Together chapter 2
"Hey Kakashi?"
"Yes?"
"You're a sucky teacher."
Team 7 was walking on a road that towards Konoha. Sasuke had to take it slow because of his injuries, Sakura was checking up on him very often, Kakashi was absentmindedly reading his porn, and Naruto had his head stuck in the Naruto Guidebook. More specifically, its People section.
Kakashi:
What (Kakashi) thinks of you: annoying
Base stats: unknown
Affinities: mostly unknown
Merits: stolen sharingan, dog summoning contract
Teaching merit: .2x ninjutsu .2x genjutsu .2x taijutsu .1x kenjutsu x10 dogkeeping
*the teaching merit signifies how fast and well a person is capable of teaching you. If nothing is mentioned in it, you can assume that they have a 1x ability to teach you. For example: if you are taught by a person of 1x ninjutsu or lower, you would probably be better off just teaching that aspect to yourself. Teaching merit does not signify personal strength, merely how well someone teaches you those concepts.*
*also keep in mind that a person can only teach as much as they know.*
"Oh? Well you're a sucky student." Kakashi said without looking away from his porn.
Naruto wanted to show off his relatively high ninjutsu learning rate to prove the lazy teacher otherwise, but decided it would be for the best if people didn't know that his life had suddenly been turned into a videogame.
Naruto stewed in silence for a while before asking "Do you know anyone that can teach medical ninjutsu?"
This comment did manage to draw Kakashi's eyes away from the book and to his blond student. "I'm sure that you could to talk to someone at the hospital if you wanted to become a medic nin. But why the sudden interest? You don't seem like the type to go into medicine and your chakra control is still shot to hell."
"It is not. I've gotten better with it." Naruto said indignantly.
Kakashi walked over to a tree and plucked a small leaf from a low hanging branch. Tossing it to the blonde protagonist, Kakashi said "Once you can float that leaf on your hand using only your chakra, I'll talk to a friend of mine to get you enrolled in medic training."
Kakashi pulled his attention back to his porn and started walking on the road again. "You know Sakura, you could receive benefits from medic training as well with your chakra control."
"Really sensei?" she asked excitedly.
"I don't see why you shouldn't be able-"
"Done." Naruto said, interrupting their conversation.
"Huh?" Kakashi asked. Looking back at the blonde, his single eye went wide in surprise. Naruto was indeed floating the leaf on his hand, rather effortlessly as well.
"Naruto…"
"You'll talk to your friend, right?" Naruto asked excitedly.
"Err… sure. But more importantly, how are you able to do that?"
"What?"
"The… the leaf exercise. I haven't taught you that yet."
"That's 'cuz you're a sucky teacher."
"Naruto…" Kakashi said seriously.
"I uhhh… I heard it from a friend and I've been practicing it while you guys were resting." Naruto quickly said, trying to bullshit his teacher.
Kakashi knew that his student was hiding something from him, but he decided that a chakra control exercise was of no consequence and did not merit further investigation. "Hmmm… okay, I'll talk to that friend of mine."
"YATTA!" Naruto cried, jumping up in the air with glee. Once he came back down, the blonde once again buried his head in his guidebook.
Sasuke had picked up a leaf as well and was trying to emulate what his teammate had done, but it was hard. To balance a leaf on his hand meant having to create a constant stream of chakra that held the leaf in place on all sides. He couldn't use too much chakra on any one side, otherwise it would just fall off. He also couldn't use too much chakra in general, otherwise it would crumple under the pressure.
"Oi dobe." Sasuke said to the blonde after trying the exercise for a while.
"Yeah?" Naruto asked without lifting his head from the guidebook.
"How'd you do that?"
"What?"
"The leaf exercise!"
"You just hold in place with your chakra." Naruto said simply.
"I know that. But how did you do it?"
"I… held it in place with chakra?" Naruto said with a confused lilt.
Sasuke sighed. "What I mean is, do you have any hints for completing the exercise."
"You just create like… a circle of chakra around it, then anchor it to your hand."
Sasuke did what Naruto said to do, but was met with the same success as his previous attempts. "Dobe. I'm having trouble keeping the chakra stream consistent. How did you get around that particular problem?" Sasuke said slowly with a pissed off expression on his face.
"I don't… I don't know what to tell you. Practice?"
Sasuke looked to Sakura, who was trying the same exercise and was getting it far better than he was. He made his way over to her the help that he wasn't getting from his other teammate.
Naruto was leafing through the guidebook, checking up on the miscellaneous section for anything of value when he found a new part of the book that wasn't shown in the tour.
Abilities/status effects:
Shadow clone [tap to enhance]
Transformation
Sexy jutsu
Substitution jutsu
Curious, Naruto tapped on the shadow clone to see what it had in it.
Shadow clone:
The ability to split ones chakra evenly up between one or more constructs.
Uses: combat support, ?, ?.
This confused Naruto 'Why is the shadow clone the only one that has more detail to it? And what other uses does it have?'
"Hey Kakashi?"
Kakashi sighed. Why was his student so talkative all of the sudden. "Yes?"
"What can the shadow clone technique do?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Like… what are its uses?"
Kakashi closed his book and looked Naruto in the eye. "What's brought this on?"
"Curiosity."
"You suddenly became curious about the inner workings and applications of your jutsu?"
"Yep." Naruto said with a smile.
Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose in agitation. "Okay, I'll tell you."
"So you do know."
"Mmhmm."
"Why haven't you told me this before?"
"Just… shut up and listen."
Naruto nodded obediently.
"As you know, the shadow clone jutsu splits up your chakra between your copies and you get it back when it dispels. This allows for all the clone's memories to be given back to you when its chakra is disrupted. You can use this to train in a hard concept much faster, or to spy on enemies. The reason I haven't told you about this function yet is because training in that method can be extremely dangerous if you take too much information at once. I don't trust you enough to train responsibly."
"So I can train in medical jutsu and ninjutsu at the same time?"
"Whatever floats your boat."
"Awesome. I am going to completely abuse this." Naruto said with a cackling laugh.
Kakashi sweatdropped at his student's antics. "Just remember to not go overboard and kill yourself. It'd be a bad mark as a teacher to have a student to kill himself training."
"Do you honestly care about what other people think of you?"
"Hmm. Good point." Kakashi went back to reading his porn.
"Hey Kakashi?"
'Why can't I just read in peace?' Kakashi thought to himself
"Yes?"
"Do you know anyone else who could help me train?"
"If it's an apprenticeship that you're looking for, they can be rather hard to obtain. But if you just need training in a singular subject, I think I could point you in the right direction."
"Okay then… how about ninjutsu?"
"Asuma Sarutobi specializes in elemental ninjutsu. Particularly wind and fire. But you'll have to convince him to train you in his free time because he has a team to train as well."
"Genjutsu?"
"Kurenai Yuhi. Same problem as Asuma."
"Taijutsu?"
"Mighto Gai. Same problem as Asuma."
"Senjutsu?"
"What's Senjutsu?"
"Never mind. Kenjutsu?"
"Hayate Gekko or his fiancé Yugao Uzuki."
"That's good to know. Uhh…"
"Yes?"
"Anyone who knows stuff like poisons, and lying, and trap setting?" Naruto said unsurely.
"…I suppose you could ask Anko Mitarashi for those things. She's a member of torture and interrogation, so she's pretty good with sneaky stuff like that. But she's kind of unhinged."
"That's fine. I'll just use shadow clones." Naruto said with a smile. "Where can I find them?"
"Just go to the shinobi log at mission assignment. They'll point you to their living residences."
"Awesome!"
00000000
Several slow, monotonous days of walking later.
Naruto ran into a problem with his teaching situation.
Namely, no one wanted to.
Asuma, Kurenai, Gai, Hayate and Uzuki all professed that their schedules were far too busy to take on another student. Well, Gai had suggested that Naruto could work out with them once his training with Lee, Tenten, and Neji had ended. But Naruto didn't get any benefits from working out anymore, so he graciously refused the enigmatic man's offer.
Naruto couldn't even find Anko. On the door to her apartment read 'If you need me. I'm probably at the forest of death.'
Where the fuck was the forest of death?
Which led to his current situation. Being at home and browsing through the merit section of the guidebook, waiting for the medic nin that Kakashi knew to take him to the hospital to start his training.
Naruto put the book down. Browsing through the merit section was cool, but he didn't think that he'd remember the requirements for each individual one.
Naruto took a deep breath and exhaled very slowly and very loudly.
He was bored again.
Naruto eyed his ninja pouch with a smirk on his face. 'I wonder if there's anything in there.' It was worth a try. The last time he checked his ninja pouch when he was bored had changed his viewpoint on life.
Naruto reached inside and felt something cylindrical in nature. 'No way.'
He grasped the object and pulled out a scroll. Well, it wasn't really a scroll. More like a poster that was wrapped around a short wooden pole.
Unfurling it, it read:
Homeowner's guidebook
Total money: $324
Cleanliness: 44/100
Renovation cost: $15,000
New apartment? [browse housing]
Under that was a detailed diagram of Naruto's floor plan with boxes in the middle of each room. Slightly perturbed by the stats, Naruto tapped on one of the boxes to find out what it would do.
A list of new rooms came up, each with a description and cost to replace the old one.
Small greenhouse:
You will be able to grow your own poisonous or medical plants to help you with your job as a shinobi.
Pre-requisite: gardening 25/50
Cost: $3000
Small Dojo:
You will be able to fight, spar, and practice with other people in a safe, personal environment
Pre-requisite: Taijutsu form 40/200
Cost: $10,000
Torture and interrogation room:
You will be able to 'extract information' in a personal, friendly environment
Pre-requisite: T&I 20/50
Cost: 2,000
Master bedroom:
Contains a large bed, two dressers, and a flat screen TV
Pre-requisite: nothing
Cost: 15,000
Love room:
Contains anything and everything that you and your partner might want to experiment with in the bedroom.
Pre-requisite: have another permanent resident of whom you are romantically involved with.
Cost: $30,000
Grand bathroom:
Two sinks, two full sized mirrors, a luxurious clawfoot bath, a fully stocked shower, and a beautiful floor plan
Pre-requisite: nothing
Cost: $60,000
*There will be more room options the larger house or apartment that you own. Also keep in mind that unless you expand, you will not be able to get every room here*
'Cleanliness is 44 out of 100?' Naruto looked around. The apartment certainly could use a spring cleaning day. Or two.
Our blonde protagonist spawned 3 clones and told them to clean the place up while he studied the Homeowners guidebook some more. To start with, he tapped on the [browse housing] button.
Another list popped up, but this time of various houses and apartments throughout the city of Konohagakure that were available for purchase. There was even an option to buy the apartments that were next to his in order to extend it somewhat.
'Well this is cool, but I don't have the money to do anything with it.' Naruto exited the list and was pleased to find that the cleanliness was already at 51/100.
"Keep up the good work guys." There were various grunts of affirmation throughout the living quarters.
After Naruto had studied the poster some more, his doorbell rang out. Quickly rolling the poster back up and tossing it onto the ground, he ran to open the door to a shinobi that was dressed in pure white medic smocks.
"You're Naruto Uzumaki?"
"Yup. You're the guy that Kakashi-sensei knows?"
The man nodded.
"Cool." Naruto spawned another clone and told it "Follow this guy. He'll train you to be a medic."
"I know." It answered. "I'm you."
"A shadow clone?" the man asked.
"That's okay right?"
The medic pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, it's fine. You wouldn't be the first person to do it." he began walking away from the door with the clone in tow.
"Oh wait!" Naruto called after him
He turned around and raised an eyebrow.
"Do you know where the forest of death is?"
"Err… yeah. It's training ground 44 in Training block D. you can't miss it. It looks like… well, a forest of death."
"Cool. Thanks man." Naruto promptly closed the door and went to gather some ninja supplies. Hopefully, this Anko chick wouldn't turn him away immediately.
00000000
The forest of death.
Naruto was walking around the fenced in training ground 44 hoping that Anko would be somewhere around the edge of it as opposed to inside of it.
Because there was no way he was venturing into that creepy ass place.
Naruto felt a projectile whistle past his ear. Whirling around to face the perpetrator, he found himself in front of a woman with purple hair wearing a large trench coat over a tightly woven mesh body suit and a brown miniskirt.
She bent over to smirk at him. "You lost kid?"
Quickly gaining his composure, he said "That depends, are you Anko Mitarashi?"
She stood up and started pacing around with an arrogant demeanor. "Has my fame exceeded me that much? Yes kid, I'm the wonderful and awesome Anko Mitarashi. What can I do you for?"
"Will you teach me?" Naruto asked confidently.
She deadpanned. "What?"
"Will you teach me?" Naruto repeated.
"Err… well, what do you want to be taught?" She lost her arrogant demeanor in favor of a befuddled one.
"Well… like, you know. Poisons, lying, trap detection, trap laying… stuff that you know."
"What, like an apprenticeship?"
"Sure."
"Sorry kid, I don't do apprenticeships." She closed her eyes and made to walk away from him.
"Eh?! Wait. Please. Nobody else will teach me." Naruto cried out after her.
She turned around and rose an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Yeah. I have the laziest jonin instructor ever. I'm getting combat medic training, but I really need someone to instruct me on the essentials." He pleaded at her.
"A lazy instructor huh? You get Asuma or something?"
"Kakashi."
Her eyebrows rose in surprise. "Kakashi? He took a squad? Ohhh, I feel bad for you kid."
"See! So you'll do it?"
She thought it over for a few seconds before replying. "If I you have the free time, come over in the afternoons, I'll be here. If I'm on a mission, I'll leave a note. But I still don't do apprenticeships."
"Thanks so much. Where do we start?"
She smirked cruelly at him. "I'll only do it if you manage to survive an hour in the forest of death."
A small transparent window opened up right in front of her. It read:
Mission!
Survive an hour in the forest of death with Anko Mitarashi.
Rewards: increased influence with Anko Mitarashi, Status effect: Student of Anko, 5000 exp.
"What's up kid? You look… out of it."
Even if there was a pop up in front of him, nothing was perceived by her. "Huh? Oh… yeah, I accept."
The pop up closed down. "That's great kid. You've got 1 minute."
"One minute before what?"
"I start chasing you." Her smile was extremely off-putting to Naruto.
He ran as fast as he could to the gates.
00000000
About 60 minutes later.
Anko was frowning. The first 15 or so minutes had gone by swimmingly for her. She would track the kid and harass him with little things like a fist to the gut, a boa constrictor, or even just insults thrown from afar. But after that, he started liberally using shadow clones to confuse her and lead her on false trails.
She had to admit that tracking him multiple times and dispelling the clones was really fun, but they had no sustenance to them. They just dispelled and that was it. No screams, no agony, no pain. Just poof, they're gone.
For a kid, he had absolutely huge chakra reserves. They definitely surpassed her own if he could make so many splits of himself and still operate.
She was amused by all the time wasted on this survival exercise, but other than the shadow clone, he was definitely not a very good shinobi. He never even tried to chakra climb a tree to get away. Every clone that she encountered had been on foot. And even before that, the kid always ran on the ground. He didn't fight very well and showed no other skills that she could see.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a broken twig and a shoeprint in mud. A clone had been around here. She was about to run in pursuit when she heard someone shout down at her from above. "Hour's up!"
A thud later and her new blonde student was standing right in front of her. "You'll teach me now right?"
She was looking at him, gaping like a fish. "You… you led me on."
Naruto grinned. "Yup. I spent the first part on foot so you'd think that I couldn't do the tree-walking exercise, then I made an assload of clones that distracted you from the real me. After that, I just shadowed you from above. Gotta say, you're kind of unhinged."
She smiled at him. "What makes you say that brat?"
"Well you did summon a giant snake to eat one of my clones. What would you have done if that was the real me?"
"Pretend like you never existed." She said through a dangerous smile.
"That's… concerning."
"Mmhmm. It seems like you've passed through the survival training. Let's call it a day for now. Remember, meet me here on afternoons."
"Yosh."
She body flickered away from him, leaving him in the middle of the woods. 'Wait, where's the exit?'
"Well fuck. This is you trying to get back at me, isn't it?" he said to the open air.
"No it's not!" a voice sounded out from somewhere above him.
00000000
About 4 hours later.
It was thoroughly dark when Naruto finally walked through the door to his apartment.
With a groan, he fell down onto his bed and almost fell asleep. At some point, the shadow clone that was with the medic had dispelled and offloaded a lot of information into Naruto's head. He passed through at least, but it did cost Naruto a huge headache in the middle of the woods.
A headache that he did not need.
Naruto reached out for the book that was on his nightstand and opened it up. There was a text window that was superimposed onto his base stats.
Mission accomplished.
You get: 5000 experience points, status effect: Student of Anko
The pop up vanished as soon as he stopped reading it. he had a level up, which he tapped on.
You are now level 5. +5 base stat modifiers, +20 attribute stat modifiers.
*the more you level up, the larger your attribute points gained will be, but base stat modifiers always stay the same.*
Naruto dumped the five points into intelligence. Making it go up to 13. After hitting confirm, his headache worsened exponentially.
After that, he flipped to the attribute section and decided to divide up the 20 points amongst poison identification and synthesizing, trap laying, trap detection, and poison resistance in the miscellaneous section. Bringing them all up to 5/50.
With nothing left to change, Naruto dropped the book back onto the nightstand and promptly fell asleep.
AN/ thanks to all those who've read so far and reviewed or PMed me about pairing suggestions.
I've got a good idea about where I'm heading, but I'm still open to suggestions.