\ 0 /
Growing Up
\ 0 /
Naruto, due to the Kyuubi being inside him, was far more intelligent at a young age than any others, and was able to communicate before age one, though not always in actual speak, and they had become proficient at deciphering his childish type of sign language, or deciphering his childish handwriting, but it had become perfectly legible and he was completely fluent by the time that he had come to the age when other children would be speaking shakily.
It also turned out that the Kyuubi wasn't evil at all, and instead was the Celestial Guardian to the Kazame bloodline, which was why the Yondaime had found a way where the Kyuubi wouldn't be killed, and Kyuubi often helped Naruto, teaching him things as he slept, like the history of the world, and Naruto had retrieved a large amount of information and had recorded it, using the Kyuubi's memories. Using another fox as a medium, Kyuubi would also often travel with the three humans, and became their pet, though because of the seal placed by the Yondaime, he could only do it through a very small fox, and often grumbled whenever they cooed over the tiny kit, who really was adorable, even with the soul of a giant nine-tailed fox going through it.
Kesshiro kept true to his word, and turned up more times than necessary, but he had grown attached to Naruto, and he became Naruto's big Brother, like Shizune was his big Sister, and Tsunade his adoptive Mother; as he instinctively knew that she wasn't his real Mother, and both Tsunade and Kyuubi had told him so anyways, but he loved her like one all the same.
Kesshiro began training him as soon as he was able to understand what was going on, which was at about age 3, and he had to wear weights, starting extremely light, but it was hard at first for the 3 year old, though Kesshiro had used one of his own training methods with Naruto, and had given him a small white pill which increased muscle gain rate hundredfold, and Naruto's strength increased at a speed that was only possible with the pill, though Tsunade had shouted at Kesshiro for doing something so ridiculously dangerous to her son, until Naruto, letting his Brother take the brunt of her anger, told her that it was fine and that he actually enjoyed the training, as it gave him something to do on the road, and since the weights were self-adjusting so that they would always make it straining for him, then he would always be improving, even whilst walking, and he also trained inside his mindscape with the Kyuubi, and since he developed in his mind, his body also got the changes too, though he hadn't understood Kyuubi's explanation why.
When he had started training, he had been given the second scroll from the Yondaime; the first being a letter to him examining things and saying sorry that he couldn't be around to look after Naruto himself, and the second scroll contained a set of exercise routines leading up to the Kazame family Tai-Jutsu style, the Lightning Flicker, and also the Uzumaki scrolls, from his Mother's family, which contained their Tai-Jutsu style and some other things of the family's.
"Come on, you lazy git, you're supposed to be running another three laps!" called Kesshiro from where he watched Naruto fall and rest for a moment, and the child got back up again and started running again, never one to turn down on of Kesshiro's challenges, as they often promised Ramen as a reward for completion, the one thing that he was never able to resist. "If you do it then I'll teach you a Jutsu!" And Jutsus. He was a total sucker for Jutsus. He finished off the last two laps, which happened to be over a mile each, but all in the name of training, and sat in front of ' expectantly. "Very well, I will teach you a Jutsu, but you do not have the Chakra control for it, which will be the next exercise!" Naruto groaned. "You will have to learn how to climb trees."
"Ano… how does that help me improve Chakra control?"
"Because the exercise is wrongly named; tree-running would be an apt name for it, as you have to run vertically, using Chakra to stick to the tree, maintaining a constant amount of Chakra running through your feet. Too little, and you fall. Too much, and your foot goes through the tree, and both can be painful, especially if your foot goes right through and you get splinters." He then explained the finer points to doing it, and the young child listened attentively, making sure that he remembered every single bit of it, not that he would forget, as Kyuubi was thereto remind him, and he had a very good memory.
He then had to try it, and got up about two feet before falling back and landing on his arse, hard, and Kesshiro chuckled, earning him a glare from the child, which just served to make him laugh harder, and Naruto joined in after a short while, getting back up and rubbing his throbbing rear end.
Naruto then tried to climb the tree again. And again. And again. And again. And a… well, you get the point.
Kesshiro read a book (which isn't bright orange or not allowed to be read by children, by the way) whilst Naruto slowly started to inch his way up the tree, only managing to get so high on his first fifty tries because of the pill he had taken, which helped in all aspects of Ninja training, and his Chakra reserves were absolutely massive, because his stamina was gargantuan in size, and Tsunade often had to resort to a sleeping Genjutsu used in Nin-medicine to get him to go to sleep before midnight, and to stay asleep past four, as Naruto never slept long, as his massive stamina didn't need it, which just meant that Kesshiro could torture train him for longer, and the Hunter-Nin spent much longer with them then he did actual hunting, though he would sometimes disappear for a while if there were rumours of Nukenins in the area.
It took Naruto seventeen hours to complete the exercise, and by that time he was pretty knackered, whereas others would have died of Chakra exhaustion, though Naruto did kind of fall asleep in mid-step and crashed into the soft ground, snoring loudly, causing Kesshiro to snicker and continue reading, making no move to get Naruto up off the ground, though changed his mind at what Tsunade would do to him, meaning how many trees he would go through, if she found her son like that, so sighing, he picked up the sleeping boy and carried him back to the Inn where they were staying at in a small village in the middle of nowhere.
Naruto received the next scroll from his Father on his fourth birthday, along with a set of training clothes, which were far more durable than the tatters that had become of the clothes he had used in training, along with a set of real, and very sharp, Shuriken and Kunais, a scroll with a medical Jutsu from Tsunade who had said that he could now heal his own cuts for a change, especially know that he had the throwing weapons, and a Jutsu scroll containing the instructions to using the Kawarimi, as Naruto had already learned the Bunshin no Jutsu and Henge no Jutsu, which mixed together made great tools for pranks, which he absolutely loved, and about which Tsunade had shouted at Kesshiro for encouraging him.
Kesshiro taught him how to throw the two different weapons accurately and with great effect, though he made it a lot harder by making Naruto have to hit the board ring-first, which was extremely hard, as the kunai was blade-weighted, and many great weapons masters were not able to do it, which was why Kesshiro made Naruto do it, though without telling him how hard it was, as Naruto had a way of doing things through perseverance and determination, so saying that all Genins were able to do it just made his determination to do it even greater.
His Chakra control was pretty bad, though his enormous stamina made up for it, and Kesshiro rued the day that Tsunade teach him the trick behind her monstrous strength, which he hoped was not for a very, very, very long time, as one person punching him through walls was bad enough, but two would just be hell, and being hit through a wall by a young child would just be humiliating, no matter who that child was.
The years passed in a flurry of training, running from debt collectors, training, travelling, training, a lot of Ramen eating, training, Tsunade hitting Kesshiro through a wall for the most trivial of things, though they were also often accidents, as she wasn't able to control her strength when she was angry, more training, and then some more ramen eating.
To Tsunade's annoyance, Naruto opted more towards Kesshiro's job rather than her own, though with his atrocious Chakra control he would probably end up hurting someone rather than healing them, though he had gotten the basic medical Jutsus, even if he wasted a lot of Chakra doing it, once again made up by his huge reserves, though she didn't think much of the idea of her son being in so much danger, but Kesshiro had been no help whatsoever in dissuading him, and the Hunter-Nin ion question actually encouraged it, much to her bane and the destruction of many walls and anything solid in the path of his trajectory, and he often secretly took Naruto along when he went hunting at night, though the boy had to stay behind an invisibility shield, which could also turn completely dark by a simple mental command of Kesshiro's, used if there was going to be a lot of unexpected bloodshed, as he didn't want to traumatize Naruto.
They years passed, and Naruto continued to grow, train, improve beyond their expectations, and still had far too much time to pull pranks in between, though at least he had time to be a child. Again, much to Tsunade's annoyance and Kesshiro's encouragement, Naruto had started creating his own explosives, using them in pranks, which started off as paint bombs, using bright fluorescent pink paint, but that had moved onto actually useful weapons, which Tsunade approved of little more, but had actually made quite a bit of money (more like a small fortune) by actually managing, with Kesshiro's help, to set up his own company, and they sold in Konoha as weapons, and they were currently in correspondence with the Hokage over a deal to make the highly improved version of the traditional smoke bombs part of standard equipment for those of the rank of Chuunin and above, and then another deal which was basically hiring Naruto as an inventor for the ANBU, something that had shocked the two greatly, but it meant great business too, and if it helped ANBU, then who were they to argue as long as the price was right? Not to mention that making the smoke bombs part of official equipment would mean that they would have to be bought, making them even more business, and they had agreed to both deals, and had even given them a 20 discount on the smoke bombs bought as part of the standard kit, and the Hokage would be sending them the contracts as soon as possible.
At every birthday, and sometimes sooner, Naruto would receive the next scroll from his Father, and his Tai-Jutsu skills were getting to be very good in his two parents' families' Tai-Jutsu styles, and he was hoping to soon get the Shuushin, or 'Body Flicker' scroll to learn, as that was the finishing piece to the style, and so far he was using a different Ninjutsu/Genjutsu hybrid that made everyone looking at him when he used it to only be able to see flicker and blurs, but the Shuushin was the real thing.
At age 8, he participated in taking out some D-Rank Nukenins, which was training and battle experience for him, though he followed Kesshiro in use of stealth whenever possible, as that was the way of the Ninja, and he had taken them out with ease, using a sleeping gas bomb, of his own creation of course, and had carried their unconscious corpses to the nearest police station, not bothering in collecting the meagre bounty.
As a reward for succeeding his first battle against Nukenins, however easy it was, Kesshiro taught him the technique that would become his signature technique: The Kage Bunshin. It only took Naruto five hours to get it, and that was all on his own with no more help than a scroll, but the Kage Bunshins were incredibly useful, and he started using them to create masses of the weapons that he sold, instead of spending a lot of time doing it himself, and from then on, production boosted by 2000, and crate loads of the explosives were being created and transported to all main Hidden Villages, except the ones in direct conflict against Konoha, which meant that Konoha, the Wave, Suna, and Cloud were all getting them, but not Stone or Grass, as Stone was currently at war with Konoha, and Grass was working behind them, and the Hidden Villages weren't the only ones to get them, as even the smallest Villages with Ninjas in them had deliveries of the weapons sent to them.
And during all this, the company run by Naruto, paperwork done by clones, and Kesshiro there for financial help and ideas, expanded and became better known around the Shinobi continent, and the contracts were signed by both sides, and they were getting ideas for real weaponry from the ANBU, though Naruto still had to come up with how to do what he had decided to do for the very vague ideas sent by ANBU, though he made the ideas far more destructive than they had originated, like a flash bomb which also gave off a special sound that completely messed up your sense of balance and direction, often resulting in vomiting, and it also messed with nerve reaction time, making the victims far more susceptible to being caught by a kunai when they recovered from the initial attack, and then another that was far more destructive, and was a shrapnel grenade which sent out shrapnel, as the name implied, but the shrapnel went flying at certain parts of the body, and there were three levels of them. Green was the first one, and it targeted normal bits of flesh, Yellow went for arteries and sensitive points, whilst Red ones targeted special pressure points that caused great pain, and most importantly, and this was why they were especially dangerous, they were made to especially target the eyes, and they had a 100 chance of penetrating the eyeball without a hand being held in front of it, and even then they sometimes curved around.
His training was going well, and he had completely forgotten about the weights that continued to upgrade themselves, as he had gotten so used to them, and only remembered then when Kesshiro had hobbled around massaging his foot after kicking the ankle weight, and they had found out that the weights had actually all maxed out, and so he was clamped with a second set of them.
Kyuubi had also been training him hard, and Naruto learned a third Tai-jutsu style, called the Fire Fox, and used an ability that had taken him ages to Master, which was to convert Chakra into fire, and then fired it out of his tenketsus, burning anything but him. The Demon Fox Lord had also taught him how to call upon the demon Chakra, which was far more potent than Naruto's, but also far more volatile, so it should only be used for the much bigger Jutsus, which he also taught Naruto, along with also teaching him strategy. Since e was taught in his own mindscape, Naruto could make the room change to whatever he wanted it to, so he would be taught what to do in certain positions, demonstrated by the Kyuubi, who could also influence the room, and the bars were actually gone, though the Kyuubi still couldn't leave, and couldn't take over Naruto's body, and wouldn't even if he could, as he was the Kazames' Guardian, and so couldn't hurt them.
The Kyuubi had only actually attacked Konoha in the first place because his mate and kits had been killed by people (idiots) who wore Konoha hatai-ate, and so he had charged in without even trying to find out anything about who he was attacking first.
Another three years passed, and he had already become an official Hunter-Nin, following his Brother's example, learning more and more as he went along, though he followed the rule of 'Quality over Quantity', as his Brother did, and he had to Master a Jutsu before he would be taught the next, which was great incentive to get the Jutsu mastered, and would often completely wear himself out by staying up all night, having found a way to overcome the effect of the sleeping technique that Tsunade used to use on him back in the good old days when he was hyperactive, and was now just 'boisterous' instead.
Like with every year, he received another scroll from his Father, sometimes also containing some other Jutsus, but he was getting ever closer to the end of the Tai-jutsu style. In his Mother's scroll, he found out all about the family, and it turned out that the Uzumakis were once great Hunters with devastating weapons, but then they had been almost wiped out, only leaving one line with a recessive gene. He learned the Tai-Jutsu style as best as he could without the special items that were passed down the line, which made the final part of the style possible, and was now also on the third of the Fox styles, the Ice Fox, following the Earth Fox, which all included using Chakra to create or control the elements.
He was still inventing like crazy, and the mass of money that had been a small fortune before was now a huge fortune, as the weapons he created were being sold like wildfire, to both Ninjas and pranksters alike, but his biggest customer were ANBU, who had lots of money to pay with, and needed the ones that cost more and they had a lot of people to outfit. An ordinary but powerful flash bang had also been added to the list of items that would be part of standard equipment, along with a tracking device he had created which was to always be able to find your team-mates and it would also tell you what their condition was like, though rather disturbingly, and hilariously too, the biggest users were crazed fan girls, and little did he know that one Uchiha Sasuke was cursing their inventor to the ninth hell.
Tsunade had now long ago stopped trying to turn him into a medi-Nin, though made sure that he would be able to heal properly, and resigned herself to accept his chosen career, though was still allowed to fret about it, which she took advantage of a lot. His Hunter-Nin career was going well, and he was learning more and more with every mission, and had performed his first kill at age 10, which had taken a while to get over, but he realised that he would have to kill as a Ninja, and it would be incredibly hard to be a Hunter-Nin when B-Rank Nukenins and above had to be killed on sight, so he accepted it as another step in life and a valuable lesson to remember.
But now that he was eleven, he had to go back to his birth place and become a Genin.
\ 0 /