Maelstrom

by BlueGlass54

Inexorably drawing in everyone around him, they will become his strength to keep moving forward. He will continue growing and rise to heights none could have imagined. Assuming he survives the journey.

2. 1-1: Peaches and Progress

ARC 1

New Faces

chapter 1

Peaches and Progress

Let's be friends.

Even though he'd said those words last week, making it happen was a lot harder. They'd all been curious about him the first day, asking questions like where he lived (the forest) and why he'd started late (couldn't get signed up in time). Most of them had been properly amazed to hear he was living on his own, though they hadn't taken it so well when he'd talked about eating rabbits and squirrels. He'd quickly told them that ramen was a hundred times better, of course, and things had moved on.

Naruto had first noticed something was weird when they had gone out for training. A short ten lap jog around the Academy's track followed by thirty push-ups had over half the class short of breath and tired. Then the sparring had reinforced that thought. It had been very different from his regular matches with Kumaro and Torato. That was to be expected, however, since humans usually fought differently than bears or tigers. Even then, he'd seen young ninja going at it from time to time, but this just... didn't live up to his expectations.

The second day was worse, because the other kids had become hesitant overnight and avoided him. Their parents had probably told them to stay away, stupid parents. Watching from a distance, seeing the way they were with each other, he could tell they weren't bad people; it was just more of others being mean to him because he was him. But that was okay, since he was used to it. He had plenty of time to show them that him simply being himself didn't mean he was bad.

"Next match," Iruka-sensei called out, "Morita Raishin and Yoshida Momoko." It was sparring time again, and they were being paired up at random. For most of the class, this was their favorite part of the day, but Naruto couldn't get any enjoyment out of it since none of them could hurt him.

The two who had their names called stepped forward. Raishin was a tall and thin boy with short, light blue hair and green eyes, who liked to wear loose clothes that made him look even thinner. Momoko was small, with deep black eyes, and long hair that went halfway down her back colored a matching fake-black. They moved to the starting positions in the sparring ring, both staring at each other intently.

With the instructor's call of "begin!" the tall boy went on the attack, his longer legs letting him quickly reach his opponent even as she tried to back off. Once close, he covered the remaining distance with a short leap, bringing his back knee forward and up to strike the girl in the chest. Momoko fell onto her back... and laid there. Raishin stumbled slightly as he landed... and stood still. Iruka-sensei called the match with a firm "Winner, Raishin."

This was what the blonde disliked. Yeah, that hit had probably hurt a bit, at least for someone who'd never even gotten a broken bone, but she was totally able to get back up and keep fighting. She just didn't. The girl even proved him right a moment later when she stood up and brushed herself off like nothing had happened. Not just that, but the so-called "winner" had simply stood there after his attack had connected, like that was the end of it and he was proud of himself for doing such a good job.

Granted, Naruto's own spars had pretty much went the same way, a single lunging punch to the gut, throw, or headfirst tackle launching whoever he was up against straight out of the ring (And what was the deal with that anyway? A real fight would hardly end just because stepped outside some random circle. When he'd asked Iruka-sensei, the man had said something like it being a means of enforcing a standard set of rules emphasizing the controlled nature of the contest to prevent unnecessary injury. Seriously, what?). He had to keep reminding himself that everyone else was still just starting to learn. They had grown up in nice comfy homes with loving parents taking care of them and making sure they were never hungry or sad or in pain.

"Next match, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto." Sensei interrupted his thoughts, letting him know it was finally his turn. He looked at his opponent; from what he'd seen so far, the pale-skinned boy was better than anyone else in the class. Maybe he'd be able to put up a bit of a fight? The short boy felt himself grin as he sank down low to the ground, deciding he'd go on all fours this time. His legs coiled up tightly, ready to launch him forward the instant the spar began. Sasuke saw what he was doing and prepared himself, looking like he was going to leap backwards in an attempt to get out of range. It wouldn't be enough, so he was probably going to go to one side or the other as well. That would be easy enough to deal with by watching for what he did and pushing off slightly harder with the left or right leg to match. And if the boy switched and tried to go over him, there were ways to handle that too.

"Begin!"

As his legs began to send him racing forward, his opponent leapt back fast, much faster than expected. He was using his chakra to speed up and strengthen his movements. Naruto could do that as well, but Iruka-sensei had said he wasn't allowed to since the class hadn't learned how to do it yet. His grin turned into a smile. Fighting someone using chakra without using it himself might be interesting. He put his full strength into the leap, now quickly closing the distance.

It wouldn't quite be enough to catch Sasuke before returning to the ground, but that was okay. The blonde slammed his right hand down a bit off to the side, fingers digging deep into the hard-packed dirt for a better grip, and used the new handhold to push against the forward movement a bit. Just a moment later, he stretched his left hand forward and planted it much the same way, only this one pulled. The result was the speed of his leap turning into a spin that brought his legs around from the side. He spread them apart a bit as well, left going high and right low, to keep his opponent from avoiding by jumping or ducking.

Sasuke avoided anyway. While Naruto was facing the wrong way to see the movement, he could still feel it as the boy threw himself between the gap in his legs, and he couldn't close them fast enough to catch him. The last-second dodge would have him landing a little ways to the side. He could use his arms to push off the ground and pursue...

Nah, this was a spar, not a fight. No need to stay on the offensive. For now, he would let his opponent attack; he'd earned it.

"You're not bad," he complimented the other boy while removing the momentum from his kick by turning it into a handstand. Then he pulled his arms up sharply, leaving him in the air with no support. Twisting his body as he fell, he shifted to a stable stance with his weight spread evenly over all four limbs. Both fighters touched the ground at the same time.

An annoyed "hmph" was the only response. Okay, that attitude pissed him off just a bit. Then, Sasuke was moving again.

A kick was coming down at him from the left. He easily had enough time to dodge, but he was curious what a chakra-enhanced attack would feel like. Naruto moved slightly, placing his shoulder in the foot's path and putting most of his weight on the arm beneath it. When his opponent's heel came into contact with his body, it stung but caused no real damage. Huh, seemed like the only one in the class he could expect to have decent striking power was the large boy, Akimichi Chouji. Letting his shoulder sink in with the blow a bit, he then stopped and forcefully reversed the motion. The action threw the foot back sharply and set Sasuke, who had put most of his weight into the kick, off-balance.

Time to end this. While the taller boy was stumbling, the blonde quickly pulled his own body forward, brought his legs under him, then stood up on two feet. A couple steps had him right behind his still-recovering opponent, from where he wrapped his arms firmly but not too tightly (didn't wanna risk seriously hurting him after all) around the boy's middle The Uzumaki made sure to catch his elbows in the hold, and lifted him up a bit off the ground. Then he slid his feet around slightly to lock the ankles in place with his shins. Aside from his neck, the Uchiha couldn't move. Iruka-sensei's voice ended the match.

Naruto tried being nice again, offering a "Hey, good spar," as he released the other boy. All he got in return was a short, dismissive grunt, his former opponent not even bothering to look back as he walked away. Bah.

Now that his turn was done, the small ninja-in-training stopped paying attention. There was only so much he could take of watching his classmates doing something they were all bad at. Not that he really had any room to talk about being bad at things. Anything that didn't involve using his body (like Iruka-sensei's lectures or the work they were assigned), he could barely keep up with, if at all.

It turned out that not knowing how to read or write was a big problem. The kind teacher had been spending time after classes each day trying to help him learn, but it was slow going. Writing was hard! And complicated! This bunch of squiggly lines made one sound, but that bunch made a totally different sound, even though they looked the same. And with those little marks added, it changed the sounds again. Then there were other sets of lines that made the same exact sounds even though they looked completely different, and others where how to read them changed if they were used differently... Aagh! He was learning, but it was slow and frustrating.

And he still hadn't made any new friends. The rest of the kids played with each other all the time, or talked about stuff, or just spent time together. They always made sure to leave Naruto out of it, however. It hurt, but that was okay. It always hurt, so he could deal with it.

---

It was the middle of lunch time when he saw something unusual. They were allowed to eat anywhere on the Academy grounds as long as they didn't bother other classes, so there were groups of students all over the place. But the blonde already knew how trying to join any of them would end. They would just pretend he wasn't there and, after a few moments, make their way to a new spot. These silent rejections made him want to hit them, but he didn't. Hitting them for something they didn't understand wouldn't help them become friends. Still, he tried every day before going off to a quiet place to eat his meal (normally a couple fish along with whatever bread and fruits he'd managed to steal from the market that morning) alone. This time, however, he noticed someone else sitting by themself in the shade of a tree, leaning against the trunk and doing nothing.

Moving closer, he saw that it was Momoko. Weird, she always ate with those other girls Suzuyo and Emi. He walked over to her, curious. She looked up at him briefly, then went back to staring at her lap. He could see in her eyes that she was sad and upset about something. Deciding to take a chance, he went over and squatted down near her. "You okay?" he asked, concerned.

She looked up again, then immediately jerked back along with a little surprised sound on seeing his face right in front of her. Whatever she'd been thinking about must have been really distracting to not notice how close he was. Her answer came in a dull voice, "Ah, Naruto-san. Thank you, but I am fine."

Well that was a lie. He tried giving her the same disappointed frown Iruka-sensei always used. "You don't look fine, Momoko... san." Addressing people formally like that left a strange feeling in his mouth, but it was better to follow her lead. "Have you been crying?" he added, having seen the tear tracks running down her cheeks.

She immediately leaned forward so that her long fake-black hair covered her face. "No, I-"

But he cut off her protest. "Hey, it's okay to cry. I used to cry a lot, still do sometimes. Hell, I bet even Iruka-sensei cries every once in a while. As long as you don't cry all the time, it's fine. A good cry can make you feel better after; just imagine whatever's bothering you flowing out through the tears, that's always helped me."

With that, she started sobbing openly. Then she did something unexpected and threw herself at him. Naruto almost sprang away at the sudden movement, but there was nothing hostile in it. She didn't want to hurt him, instead she wanted... He didn't know. This was new to him.

She wrapped her arms around him and buried her head in his shoulder, and he found his own arms reaching out on instinct to hold her gently. Her body was warm. Her tears were making a wet spot on his shirt.

He had never been this close to another human before. It felt... nice.

They stayed like that for a little bit until she was all done crying. "Now," the blonde asked as she moved back to sitting against the tree, but not hunched over and hiding anymore, "you wanna tell me what had you so upset?"

The girl's answer came slowly, in pieces, like she wasn't sure if she should say it or not. "It's... it's Raishin-kun. He... After sparring, he called me names... He said I was pathetic and useless, and..." She trailed off, making quiet sounds like she was going to burst into tears again.

Well, that wouldn't help anyone at this point. Naruto wasn't too sure what to say, so he tried to think about what he had always wanted to hear when people said things like that to him. "He was just saying that stuff to hurt you, right? So right now, you're doing exactly what he wants. You're not useless. I don't know about pathetic though, 'cause I don't know what that word means, but whatever it is, you're probably not it."

His bright grin made Momoko giggle a little bit. "He's saying I'm bad at sparring. And he did win." She started to move back to sad.

"Oh, is that it? Then yeah, you are pretty pathetic," that caught her attention, deep black eyes staring wide. He continued, "but so's he. He just won today 'cause he attacked first. You guys are just learning how to fight, and attacking is easier to figure out than defending." There was more he wanted to say, but first to see how she took it.

"We-well, what would you have done, if you were me?" she asked a bit quickly, her stare telling him to answer seriously.

Naruto made sure to keep the annoyance that had been building in him for the past week out of his voice. "You could've kicked his legs out from under him while you were on the ground, gotten your feet under you, then slammed your fist into his gut while he was down," he told her, showing her in motions and at a speed she'd be able to copy.

"But it hurt where he hit me!" she complained.

He wanted to tell her to ignore the pain, he really did. But something stopped him, a memory from back when he'd first had to start living on his own. A wolf had found him out in the woods and decided he'd be tasty. The wolf had bitten him in the shoulder, and it had hurt so much he'd just wanted to curl up in a ball and lay there. It was only because he knew the wolf would have killed him otherwise that he was able to clamp his own teeth into the animal's throat. He imagined himself back then, only the wolf had backed off after biting him, and then someone told him to just ignore the pain. It didn't work.

This was the most he'd ever talked to another kid though, so he had to say something. "Does it still hurt?" he asked, then realized what he could do to help her.

Momoko frowned and rubbed the area lightly. "Yeah, a bit."

"If you want," the boy offered, "I can teach you a trick that'll make it stop hurting faster. And it'll be stronger once it's all better, so if you get hit there again, it'll hurt less."

"Really? What do I need to do?" She was looking right at him now, waiting for his answer.

"It's easy, just direct a little chakra to wherever the pain is. Go on, try it!" If Naruto's grin was just a bit mischievous, the girl didn't seem to notice as she scrunched up her eyes in concentration. Then-

"Ow!" He let out a small laugh as she glared at him. "You tricked me! That made it worse, not better."

But he'd thought she would react like that and already knew what to say. "Never told you it'd make it hurt less, just that it'd stop hurting sooner. I like to think of it as going through the same amount of hurting in a lot shorter time, so it's gotta hurt more to make things even out. And I wasn't making stuff up about it being stronger when you're done. You just gotta keep your chakra flowing into it for a little while."

"But..." She sounded a bit nervous, "Is it okay for us to be using up our chakra like this? What if we need it later?" As far as Naruto could tell, all the class had learned to do with chakra so far was moving it around the body and using it to jump higher.

"It's fine!" he assured her. "And if you never use your chakra, you won't get any more of it." When she looked confused at this, he continued, "It's like exercising your body to make it stronger, you use up the chakra you have, and there's more when it comes back. But you've gotta be careful not to use too much and stop when you start feeling really tired, or bad things happen."

The black haired girl was looking at him like she did Iruka-sensei in class. "That's amazing! How did you learn all this, Naruto-san?" she questioned excitedly.

It was a new feeling, having someone praise him like that. He was unsure how to act in return. "Well, it's all just stuff I picked up here and there. Kinda had to, living out in the forest like I did."

"Tell me more?" Momoko asked.

"Not unless you start channeling chakra to that injury again. Trust me, keep it up through lunch, and it'll feel better than ever," he finished with a confident smile.

She frowned. "But how am I supposed to listen to you and do that at the same time?"

That was an easy one. "Once you get used to the feeling, it's not hard to keep it going while doing something else. Why don't you give it a try?"

"Okay!" Her face scrunched up again, first in concentration, then in pain. "Got it!" she announced, managing a twisted smile.

"Good," he gave the girl an encouraging grin, "now don't lose it. One problem with this can be if you overdo it, like if you keep on hurting the same part of your body over and over and using chakra on it without giving it time to rest, it'll start to work backwards and make it weaker. There's lots of other stuff you can do with chakra, too..." As lunch went by, Naruto told her about all the different random things he'd learned to use chakra for, like drying off after a swim, making hard foods softer so they'd be easier to chew, helping to build muscle back up after training the body, warming up on cold nights or cooling down on hot ones, getting rid of dirt and stuff on clothes, and making small light things like leaves or blades of grass float over the palm. He even showed her that last one.

After a couple minutes, she'd started talking, asking things like how the chakra knows what you want. He guessed it was just about focusing on what you needed it to do right then and keeping to simple, one-word ideas. Then they got to eating. Momoko had brought rice as part of her lunch, and the pair soon made it a game to use the energy to fling single grains from their palms into each other's mouths.

It was fun.

The whole time, the blonde kept some attention on her chakra going to her hurt chest (if you knew how, it was easy to feel from so close). Whenever she started to let the flow fall off, he'd stop whatever he was doing and stare at the spot until she fixed it.

When they noticed the other kids heading in, they stood up to do the same. "Thanks, Naruto-kun, I had a good time eating with you." At some point, they had switched over to the more casual honorifics, probably during the rice-flinging.

"Yeah, me too. Hey, Momoko-chan," once he had her full attention, he smacked her in the chest with the back of his hand, quickly and forcefully but with no real strength to the blow. She stumbled backwards a few steps. "That was about how hard Raishin kneed you earlier. So, how was it?"

She gave a thoughtful frown while rubbing the area, then changed to a bright smile. "Mn! That wasn't so bad, sort of like a hard bump. Thanks. You know, I don't think you're a bad person at all. A bit weird, maybe, but you're very kind."

At those words, it felt like the most amazing warmth had spread through Naruto's body. There had been times when he wondered if trying to make more friends was worth the time and effort. This was the answer.

"Thank you. You know," he added on as they walked back to the building, "if you make sure to use up a lotta chakra before going to bed, it'll help you sleep really well. You should try it tonight," he suggested. Since she was walking behind him, the girl couldn't see the playful grin that came with the advice.

---

"Soo, didja sleep well?" he asked brightly to the girl laying down face-first on the desk, long black hair spilling out all around her.

Her response was muffled and impossible to make out.

"Sorry, what was that?" Had anyone been bothering to listen, they would have clearly heard the laughter in the young boy's voice. "Anyway, I got this for you."

Momoko managed to lift her head up enough to see what he was holding. A peach. She gave a dull stare, as if to say "Really?" If she'd been a bit more awake, she would have mustered up the energy to be annoyed at the joke on her name she'd already suffered more times than she could count.

"Just eat it," he said, placing the fruit next to her hand. Tired as she was, she actually did like peaches and so wasn't about to pass up on a free one. It took a second or two to get it in front of her mouth and bite in.

Her eyes went wide as the rich, flavorful juice hit her tongue, and she instantly felt awake. She stared at her blonde... friend? Yeah, that sounded right.

"Another use for chakra: it makes food better," he told her. "Even worms'll taste good if you put chakra in 'em first."

She made a face at that. "Sounds gross. But thanks, Naruto-kun." The girl suddenly found herself to be much less sleepy as the energy in the fruit ran through her body. "Do you do this to all your food?" she asked, curious.

"Yep!" he replied immediately. "Well, pretty much. When stuff's less fresh, it doesn't work so good."

She wanted to keep talking, but Iruka-sensei chose that moment to start class. Seeing that her new friend had yet to find a spot, Momoko offered the chair next to her. The blonde, rather than walking around and sitting down like a normal person, instead hopped clear over the desk and perched on his bare feet near the front of the seat. The girl giggled at his antics.

As they went through morning lessons, it became clear that Naruto-kun, for all that he was outstanding physically (and knew lots about seemingly random things), had a huge gap when it came to basic knowledge. He had no idea where chakra came from (aside from "near the stomach") or how it was made. His handwriting was barely readable, full of spelling mistakes, and switched randomly between hiragana and katakana sometimes in mid-word, with even the simplest kanji being completely absent. And when it came time for math class, the less said about that, the better.

For her own part, Momoko found academics to be challenging at times but had never really struggled with them, maybe because she always had Suzuyo-chan there to help her when things got tough. She and Emi-chan were both out sick at the moment, so introducing them to the weird but friendly blonde would have to wait until next week.

The morning passed, and they all went outside at noon for sparring. Naruto-kun was one of the first ones called today, together with Yamada-san. As always, his match ended quickly, this time with him twisting out of the way of the sturdy, heavyset girl's opening punch, grabbing her by the shoulder, and throwing her clear out of the ring. After a few more pairs went up, it was her turn.

"Yoshida Momoko and Yamanaka Ino," came Iruka-sensei's voice. Seeing she was up against one of the clan kids, the black-haired girl instantly became nervous. It was expected, since with the exception of her new friend, no one not from a clan had beaten a clan kid even once.

Just then, a warm hand fell on her shoulder. She turned to see Naruto-kun giving her a supportive grin. "Do your best," he told her before giving her a gentle nudge towards the waiting kunoichi-in-training. She called back a quiet thanks as she walked up to her opponent.

Yamanaka-san was standing there impatiently. "Hurry up so we can get this over with," the girl hissed at her as they got into their starting poses. Iruka-sensei gave a small frown at that, but nothing more.

Immediately after that, he called out "begin!" and Momoko, remembering the advice from yesterday, moved forward to attack right away. She threw a punch straight at the middle of the taller girl's chest, only for her to step back and capture the extended arm in both of her own. A hard kick to her wide-open side sent her to the ground in a tumble of long black hair, pain shooting through her ribs.

It hurt enough that she didn't want to get up. If she just laid here a moment, Sensei would call the match and-

"Do your best." Those words from just moments ago echoed through her mind. Was this really all she could bring herself to do? If she gave up like this, wouldn't she be disappointing not only her newest friend, but also her own hopes and dreams of becoming a kunoichi?

Momoko gritted her teeth, at her opponent or at her own attitude, she wasn't sure which. Maybe both. Then, she saw Yamanaka's legs right nearby and kicked out at them, like the movements she had been shown just a day ago. When she went to get back to her feet, however, she was slowed by a sharp spike in the pain from her side, and by the time she was standing, so was the other girl, about two meters away.

The blonde-haired girl (a much paler blonde than Naruto-kun's vibrant gold-yellow) was looking at her differently now, a hint of respect in those eyes. Some instinct told Momoko that Yamanaka-san would be the one to attack first this time and that her best chance was to watch carefully for what she did in order to counter it.

A sharp right-handed chop came at her throat, and she stepped back out of range. Then, together with another quick movement forward, a fist shot towards the right side of her chest. She blocked it with her forearm, wincing in pain as she took a step closer in and used her left arm to throw a punch at her opponent's face.

It connected solidly with the girl's cheek... at the same time the knee she hadn't been able to see rammed into her gut, sending her stumbling back gasping for air. Before she had a chance to recover, she was hit by a number of strikes ending in another kick that laid her out on her back. The blonde fell on her and grabbed her shoulders, pinning her to the ground.

"Winner, Ino," Iruka-sensei's voice called the fight. The taller girl got off of her and offered a hand up, which she accepted after taking a moment to recover. Giving her former opponent a nod of thanks, she made her way back to the other blonde in the class.

Naruto-kun greeted her with a straightforward, "A lot better than yesterday, good work. For the injuries," he added after a short pause, "start with the one to your side, but lay down on your back first and brace yourself. That kick was the worst hit you took, so it's gonna hurt, but if you can handle that, the others won't be a problem."

She took his advice and was immediately glad for it. When she started channeling chakra to the hurt area, it felt like she was getting kicked again, repeatedly. It was bad enough that she lost focus on the rest of the world for a bit. Had she been standing or even sitting, the pain would have been enough to make her collapse. Only the knowledge that this was helping her to get stronger, strong enough to maybe one day be able to help people the way she'd always wanted, was enough to make her keep going.

It seemed like forever before the pain started to die down, and she opened her eyes (when had she closed them?) to a view full of tree leaves. At some point, the boy must have carried her over to what she quickly recognized as the same tree they had met under yesterday. It was also apparently lunchtime already, as tilting her head, she saw him in the middle of shoveling a large meal of mostly meat, bread, and fruit into his mouth.

When he saw her, the blonde stopped eating for a moment. "Yo, nice to see you up. You were really super-focused back there, and I couldn't get you out of it. Lay still for a minute," he said when she made to get up, "Sorry I forgot to mention, but when you use chakra like that on a bad enough injury and you're not ready for it, you sorta get absorbed in the pain for a bit and it's pretty draining. When you're ready to sit up, I poured some chakra into your lunch, so eating should help some." Sure enough, her bento was sitting next to her in arm's reach. She was a little embarrassed to know that he must have gone digging through her pack to find it, but more than that she was grateful for the gesture, as there was no denying that she felt exhausted.

Still, even more than any of that, a new, unfamiliar emotion was welling up inside her. After waiting a moment to gather the needed energy, she spoke, her first words since before the match. "Next time... Next time, I want to win."

---

Her scent came to him before he saw her. He could recognize it easily enough now. A strong sweetness, with a hint of the kind of wood used for building houses, and traces of a bunch of different old things mixed in. Momoko came around the corner at a run, carrying a full pack, more durable than the one she brought to the Academy every day, on her back.

"So?" Naruto asked when his friend reached him, though he could guess the answer by her smile.

She was still breathing a bit heavily from her run and had to pause a few times as she spoke. "They said yes... haa... Told 'em a friend had... haa... invited me over for the weekend... haa... and they said I could go!"

Well, it was true, even if she had left out that the friend was Uzumaki Naruto, "over" meant the middle of the forest instead of a house, and she was going more for training than to have fun. But for her to be short of breath just from running home and back, her stamina was pretty bad, so he'd have to keep that in mind.

"Then we're all set," he told her. "It's a little ways away to where we're going, so we'll get there a lot faster if I carry you." While speaking, he turned about and kneeled down to offer his back. Sensing some hesitation, he added "I won't drop you or anything." The boy felt her climb up and wrap her arms and legs around him.

That done, he took off at a sprint into Konoha's streets. Since he was carrying someone, he had to run on just his legs, which was annoying, because he liked going on all-fours better. With hands and feet, he could move a lot faster, had better control, and he got tired faster. And getting tired then getting better was part of getting stronger, so getting tired faster meant getting stronger faster. That was important because he needed to get waaaaaaaay stronger to keep his promise to his first friend, since he only had so many years to do it before he got old and died.

And running on four limbs meant twice as many chances to make noise, so he had to try twice as hard to stay silent, which made it twice as fun. But carrying Momoko like that, with her sitting on him like a rock, would be sorta weird, and she probably wouldn't like it very much.

The village during mid-afternoon was a busy place, and he soon found himself having to dodge in between and around people's legs and under and over carts, horses, and other obstacles. It wasn't like the forest, where you had to constantly react to the densely-packed trees, and everyone generally moved to avoid you. Here the only stationary objects were the easy to deal with buildings, and you had to keep aware of other living creatures because they didn't much care what you were doing. It was a very different experience, and he'd need to remember to train in both for the variety.

"How're you doin' back there?" he asked his passenger while leaping over the heads of a group of people crowding in front of a store.

"This is awesome!" she called back excitedly, the wind of his run leaving her long fake-black hair trailing out behind her like a banner.

"Heh, this is nothing. The ninjas up there," he gestured to the rooftops, "are easily goin' three times as fast. With a little work, I promise you'll be able t'keep up with this kinda speed no problem. Now just wait a minute 'til we're clear of the village proper, then I'll show you how fast I can really go!" His friend giggled happily at his boasting; not that he'd actually be going full speed, using just his legs like this. But it would be enough to give her a fun time and maybe get in a bit of a workout if he really pushed himself.

Soon enough, they came to the end of the streets and houses, and from there it was open grass stretching all the way to the trees. "Hold on tight!" he told the girl, as he leaned farther and farther forward until only the constant motion kept him from falling flat on his face. Then Naruto began pushing his legs to go faster. Continually kicking off the ground harder and harder with each step, trying to reach the speeds he could get with chakra without actually using any.

He didn't actually manage that, but there was a strong, pleasant, burning sensation in his lower body as the wind whistled sharply and the surroundings became a blur of green. Momoko was laughing in delight. He imagined someone watching from the village wall would see them as little more than a streak of orange, blonde, and black cutting across a field.

After a few minutes, the edge of the forest began to approach rapidly. The boy grinned in anticipation; he knew this part of the woods by heart. Still, he channeled a little chakra to sharpen his senses, the world around them snapping into clear focus. It'd be just plain stupid to risk crashing, since his passenger would probably be hurt pretty badly with them going this fast.

With a whoop of joy (and a gasp of terror from Momoko), he shot into the tree-line, not bothering to slow down in the slightest. Precise repositionings of his feet that came as naturally as breathing had him evading roots and rocks, passing within a centimeter of some trees, close enough to feel the difference in the air right by their trunks, all without changing direction or losing speed.

About a minute in, the girl on his back realized that no, he was not about to smash them headfirst into something, and he felt her twisting about to look at things as the forest flashed past them. She started making quiet noises of appreciation that were instantly whipped away by the wind of his run. Glad she liked his home, Naruto decided to give her a little treat and snatched at a bush of yummy, non-poisonous berries as he dashed past. "Eat up," he told her as he passed back the small handful of sweet fruits. "It's just a few more minutes to where I usually eat an' sleep, I'll give you a little tour, then we'll get to training."

---

"Oww... Let's take a break," Momoko pleaded with her new slave driv- friend, yeah, she meant friend. They had been working for at least an hour now in a clearing quickly losing sunlight, and her whole body hurt.

The blonde had explained that the biggest thing separating him from the rest of their class when it came to sparring, even more than his being faster and stronger, or knowing how to use chakra, was fighting experience. Not practice matches like they'd been doing, or like what the clan kids probably did at home, but real fights where people hurt each other and got hurt in return. It would be a bit painful, but she would learn far faster through real fights than she could ever hope to otherwise. Plus, he'd added, it was pretty much the only way he could think of to help her train.

Then he'd had her attack him... and proceeded to effortlessly dodge every single one of her strikes, together with comments about them being too obvious, too straightforward, or "a baby could see that coming!" After a little bit, he'd started to hit back, sharp, strong punches and kicks that rattled her and made her want to cry, but if she cried, she wouldn't be able to see where he would go for next. They stopped several times to let her catch her breath, but never long enough to really rest. She found that, oddly enough, even as her body tired, she could avoid his attacks better and better, and her own came closer and closer to hitting, the taunts turning into encouragements and praise like "so close," "nice one!" or "almost had me there."

Finally, he had let her start actually hitting him (because she was under no illusion that he wasn't toning things down to match her level, the constant bright, wide smile reminded her of that). It had hurt.

"Really," she complained, "it's like punching a wall."

"Well I may be tougher than most," he admitted, "but the others'll hardly feel like pillows either. Maybe Chouji," he added. She let out a small laugh as her imagination supplied an image of the large boy as a head, arms, and legs sticking out of a big ball of fluffy pillows. "C'mon, one more round, then you can have that break."

The girl sighed as she forced her tired body to prepare itself once again. She had agreed to this, she reminded herself. Her partner, instead, started pacing around her. "For this one, we're gonna do something a bit different, and I'll talk about defense." At that point, his path took him out of her view, and she suddenly felt his knuckles dig into her side a bit painfully. "Eyes on the enemy!"

She quickly turned to face him even as she began to protest, "But we're not figh-" Another, harder fist to the same spot, so fast that all she saw was a blur.

"Keep your guard up!" he shouted over her. "Right, defense," the boy continued his pacing, and this time she made sure to keep turning so he'd stay in the center of her vision. "What's tricky about defense is that there're a bunch of different ways to do it, and you gotta pick the one that works best right then. Say someone punches you," here he turned to face her and brought his fist forward in a slow motion punch, "you could dodge, but what way do you dodge? You move back, it's a pretty safe choice, since even if you're a bit slow, you're moving in the same direction as the punch, and that makes it hurt a lot less. But then you're way outta range to hit back, and your enemy's the one attacking." Attacking usually had the advantage; it was one of the first things he'd said.

Wait, something was weird here. Something he was saying wasn't matching what he was doing... It took Momoko just a moment to realize it, then, before giving herself time to think- "Fighting is mostly instinct. You think, you get hit!" -she kicked him in the gut.

"'Keep your guard up,' right, Naruto-sensei?" she teased. Her leg hurt a bit where it had hit his stomach, but it wasn't too bad.

"Exactly! Good job," he complimented together with a happy grin. "Now, think you can fight and listen at the same time?"

"Mn!" She was careful not to nod, since that would make her lose focus on her opponent.

"So dodging to the side," he continued as though there hadn't been a pause, "can be tricky, since whoever you're fighting can maybe see how you're gonna dodge and react, hitting you anyway." At this point, he demonstrated, avoiding her strikes just by moving to the left or right. Watching him carefully, she could see what he was talking about, little differences in the way he moved depending on if he would go one way or the other. The young kunoichi-in-training decided to test it and, one time when she saw he would dodge left, she changed her punch to go a bit left as well... And up, straight for his face.

Naruto's nose, she found out, was thankfully not as hard as most of his body. If she hadn't already thought him weird, the delighted look he gave her as a bit of blood trickled over his lips, would've decided it.

"Very nice," he told her before restarting the lecture and fight. "Deflecting and countering attacks needs a sense of timing you don't have just yet, so we'll skip over those for now and move on to blocking. Blocking's probably the easiest way to defend, since all you gotta do is put one of the harder parts of your body, a lotta times your forearms, in the way of the attack. Of course, there's more to it than that but I'm just tryin' to teach you the basics. It might still sting a bit, but it won't be half as bad as if you'd got hit somewhere important. Plus, if your opponent leaves themself open with their attack, you're right up close to take advantage of it."

As she started using blocks herself, Momoko could easily see what he meant. But the blonde was hardly one to leave things like that, and after a minute or two of silently trading blows, he spoke again. "One last thing, blocking doesn't work real well when the attack's too strong." He followed the comment with a punch that looked like the ones he'd been throwing the whole time. She blocked out of habit- "Habits are bad. They make you predictable, and predictable gets you hurt." -and felt her whole body shake from the blow, even though it hit right in the middle of her crossed arms. The force threw her off her feet, and she flew several meters through the air before landing hard on her back and skidding painfully in the dirt a bit further.

"Aahh..." she moaned quietly in pain, unable to move. Naruto's face came into view, clear blue eyes full of concern.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't've hit you full force like that," he apologized quietly. "I got a little carried away. Are you all right?"

"I- I will be" she answered, a bit shakily. A warm arm slid under her back and gently sat her up, then another joined it beneath her legs, and the girl found herself lifted up as if she weighed nothing at all. Then her friend carried her over to a tree at the edge of the clearing and set her down just as gently, facing the setting sun.

"Just rest for a bit. I'll be back soon." She wanted to ask him where he was going, but she hesitated and he was gone. That was okay though, because she trusted him.

Now there was something she would never have expected just two days ago. She trusted a boy who had just spent the past hour beating her up after leading her alone to his home, which was a hollowed-out tree, in the middle of the forest. And what's more, that boy was Uzumaki Naruto, who everyone said to stay away from, that he was nothing but trouble.

But it felt like it was precisely because it was Naruto that she could trust him so easily. Maybe it was living out in the wild, maybe it was just his personality, but something about him gave off an air of openness and honesty that just wasn't there with most people. She had a feeling that once they got to know him a little, Emi-chan and Suzu-chan would quickly come to like him too.

The girl suddenly realized that at some point during the afternoon, she had stopped referring to him with honorifics. She hadn't done that even with her best and closest friends. Well, in conversation with just the three of them it would be Emi, Suzu, and Momo; keeping the -chan the rest of the time was probably just because they'd done it that way for so long.

Laying like this in the warm sun, with her black hair absorbing the heat and soothing the back of her head, Momoko found herself drifting off to sleep despite the throbbing in her arms and back.

Just then, Naruto returned, a cloth stretched between his arms full of delicious-looking berries. Her eyes gleamed in joy, and he must have seen it, because he let out a small laugh as he placed the cloth on the grass next to her. "Hehe, I had a feeling you liked sweet and juicy stuff." That fact was something about her that only her parents and best friends knew. It was her biggest weakness, and this boy had figured it out less than two days since their first real meeting! "But first," he gave her a stern look, "I want you to take care of those arms and your back."

She needed a second to realize what he meant, with her mind full of thoughts of tasty, sweet juice filling her mouth. Then she remembered. He probably noticed her worry, since he quickly continued, "It won't be like with your ribs, I promise! I should've noticed back then, but I'm pretty sure one of 'em was broken. And I made sure to check this time, and while you're a bit banged up, everything's still in one piece. You're not bleeding either, so that's good."

"Mn," the girl agreed softly. "Does that make a difference, bleeding?" she asked as she focused her mind on the warm energy swirling about in her belly, bringing it to the surface of her consciousness.

"Do your arms first," he advised and waited for her to get started before answering the question. "Well yeah, 'cause you need to stop the bleeding first, or the blood starts pouring out really fast when you speed up the healing, and it gets pretty messy. Best way I've found t'handle open wounds like that is to keep some pressure on it, then hold a thin layer of chakra just on and below the skin 'til it feels like it's all sealed up."

Taking care of injuries like this had become a lot faster and easier, she noticed. Did it hurt? Yes, a lot, but there was a feeling of relief when she was done, and the super-fast recovery time was worth the increased pain. She looked on in a sort of detached fascination as large bruises appeared on her forearms, darkened, then faded away. Something that normally would've taken days instead went by in minutes.

Momoko moved to working on to her back. This time, she couldn't distract herself by watching the injury, so she decided to make conversation. "Thanks for the... Well, the lesson, I guess. Where did you learn all that stuff?" She was curious. While the blonde seemed to be completely hopeless in some areas, back there it had really felt like he knew what he was talking about.

"Eh, here an' there," was the vague reply.

"No, really, where?" she insisted.

"I told you, here an' there."

"That's not an answer!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

She could see in his eyes that he was all but laughing now, enjoying their little back and forth. But she really did want to know.

"C'mon, pleeaaaseee?"

He gave in. "Oh alright. If you'll answer one question for me after." Sort of.

"Sure," the girl agreed.

"Like I told you," he began, "fighting's somethin' you learn by doing. And living out here on my own for so long, I had t'do a lot of it just to survive. So I picked up more'n a bit that way, and the rest came from watching the ninja training. Well, a lotta the stuff from them jus' told me I was on the right track with the things I'd figured out myself. Good t'know, 'cause before that I didn't really get much about how humans fought an' how it was different from everyone living in the forest. The more technical stuff I was talkin' about back there came from the ninja too."

"Wow, that's pretty cool," she said honestly. Then there was a short, but not uncomfortable silence, before something in what he'd just told her made her wonder, "Hey Naruto, just how long have you been living in these woods all alone?"

The answer came quickly this time. "Ever since the orphanage burned down back when I was four." It was said matter-of-factly, as if the whole thing was no big deal. Then his tone changed completely, "But I'm not alone! Haven't been alone for a long time! It might be quiet out here sometimes, but you're never really alone. That's one'a the things I like about it."

She guessed he had a point. In a forest like this, there was life everywhere. The trees, the animals, the insects crawling around in the dirt, and the birds flying up above. It kinda would be hard to feel alone surrounded by so much life.

Then the boy's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Okay, now it's my turn for a question! It's really been buggin' me, why d'you have your hair fake-black like that?"

"Eh?" It was so sudden and unexpected that she needed a second to process the words. Then she paused: fake-black? What?

She glanced at her hair, still dark as ever in the setting sunlight, not sure what he was talking about at first. Then she realized he just didn't know the word to use. "You mean why do I dye my hair?" By the confused look on his face, she could tell she was right. "Dying is what you call it when you put stuff called dye in your hair to change the color," she explained.

"Aah, I see," he gave a satisfied nod. A pause. "So?"

"Wait a minute, I'm trying to decide how to answer!" she told him. Of everything he could've asked...

"Wouldn't you answer with the truth?" the boy shot back immediately.

"Yes, but..." Momoko sighed, letting the minor frustration drift away, before deciding to just start at the beginning.

"Back when I was still a little baby, my parents moved here from the capital. I think they were hoping all the people coming to a ninja village to ask for missions would help them find new clients. I'm not sure if they ever really told me why we moved. Anyway, they were coming here as part of a merchant caravan, but on the way, it was attacked by bandits.

"I don't remember of course, since I was so little, but they told me it was really scary, that they were afraid we'd all be killed or sold as slaves. Then this kunoichi appeared and beat up all the bandits. And there were a lot of them, more than fifty Mom and Dad said. But she just kept hitting them until they were knocked out or couldn't fight back, all without letting them hurt any of the people and without saying a single word. When it was over, everyone in the caravan thanked her and tried to give her money and goods, but she just told them that their being safe was enough of a reward and walked off.

"After getting to Konoha, my parents asked around, trying to find out who she was. It turns out she's what's called an independent ninja. Those're people who got training outside any of the villages and just wander the continent taking whatever jobs they feel like. She's apparently pretty well-known for suddenly showing up to help people in trouble and then not accepting anything in return Her name is Komiya Sazami, and it's my dream to be just like her one day. Well, I guess I can't really be an independent ninja, but just being able to help people who need it like that...

"But she has long black hair, so I dye my hair and keep it like this to sorta be more like her, and to remind me that if it weren't for her, I probably wouldn't even be here to begin with," she finished.

"Aa, I get that," Naruto said after a moment. "I cut my hair the way I do t'look more like the Yondaime."

She stared at the wild, uneven spikes of golden-blonde, then thought about the giant stone face she saw every day. It might look a little similar, if she squinted. And had bad vision. But she decided not to say anything about it.

There was silence for a minute between the two children. It was just them, the setting sun, a gentle breeze, the sounds of the forest, and the sweet smell of berries.

Her back no longer hurting, the girl helped herself to a couple of the small fruits from the nearby pile and instantly recognized the rich, energizing feeling telling her that her friend had put some of his chakra into them. "Mmm... Yummy..." she called out quietly.

"Hey Momoko," the boy said after giving her a few more moments to savor the taste, "I wanna show you something. It's a short walk, but you can eat while we go."

They'd been in the clearing for a while, so she agreed. "Okay, let's go." Then she stood up and had to wince as her whole body ached at the motion.

Naruto saw it. "Oh that's right, I guess you were pushing your body pretty hard back there. You'll want to sorta swirl your chakra around a bit and let it flow freely. It helps with the pain a bit, but the big thing is that your muscles build back up faster and better. I told you about it yesterday, remember?" She did. Giving it a try, she felt a soothing sensation, especially in her sore arms and legs. It was a bit like a light massage. "Yeah, just like that," he told her. "Think you can keep it up while we walk?"

"No problem." It would probably actually make walking a bit easier, since it made the burning feeling after the earlier intense exercise not quite as bad. She went over to where she'd left her pack and slipped it back on, then returned to find the blonde holding the cloth weighed down with juicy berries out in front of him with both hands. Taking a closer look, she recognized the cloth as a worn-down old T-shirt. "Would you mind carrying it?" she asked, not really sure how she would hold it and get the berries to her mouth.

"Okay," he agreed, then started walking out of the clearing... backwards. The girl was worried for a moment that he would stumble or trip right into something. She was more for her berries that would go rolling all over the ground than for him (as he was more than hardy enough to take a small fall or two), but he proved he knew the area so well that he didn't actually need to see to know where to go.

It was a leisurely walk, the boy guiding her along an easy path through the forest as she munched on the small fruits. They soon started chatting, though not about anything in particular. Just basic talk about what they each did during the day, what they liked and didn't like about the Academy, that kind of stuff. He told her about some of his many animal friends, how they often doubled as both playmates and training partners. She told him about Emi-chan and Suzu-chan, how they had grown up next door to each other and been best friends their whole lives.

Some of Emi-chan's crazy ideas really seemed to catch his interest, like the time she insisted that gum would stick to anything, even clouds, and it was simply a matter of finding a way to get it up there. Suzu-chan thought the idea was silly because if gum stuck to everything, wouldn't it stick to the inside of their mouths, and besides, clouds were made of water, and you couldn't stick something to water. She herself had countered by saying that with chakra, you could do anything, then suggested finding a really strong ninja and asking them to throw it all the way to the clouds for them, but Emi-chan had claimed that it would just stick to the ninja's hand and not go anywhere. Then Suzu-chan had pointed out they could give it to the ninja wrapper-first, but again the whole thing was stupid and she wanted no part of it. Ignoring that last part, they found a super-weird ninja dressed all in green who seemed suitably strong (he was juggling boulders twice the size of horses! With his toes!) and asked him to throw the gum for them. He did, and when it never came back down Emi-chan said that it proved her right and the gum had gotten stuck to a cloud, and Suzu-chan said she was just being silly. When Momoko found the same wrapper and gum a week later in the grass in a park on the other side of the village, all three girls were disappointed, even Suzu-chan who tried to hide it.

It was fully night by the time the pair reached their destination, a cave in a small cliff hidden deep in the woods. And even though she should've been tired since she'd had such a long, busy day, all the chakra-filled berries she'd been eating had given her lots more energy than normal. As such, she wasn't sleepy just yet. The cave looked a bit scary since it was super-dark, especially at night like this. Naruto assured her though that there was nothing dangerous inside and he even had a spot all set up to get a fire going. It was a bit chilly out for the middle of spring, so that sounded good.

Following him in, the girl found it was just as dark as she'd feared, and she had to wonder how her friend could see anything with so little light. Then he asked if she wanted to try lighting the fire, and she told him she had no idea how. He walked her through the process, first putting a stick in each of her hands, then having her hold her arms out a bit and squat down in a certain spot that he said was in front of the wood for the fire. It could have just as easily been the edge of a hundred meter drop for all she could tell. With that done, he instructed her on how to channel chakra into the sticks to make them rub together better (maybe chakra really could do anything). But even with that, he told her, it would probably take at least a couple minutes of rubbing before the fire got going.

He was right. It was more than five minutes later, and Momoko's arms were starting to get tired, when a dim glow began to fill the cave. "Good job, now just relax for a minute," he said as he took back the sticks, his whisker-marked face barely visible even though it was right next to her. Then she watched as he went around the small red-orange glow, blowing on it gently and shifting bits of wood around until it came alive in a tiny flame. A bit more of that, and the flame soon grew into a small fire, flickering away and giving off a pleasant warmth. "There we go."

She took a look around, now able to see properly. It was a shallow cave, not even going back far enough to lose sight of the entrance, and totally bare except for the fire, a bed made of gathered grasses and leaves, a pile of wood off to one side, and a big rock sitting right in the middle of everything. The wood wasn't the neatly-cut logs she would sometimes see around the village either, but rather lots of broken twigs, sticks, and even whole branches, together with chunks of bark that looked like they'd been torn right off of their trees.

Momoko watched the thin trail of smoke as it rose through the air then, following the curve of the cave's ceiling, traveled to the the entrance then out into the night sky. The boy, now crouched on the other side of the flames, spoke up. "I'll sleep here sometimes if it's raining or snowing. But that's not what I wanted t'show you." Then he stood up and walked over to the large rock.

It was really pretty big, a good bit taller than either of the children, and nearly twice as wide as it was tall. Was there something interesting about the rock, maybe a neat drawing he'd carved into it or something? Then he crouched down a bit and put his hands under a small ridge near the base, gripping tightly. Her eyes widened. He wasn't going to try and...?

"Hnng!" Naruto strained, teeth gritted, lines standing out on the sides of his neck and along his forearms, tight muscles peeking peeking out from under his shirt sleeves. This was crazy! She knew he was strong, but that thing was huge! Worried he would hurt himself, the girl moved to stop him just as a dull, low grinding sound echoed through the cave, and the side of the boulder he was gripping rose a few centimeters off the ground.

Mouth now as wide open as her eyes, which had gone even wider, she watched in stunned silence as her friend slowly shuffled to the side, that same heavy sound mixed in with his grunts and shouts of exertion, the giant stone rotating with the motion. Then, with one last heave, he let the boulder drop, a deep THUD pulsing through the cave and a shaking Momoko felt in her bones.

The boy fell onto his back at the same time, gasping for breath. "Haa... haa... Someday... haa... Someday... I'm gonna be able t'do that... without using chakra... Haa..." She really couldn't think of anything to say to that.

It didn't take the blonde long to recover from the massive effort, and less than a minute later he was breathing and talking as though nothing had happened. "Used to be a lot worse," he told her. "A while ago, I couldn't move that thing at all without a smaller rock and a sturdy branch t'use as a lever. Then I needed somethin' else on top of that t'hold it up, and that was risky, since if whatever I was usin' broke, then CRASH!" he demonstrated by slamming a closed fist forcefully into an upward-facing palm. "Once, I was a bit slow to react and got my left foot crushed. Hurt like hell," he told her.

She stared at his bare left foot. It looked perfectly fine and exactly the same as the right. Seeing her gaze, Naruto brought it up close to her eyes turning it this way and that so she could better inspect it. "Took more than a week before I could even move it and a month beyond that 'til I could walk on it without feeling like it was gettin' crushed all over again."

The bottom of his foot was impossibly clean, considering he went around in the woods all day with no shoes or socks, but she figured he'd probably found a way to use chakra to keep the dirt and other things off. "Sounds horrible," she told him, not sure what else to say.

"Yeah, it was pretty bad. That was also when I found out about the problem with the chakra healing where you sorta black out from the pain. I almost died of thirst and hunger, but I got through it and learned t'be careful with big injuries like that." The part about almost dying aside, as far as she knew a crushed foot did not fix itself back up nicely like his had, not without major medical attention, and even then it was unlikely. But obviously it could with proper use of chakra, so she didn't say anything.

"Right, now for what I wanted you to see, look over there," he said, gesturing to the huge rock he had moved... and the shallow pit dug into the cave floor it had been covering.

Expecting some kind of hidden treasure, she walked over and kneeled down, hoping to see shiny jewels or bars of gold or something equally precious.

What Momoko saw in the firelight... well, it was shiny. Most of it was, at least. None of it was valuable.

The only words she could think of to describe it were "junk" or "stuff," but she doubted the boy would appreciate either of those. "What is all this?" she asked, unsure.

"Well this," he announced as he took something out, "Is a piece of a washcloth." It was indeed a piece torn off the corner of a dark green washcloth. "From Iruka-sensei's bathroom. And this one here is a bit that had broken off a mirror in the middle apartment on the fifth floor of the big red building two streets past the Academy. This is a bit of foil I found on the floor of the kitchen of the red painted house near the fish store in the east part of the village. And here's a ten yen coin from under the middle couch cushion of the sofa in that really old home we passed by on our way out here this afternoon, it was hard staying quiet for that one with creaky boards all over the place..."

Beginning to get the idea, and seeing that he could probably go on for hours like this, she interrupted the blonde. "So you're saying... all these things are from different homes around Konoha, places you broke into and stole from?" This could be bad. If it turned out her new friend was a burglar and a thief, she wasn't sure to do.

"Hey," he protested, "we're training to be ninja! Breaking in and stealing are part of the job. And I never hurt anyone, or took anything important, just little things to remember each time! It's a fun challenge and makes for great stealth training."

He had a point. Momoko was about to relent when a sudden thought occurred to her. "Say Naruto, did you ever break into the home at the corner of Red Oak Street and Pine Road, or either of the two after it along Pine?" she asked.

"Sorry, no idea where that is," he told her. Of course, the boy who spent pretty much his whole life out in the forest wouldn't identify locations by street and address, but by surroundings.

She thought about what was near her house. "There's a sweets store two blocks down that makes the yummiest dango and sells them at two for just 500 yen. Then if you go five blocks the other way, there's a big movie theater with the name all in bright orange."

The girl would have kept going, but the movie theater seemed to make him think. His face sort of scrunched up, and it looked really funny. She almost laughed, but didn't, not wanting to disturb his thoughts. Then, with an "Ah!" he brightened up, blue eyes shooting open. "You mean the one that used to have the clouds on the walls in the top left room, and the ones on either side, right?"

"Y-yeah, those houses," she confirmed, leaning forward so that her hair would hide her blush. She'd replaced the cloud wallpaper in her bedroom with a simple diamond pattern in red and pink halfway through her last year of ordinary schooling as a present from her parents for getting accepted at the Ninja Academy. "So?" she prompted.

"Well, not any of those, but the one across the street and four homes down, the one with the red-and-white striped covering over the front door, I did that one... hmm... a bit over a year ago now." A small sigh of relief escaped her on hearing that she and her friends hadn't had a visit from the child burglar. As for who had... that would be Takeru-kun's house. She'd never liked Takeru-kun, since he'd called them names when the teachers weren't around.

"Gimme details," Momoko said simply. And he did. After digging out his treasure from that particular visit, a shiny gold metallic shirt button, he told her how he'd used a piece of wire to undo the lock on the back door one night and just slipped right in. They had a dog, but she had quickly agreed to stay quiet in exchange for a couple slices of ham he had brought with him for just that purpose, leaving the blonde free to search the house. He'd gone through every room, closets included, before finding his prize among the dirt, dust, and other filthy things that had gathered under Takeru-kun's parents' bed. Takeru-kun himself, it turned out, slept on top of the covers and wore dark blue pajamas with yellow bunny rabbits on them.

Enjoying the story, she asked for another, picking something at random from his collection that looked like the cap from a pen. For the next one, she let him pick, telling him to choose a really interesting one. The boy came up with an old, worn down pair of scissors he'd dug out of the trash and a tale of too many housecats.

"Hahahahhaaaaa..." She giggled, only to find it drawn out into a yawn.

"You should get to bed," Naruto advised. She frowned, wanting to hear more stories, but he insisted, "you'll need your sleep for tomorrow, since your body isn't used to heavy training yet." He then closed the matter by dragging the big stone back to its original spot.

Once the blonde had again recovered his breath, she asked where she should sleep, and he offered the leaf-and-grass bed as though surprised she had even needed to ask. So, after trying and failing to get him to change his mind on the topic (while a bed was nice to have, he'd said, he could sleep anywhere just as well), Momoko found herself lying in the unexpectedly comfy bed as her friend went out to do what he called his late night training.

Tired from the long day, she soon fell asleep.

---

The young ninja-in-training had woken up to the smell of freshly-cooked meat. A barely-legible note had told her that, while fruits were good, she needed other foods too. On the back was a map (unfortunately Naruto's mapmaking skills were about the same as his writing skills) to a nearby stream that could be used both for drinking water and to wash up. So now, fed and cleaned, and wearing the change of clothes she'd hastily packed yesterday after school, Momoko went wandering through the forest. She was sure that even if she managed to get herself lost, her friend would be able to find her without problems.

As it turned out, she found him. Shouts and sounds of flesh hitting wood led her to where the boy was training his taijutsu on some trees, each strike ringing out loudly and making leaves fall from the branches, his bare upper body sweating from the exercise.

It was only when she came through the last of the bushes that she realized the lower part of his body was just as bare as the top half. "KYAA! Naruto, put some clothes on! Haven't you ever heard of modesty?!" she shouted at the boy while using her hand to cover up the parts she wasn't supposed to see.

The blonde stopped what he was doing and turned towards her, not the least bit embarrassed nor doing anything to cover himself. "Modesty, what's that? Does it taste good?" He had a lost, completely clueless look on his face. She gaped. How could he possibly not know what modesty meant? Then again, her mind picked up after a few seconds, he had spent most of his remembered life out here, so maybe...

That thought was cut off when the boy burst out in laughter. "AHAHAHAHA! Haha! You should've- Hehehe! You should've seen your face! Hahahahaha!" Once he was finally done, and her face was probably red as a tomato, he gave her an apology. "Sorry, I didn't think about it after my bath. Usually, it's just me and the animals and plants out here, and they don't exactly care. Hold on a minute while I go put something on." He disappeared in a blur before she could say anything, leaving Momoko standing there alone.

Fortunately, she'd been quick enough that she hadn't really seen anything, just a quick glimpse confirming that yes, he was indeed a boy. She felt her blush coming back. While she of course knew about the differences between boys and girls, and she'd had some idea what the other side looked like underneath, it was her first time actually being in the presence of a naked boy.

Another blur of motion, and Naruto was back, this time wearing a pair of orange boxers. "This good, or d'you want me to get all the way dressed? I like not having much on when I really start working out so that my clothes don't get all smelly, but if you'd rather..." he trailed off.

"No, it's fine." She didn't want him to have to go out of his way just for her sake, though she was a bit surprised that he didn't seem to mind the slight chill in the air. "So what are we doing today?"

"Today," he said, then paused. He seemed to perk up as if listening for something, before turning his attention back to her, "How'd you like to meet one of my friends? I told you about Torato, right?" Well it wasn't like she had much of a choice, given that the friend was no doubt already coming from the way he was acting. Besides, it would be interesting to meet a wild animal that was able to become friends with a human. There was a rustling in the brush, then Torato stepped out.

She stared.

He hadn't said that Torato was an actual tiger! Did tigers even live in this part of the forest? It wouldn't eat her right? Well, it was Naruto's friend, so he could probably get it to leave her alone. Or at least get her away somehow if it decided it liked little girls as a snack.

"Momoko?"

Wait, no. Tigers were dangerous even raised in captivity and this one was wild. They needed to get out of there right now, before it decided it was hungry.

"Oi, Momoko."

Maybe Naruto could do something, he was strong, right? But this was a tiger! Sure, he could probably fight off smaller animals just fine, like wolves or something, but what could he do against something this big?

"Moomookoo"

Oh no, it had already eaten him, and now his ghost was calling out to her trying to tell her to run but what good would running do it would just chase her down and eat her too and her parents would never know what happened and-

"MOMOKO!"

"TIGER!" she snapped back at the voice. Then she took several deep breaths. She looked at Naruto reaching up to scratch the tiger behind the ear. She closed her eyes, took a couple more deep breaths, and opened them again. Still there, still scratching, and the tiger hadn't bitten him in half yet. They hadn't really learned much about them in class yet, but maybe this was a genjutsu? No that was ridiculous. Why would anyone bother to come all the way out here to the middle of the forest to show her a genjutsu of her friend scratching a tiger? So this was real? She sighed and relaxed, not sure what else to do.

"You back with us now?" the boy asked. She nodded. "Torato, this is my new friend Momoko. Momoko, this is my friend and training partner, Torato. Say hi."

"Umm... hi." the girl let out nervously. A short growl came from the tiger.

She turned her focus back to the one she was more comfortable with, but the huge cat stayed on the edge of her mind. "Sorry, that took me by surprise. I didn't realize Torato was really a..."

"A tiger?" he supplied, then continued casually while walking over to her, as though he weren't talking about a fierce predator, "I thought the name gave it away."

"So that means... Usago is a rabbit? And Shikari is a deer?" He nodded at each one, so she kept going. "And Toriko and Torini are birds, Oukamu is a wolf, and Kumaro..." she trailed off, a bit scared of the answer.

"A bear, yep." Just then, a sharp growl from the tiger drew both their attentions. "Don't be so impatient," he told the beast fearlessly, "I've gotta explain stuff to her first, then we'll get started."

"Can it... actually understand us?" Momoko found herself asking.

"Torato's a he not an it," the blonde replied, "and more or less. It's not word for word, but other species can usually at least pick up on the meaning behind what you're saying, 'specially if you speak right at 'em. Works the same way in reverse too, if you learn how to listen right."

Her newest friend could talk to animals. That was... pretty cool.

"Anyway, this is really a pretty good opportunity for you. Remember yesterday what I was saying about fighting?" She nodded, not really sure where he was going with this. "Well Torato and I have a deal. Every so often, we fight, and if I win I give him a couple grilled fish, but if he wins he gets something a good bit bigger, like say a cooked boar. The only rule is that we don't kill each other or tear off any body parts. So stay right there and watch carefully, and you'll get to see what a real fight is like."

She wanted to say he was crazy, and really he probably was, but there was a dangerous gleam in his blue eyes just before he turned to the waiting predator. It was a fierce look that suddenly made her very, very unsure as to just what the most dangerous creature in this forest was. The stance Naruto took here was similar to some of the ones she'd seen him use in sparring at the Academy, but notably different. He was crouched low to the ground and leaning forward, so much so that it looked as if he might fall over, and his arms were held out in front of him just a bit, palms facing outward with fingers spread wide and curved, tips pointing forwards as well.

Several meters away, Torato looked ready for combat as well. The front of his body was low to the ground, while the powerful muscles in his back legs rippled with tension beneath the orange-and-black striped fur. A low growl was coming from his throat, a deep rumbling sound that she could feel vibrating in her chest. On the front paws, fully extended sharp claws glinted in the sunlight as they cut into the hard-packed earth beneath them.

On some signal outside the range of Momoko's senses, both fighters sprang into motion, closing the distance between them faster than she could blink. She thought she saw the boy dart to one side of his much larger opponent, fingers digging deep into the thick fur, but then the big cat twisted, a paw swiping at what was now empty air. The blonde had thrown himself back and was now clinging to the side of a tree with all four limbs braced against the trunk, his fingers piercing into the bark.

The great predator leapt, and the small boy launched himself at a downwards angle going under the beast's arc and then, before the tiger could react, turned sharply at the waist, a leg slamming into his opponent's side with enough force to shift the massive creature's momentum in a new direction. But not stunned in the least by the powerful blow, Torato made a blindingly fast swipe below him with one of his front paws even as he was knocked away. Blood flew as the claws raked long and deep across the blonde's back.

After that the girl's senses, strained to their limits from just those few seconds of combat, more or less gave out, and the fight became something of a blur. For his part, Naruto didn't seem slowed down in the least by the severe injury, or by any of the similar ones that came after it. And soon enough, he wasn't the only one bleeding either as his fingers tore gashes of their own into the tiger's body.

It only got more wild and fierce from there, with both fighters taking chunks out of several of the nearby trees, either with missed attacks, or from their bodies colliding forcefully with the trunks. Momoko could swear she even saw them exchanging headbutts once or twice. At one point, she had thought it was all but over when Torato got the boy's shoulder in his mouth and started swinging him around like a ragdoll (she was pretty sure she'd heard the crunch of breaking bone). But then the blonde somehow got his feet on the ground and punched the tiger in the chest, hard, making him let go as he stumbled back.

What she was seeing was hardly believable, yet it was happening right in front of her. A boy her age was fighting evenly with a fully-grown tiger. Oh, she knew people could fight tigers, and a well-trained ninja would take care of a tiger no problem. One of her favorite stories about Komiya Sazami was from a time when she had saved some travelers lost in the mountains from a whole pack of tigers, driving every single one of the dangerous beasts off effortlessly. But Naruto was just a little kid like her, and he was already this strong. It was incredible.

The battle dragged on for more than ten minutes, with neither side showing any sign of tiring. Blood from each of them was spread out across ground all over the area, but both boy and tiger didn't even seem to care. Finally, the blonde managed to get behind the big cat's head and wrapped his legs around his neck. Torato shook wildly, trying to throw him off. When that failed, the feline started rolling around on the ground, using his massive weight as a weapon against the many times smaller and lighter child. But Naruto held on tightly as the tiger's struggles slowed and finally stopped. Then he heaved his opponent's unconscious body off of him and stood up, breathing deeply and covered in blood, sweat, dirt, and fur.

Momoko slowly walked over from the spot she'd stood in for the whole battle and stopped a bit short of her friend, not sure how to approach him after that. "Wow... That was... amazing." she eventually said.

The boy didn't reply right away, closing his eyes and seeming to focus on something. Then with a short shout, he released a pulse of chakra that she felt in the form of a small burst of wind that made her hair flutter briefly, blowing all the grime off of his body. She felt a little bit of it land on her but didn't really care.

"Glad you enjoyed it. How long were you able to follow what was going on?" he asked.

She told him honestly. "Just until Torato got you in the back."

"Mn, I should probably take care of that. The others too," he said glancing at some of the deep claw marks she could see all over his arms, legs, chest... everywhere, really. There was even a shallow one on his cheek. "Like I told you yesterday, when you've got an open wound, you gotta stop the bleeding first. Apply pressure then hold a layer of chakra right along the surface. But with this many, it'd take a while t'do them all one at a time, so..."

Then Naruto tensed his whole body all at once. Suddenly the muscles that his form normally only hinted at stood out in sharp relief under his skin. All over, tightly-defined cords contracted and hardened. No wonder hitting him had felt like hitting a rock. She couldn't help but want to know just what kind of training he put himself through and for how long to get in that kind of shape. Besides fighting tigers bare-handed, that is.

After about ten seconds, he relaxed, and he looked like a normal boy again, if normal boys were covered in what now looked like bad scratches. "Probably not the best way to do it," he told her, "but it gets the job done. Now this guy should be getting up any minute, so whaddaya say we head over to the river and catch some fish?"

---

"Next match, Yoshida Momoko and Inuzuka Kiba," Iruka-sensei announced.

He felt more than saw as the girl beside him frowned in worry. "Hey, you got this," he told her quietly.

"Well at least I didn't get matched up against you," she mumbled back.

After what he'd put her through yesterday, there were very few of their classmates she wasn't sure to win against, and she'd managed to draw one of them. Better the dog-boy than Sasuke, though.

Thinking about it, he decided to give her one last bit of advice. "Kiba's aggressive, a bit too aggressive, and he'll be underestimating you. Stay on the defensive, wait for a good opening, then hit hard and don't let up 'til he's down, and you'll do fine."

Not turning to look at him, eyes focused on her opponent, Momoko gave a sharp nod. She then started a quick walk up to the sparring ring, dyed-black hair brushing against his shoulder and arm as she passed. Yeah, she'd definitely win this one.

As usual, he'd positioned himself to have a straight side-on view of the fights, so he could see both her and the Inuzuka clearly. She was in a basic defensive combat stance, half-crouched, right leg forward, left back and to the side, with hands held out in front of the body to deal with incoming attacks, and her opponent in what must have been a clan stance. It would probably remind her a bit of the one he'd used at the start of the fight yesterday, and while he was sure it was quite fearsome and deadly in experienced hands, it made Kiba look like a lost puppy.

Then Iruka-sensei started the match, and the dog-boy was on her right away, coming in with a low shoulder tackle, which she sidestepped. He followed up immediately with a backhand from the opposite arm, which she intercepted with an open palm. Both fighters pulled away slightly, but then the boy came right back in with a right-handed punch that turned into an elbow headed straight for her chest. She both stepped back and brought her forearm down on his extended limb, stopping its progress.

With that attack failed, the Inuzuka spun quickly to add power, before kicking at her right side with what was probably the full weight of his body and then some. The obvious (but still dangerous due to the power behind it) blow met her full defense. Forearms crossed, body sunk low, she intercepted the attack, sliding back a little bit along the ground from the force, but unharmed.

It was obvious to see that Kiba was starting to get frustrated. He wasn't used to having any trouble against kids not from a clan like him. Her big opening would come up soon.

The boy turned his kick into a step forward together with a palm strike from his left that went over her guard before she could react, heading for her face. But it still had to travel the rest of the distance, and that was more than enough time for her to use her right arm to brush it aside. Then the Inuzuka went low to the ground as he stepped in again, coming right back with another elbow.

He saw the instant she found her opening and realized what she was planning the instant after that. A bit risky, but she could pull it off.

"There's one other way of dealing with attacks I didn't talk about yesterday," he remembered telling her, "and that's taking them on purpose. If you know an attack's coming, where it'll land, all that, you can brace yourself properly and take the hit. When you prepare yourself fully, sometimes even strong blows won't do much, leaving you in the perfect position to strike back."

She moved back just slightly, while moving her left hand down and to her side, the open palm becoming a closed fist, right before the opponent's elbow connected with her chest.

The elbow struck. Her ribs creaked, but that was all. Nothing was broken this time.

Then she stepped forward and drove her fist into Kiba's gut. As he stumbled back, doubled over and gasping for breath, her own right elbow slammed down on his shoulder from above and to the front, making him lean back. Then she swept his legs out from under him.

The boy was probably still confused about why he was on the ground when she kneeled on his chest and started pressing her forearm into his neck none too gently, but definitely not full force either. "One last thing. If you ever find yourself going for the neck, be careful. One thing I learned early is that if it needs to breathe, a hard enough hit to the neck will kill it. And while for me that's more or less the only thing that let me survive my first year out here, I don't think you wanna be killing any of our classmates, right?"

It took barely a second before Iruka-sensei called it. "Winner, Momoko." Most of the class started cheering, including the two friends she'd introduced him to (though really, what kinda introduction was "he's weird, but cool," anyway?) that morning before class. Naruto made sure to cheer louder than any of them.

---

author's comments:

For those who don't know, momo is Japanese for peach. Ko, which is often used at the end of girls' names, means child. Though it's quite likely there are a number of other words also pronounced ko yet with completely unrelated meanings, but I don't know them. Yeah, Japanese is like that.

So while I haven't checked, I'm pretty sure this chapter, at over 16,000 words, is the longest I've ever written. Wow, that was unexpected for what was supposed to be a quick part where Naruto makes his first friend. Though seeing as how I was basically introducing not only Momoko, but Naruto as well... The prologue gave a nice glimpse, but it feels like we really meet this story's Naruto here.

About the length, the scenes just seemed to keep on extending and extending. I apologize to anyone who feels it's too long.

As for the characters themselves, I guess I'll have to give up on attempts to make my seven year olds actually act like seven year olds, aside from shallow, token efforts like kiddy arguments.

The fight scenes. First note that my personal combat experience is exactly zero, and everything on the topic is based on movies, books, anime, manga, fanfics, etc., so while I try to sort of blend realism into the countless superhuman fights that are going to happen throughout this story, I have no clue if I'm actually doing a good job of it or not. Hopefully it's at least entertaining. Also, as much fun as I have writing out the fight scenes, I can't promise I'll keep doing it with the kind of blow-by-blow detail I did here. If I were to do that, I'd probably die of old age before finishing this story.

I don't really have much to say on the content of the chapter, though I will say that my Naruto's personality is heavily based on Gon from Hunter x Hunter. If you haven't read this amazing manga (note I say the manga, not either anime), do so. Now. It's so incredible, Kishimoto practically ripped the chunin exams straight from it, among other things. It's even (finally) off hiatus again! Woohoo!

Right. Moving on.

Momoko is pretty interesting from my perspective as an author. To give you an idea of what I mean, the sum total of the notes I had on her when I started this chapter was as follows:

Yoshida Momoko

kind/supportive

So that sorta fell off to the side, and something that I feel was completely awesome rose up in its place, though that could just be me. Also, while Momoko herself has changed greatly, gotten a backstory, favorite food, and other stuff, my notes on her still say the same thing because I'm terrible about updating them.

Also, a quick lesson about honorifics. Unlike the prevailing belief among Naruto fanfic authors, not using an honorific is actually a sign of a closer relationship than using ones like -kun or -chan. Also, those two do not necessarily have any relation to romantic affection.

Oh, and if anybody noticed an oddity with respect to time in this chapter, the Konoha Ninja Academy in this fic meets six days a week, Monday to Saturday, from an unspecified time in the morning to an unspecified time in the afternoon. They get to have Sundays off.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter.

Initial completion date: 7/19/14

edit: (10/31/14) I apologize for the delay. As this was such a long chapter, editing took much longer than anticipated. It seems like my plan of posting a new chapter every two weeks got derailed before it could even start. One final note: the "published" date for this fic is wrong. It was definitely past midnight on 10/10 when I published the first chapter. Stupid timezones.

Have a happy Halloween!

Beta reader: ABitterPill