to report, Falcon went over the day's events and reported that Naruto had been doing some kind of chakra exercise during the day while holding his hands in a seal. Hiruzen hummed for a moment before dismissing Falcon thanking him for his service.

Hiruzen smiled to himself, it was nice to see that the boy seemed to be driven towards being a ninja, he could only hope the boy would live up to his parent's legacy, he had plans for the boy, wanting to put him on the next team seven hopefully under Kakashi Hatake as a Jounin instructor.

Team seven held a legacy in Konoha, he himself had been on the first team seven, later on, he had had his own team seven with the now titled The Legendary Three, Minato Namikaze had, had the latest team seven which had given rise to Kakashi.

Taking out his pipe, Hiruzen started to mull over his plans for Naruto and if he should make a few changes now that he knew the boy had the drive to be a ninja.

Xx-xX

Naruto got into a routine with waking up to knocking on his front door, then he had breakfast, afterward he headed out and exercised or just explored the village ignore or at least trying to ignore the look most of the civilian populace sent his way.

When it was time for lunch he would head home and eat the lunch that had been prepared for him, afterward he spent the afternoon attempting the shadow clone while paying as much attention as he could to how his chakra acted during his attempts.

A little over a week went by like this before his routine was interrupted, this happened when he quite literally ran into a boy his age wearing grey jackets and black pants, the boy had spiky brown hair and red markings on each cheek.

''Sorry I bumped into you'' Naruto hurried to say after getting over his fall onto his behind, he quickly got up and offered his hand to the other boy while studying his appearance.

''It's okay, I wasn't paying attention'' The boy said before taking the offered hand.

''My name is Naruto Uzumaki, it is nice to meet you'' Naruto said as he pulled the other boy to his feet.

''Name's Kiba Inuzuka'' Kiba responded once he was on his feet, the two chatted for a while before Kiba invited Naruto to come with him to play at a nearby park.

After a brief consideration, Naruto agreed since he thought it would probably be better to start making friends as soon as possible.

Naruto spent that afternoon playing with Kiba as well as Shikamaru Nara and Chouji Akimichi, when he got home an ANBU was standing outside the door, so he hurried to unlock it, before apologizing for coming back later than he had planned, the ANBU, this one a woman, told him it was no problem, before making him dinner and then cleaning up before leaving.

That evening Naruto had a breakthrough and managed to make four clones, he found out that he needed to flood his entire body with chakra in order to complete the technique, he wondered why that was but he came up blank, he knew too little about how techniques and chakra worked to make an educated guess.

But he was super happy with his success and immediately put all four clones to work on his chakra control, while he started doing physical exercises to strengthen his body, he had considered getting weights but decided against it since he was not sure if that might hinder his growth in the future, and he also prioritized getting as fast as possible over being strong, since it did not take that much force, when you had access to chakra to enhance it, to deliver a killing blow to a person.

This made him realize that at some point he would probably have to kill someone in order to protect a comrade or to finish a mission, he was not comfortable with this realization, but he knew that the world he lived in now would not allow for him to avoid it, which meant he had to chose to kill or he himself or someone he cared for might get killed in turn, so he steeled his resolve to not allow himself or his comrades to be killed, but to avoid killing if doing so was not detrimental.

Naruto went to sleep that night anxious about what his future had in store for him as a ninja but resolved to face it head on to the best of his ability.

Xx-xX

''What do you have to report Cat'' Hiruzen asked the kneeling female ANBU in front of him.

''The boy has somehow managed to learn the shadow clone technique, he managed to summon four clones earlier this evening'' Cat said, reporting the most important piece of news first.

Hiruzen stopped working on his paperwork turning his entire focus onto the ANBU in front of him ''and you have no idea as to how he learned to do the technique'' Hiruzen asked after several moments of silent consideration.

Cat hook her had ''No Lord Hokage, but from what I read, maybe he was attempting the technique all week long and not just doing chakra exercises as had previously been noted'' She responded making Hiruzen pause again.

''It would seem we might have another genius on our hands, would it not'' Hiruzen said with a pleased smile. While Konoha was known for producing ninja with weird quirks, it had an even greater reputation for producing a lot of highly talented ninja, more so than any other of the major villages.

''We might have to step in and provide some material for the boy to put in on the right path in his training, but for now finish your report'' Hiruzen said and Cat did so, mentioning the boy and ran into Kiba Inuzuka and proceeded to play with him and Shikamaru Nara and Chouji Akimichi.

This news pleased Hiruzen as much as the previous revelation did, if Naruto could get on friendly terms with several of the clan heirs from his generation then as long as he became a strong ninja, he would have both the backing of the ninja forces as well as the pedigree what with who his parents and teacher was going to be according to Hiruzen's plan, this would put the boy in a strong position to take up the mantle of Hokage in the future.

He might be able to take over after Itachi Uchiha assuming that he managed to de-escalate the growing animosity between the general populace and the Uchiha clan, if he could the loyal Uchiha genius would be the perfect choice for the mantle of Fifth Hokage, in several more years, the boy was currently in ANBU and was making quite the name for himself amongst his fellow ninja.

He would indeed have to go over his plans for Naruto, the promise he displayed with having already learned and been able to use the shadow clone technique, meant that adjustments had to be made to accomplish the best possible outcome.

Xx-xX

Naruto was none the wiser about him being observed nor that the Hokage had plans for his future in place, so the following morning after Falcon, the ANBU on Naruto duty for the day as Naruto had started calling it, had left he made as many shadow clones as he could which filled his apartment with 22 copies of himself.

''You guys know what to do while I am out'' Naruto said to his clones who all gave him a mock salute before finding a place to sit and started practicing chakra control in different ways.

Naruto left his apartment and locked the door before heading out on his daily run, he continued to run until he could go no longer before he sat down in the shade of a tree and took a rest, assuming the lotus position Naruto placed a few leaves on his foreheads and arms while channeling chakra to the areas making the leaves stick, he sat like that until he felt hungry before he headed back home to his lunch for the day.

Once lunch was over and his clones had dispelled providing him with hours of memories doing the sticking chakra exercise in different ways with different items, Naruto made a new group of clones this one had 10 in it, they all got working on the chakra exercise as Naruto headed out again.

Naruto met Kiba and the other two boys at the playground again and the four spent the afternoon playing, though Naruto made sure to head home before it was time for dinner today, he had only been home for five minutes and just dispelled his clones when there was a knock on his door, he quickly let Falcon in.

Naruto spent the evening while Falcon was there trying to talk the ANBU into teaching him a ninja technique, but Falcon just said he might do so in the future without explaining further, which made Naruto pout at him, which had the ANBU chuckling at him.

That night Naruto did not train but went over what he could do to advance his skills as fast as possible, he knew he could not advance any form of weapon skills cause he had nothing to train with and no one to teach him, he also could not learn any techniques cause he could not remember the hand signs for any and he did not know any fighting styles either, this left him with the three chakra exercises he knew of, the wind affinity training, assuming he had a wind affinity as Naruto, and anything he could learn from Konoha's public library, which he did now know if it held any ninja technique, but he could at least learn medical and general knowledge from there.

So he had to wait with weapons and techniques until he started the academy or until he could get someone to teach him, in the meanwhile he could put his entire focus into mastering his chakra and gaining as much knowledge and becoming as fit as possible for his future training.

Satisfied with his conclusion he decided to visit Konoha's library the following day and to start borrowing books on subjects that would be useful for his career path, plan made Naruto went to bed happy with his progress and hopeful for the future.

Xx-xX

A month passed rather quickly for Naruto, his routine of training after breakfast until lunch, before he went out to play with the other boys though their group had been increased by two girls, Ino Yamanaka and Hinata Hyuuga.

He had found no books on ninja techniques in the library, though there was a bunch of books on other topics he found very useful such as poisons, anatomy, medical knowledge and surprisingly enough basic a basic healing technique, but he found that his chakra control was nowhere near close enough to pull off the technique yet, though he had improved by leaps and bounds over the past month, two weeks in he had started doing the tree walking exercises and he was now doing the water walking as well.

His sense for his own chakra had gotten to the point that he could actually feel that he had two sources of chakra in his body, there was his own pool of chakra with always tickled around his body, but there was another source which was constantly flowing into his own chakra pool, he assumed it came from Kurama and the seal since he could feel that the chakra was different, more potent he would call it if he had to put a word on it.

Naruto was very happy with his progress, though so far, he used the number of shadow clones he could make as a gauge for how much he was improving, and he had gone from making 22 on his second attempt to being able to make just over 100 clones without feeling drained. He was still amazed when he filled up a small field with copies of himself for the first time.

His evening was spent studying with clones before going to bed and starting over the next morning.

Naruto was therefore quite surprised when one morning, Weasel, one of the ANBU who rotated on 'Naruto Duty' informed him after breakfast that the Hokage wanted to see him. There where five different ANBU who rotated between 'Naruto Duty' Falcon, Cat, Weasel, Wolf, and Owl.

Cat and Wolf where female meaning the other three where men, of the five Naruto, liked Falcon and Weasel best, they were the friendliest of the five, even if it was subtle differences in their behavior.

Naruto tried to pry into what the Hokage wanted to see him about, but Weasel deflected and just told him he would know soon enough, Naruto pouted at the older male, making Weasel tap his forehead with two fingers before telling him to eat up so they could get going.

The trip to the Hokage Tower was uneventful, but as they walked up the stairs and towards the double doors leading into the Hokage's office, Naruto started to feel nervous, he had no idea what the Hokage wanted to talk with him about, sure it could just be to follow up on how he was doing, but he could also have been found out in some way and that thought made him anxious as to what was going to happen.

So, distracted had he been by his thoughts that he did not realize they were already there until he heard ''Enter'' Being called out from behind the doors, Naruto swallowed nervously as Weasel opened the doors.

End of Chapter two

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, reviews are welcome!

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-Akabara