It was the first weekend after Raven had begun Naruto's training and an excited Naruto was bouncing around the house much to Raven's amusement. Raven had told Naruto that he had some friends coming over and that they were bringing their children with them. Naruto was overjoyed at the thought of playing with children his own age and even more so when he learned that Ten-Ten would be coming as well.
Raven spent most of the morning preparing snacks and food for their guests and when Naruto asked him why he was making so much food Raven laughed. "You've never seen an Akimichi eat," he chuckled, "Word of advice, never get between an Akimichi and a free meal. It's bad for your health."
0o0o0o0o0
Around noon their guests began to arrive and Raven had to keep from laughing at how much Naruto's face lit-up when he saw the shy little girl hiding behind her father. Even the ever stoic Hiashi Hyuuga had a small smirk as he watched the blonde bundle of energy grab his daughter's hand and literally drag the blushing girl towards the backyard so the two could play.
"He's defiantly his mother's son," the Hyuuga Leader commented as he enters the home of his childhood friend.
"That he is," Raven replies as they make their way towards the backyard to watch the children. "It has been a while Hiashi," Raven tells the other man.
"That it has," the Hyuuga answers. "The village hasn't been the same without you."
"You know why left," Raven says as he offers Hiashi a drink.
"You shouldn't dwell on the past so much," Hiashi replies accepting the refreshment, "They would have wanted you to move on."
"Hai," Raven answers before taking a sip of his own drink, "And I have for the most part. I'll always miss them but at least they're in a better place." Both men laugh as a scared Hinata lets out a scream of terror when Naruto sets her on the back of a "small" green Dragon before hopping on its back behind her.
"He's going to be a heart breaker like his father," Hiashi comments with a smile as the Dragon begins walking around the back yard giving the now laughing children a "pony" ride. "It's good that someone finally took the boy in," the Head of the Hyuuga Clan tells the former Shinobi. "We all wanted to adopt him but none of us could agree who would have been the best choice to raise Minato's son."
"Otousan told me," Raven says with a hint of bitterness in his voice that does not go unnoticed by his long time friend. "I still can't believe that none of you told me he even existed."
"And what would you have done if we had?" Hiashi inquires with a raised brow.
"Exactly what I'm doing now," Raven answers without a second thought, "I would have come back immediately and taken him in."
"And Hachibi," his friend asks, "Could you have mastered your control over the Demon if you had come back sooner?"
"You should know better then anyone that I don't control Hachibi," Raven tells his childhood friend, "But we finally came to an understanding."
Hiashi can only nod his head knowing what his friend was talking about. Hiashi as well as the others in their closely knit circle remember the hours spent by Raven's bedside after each of his failed suicide attempts over the years. While they each hated the fact that he had regularly attempted to end his life they understood his reasons. They knew that Raven cared enough about them and Konoha to kill himself rather then to allow Hachibi to seize control over his body and endanger those he had sworn to protect.
"How long has it been since he finally stopped?" the Hyuuga Leader asks.
"His last actual attempt was roughly five years ago," Raven confesses, "But it's only a matter of time before he tries again."
0o0o0o0o0
Little by little the others begin to arrive until only one of Raven's still living friends is absent from their reunion. A knock at the door gets his attention and Raven gets up from the couch to answer and can't fight back the smile that almost completely covers his face at the sight of a raven-haired woman accompanied by two raven-haired boys.
"Mikoto-chan," Raven calls out before scooping the woman up into his arms for a hug while spinning her around like he did when they were younger.
"Raven-niisan," Mikoto smiles as she returns their first embrace in nearly six years, "Kami I've missed you."
"Raven-san," the older of the two boys says gaining the adults' attention, "Please put Okasan down so we can join the others."
"Gomen Itachi-kun," Raven chuckles as he sets Mikoto down before turning to look her children. "You've grown-up," he comments seeing the thirteen year-old Uchiha prodigy standing before him. "I hear congratulations are in order," he grins ruffling the boy's hair, "Youngest ANBU Captain ever from what Otousan tells me."
"That is correct," Itachi replies mechanically causing Raven to shake his head.
"Seems someone's forgotten his Sensei's lessons while I've been away," Raven comments with an evil smirk, "Looks like I'll have to give you a refresher course in how to have fun."
"You wouldn't," Itachi asks as he begins to slowly step away from the still smirking man.
"I don't know who you are," the younger boy says stepping between Raven and Itachi, "But I won't allow you to hurt my Niisan."
"Sasuke-kun," Mikoto says to the younger boy, "Raven-niisan would never hurt Itachi-kun. He's only picking on him. Aren't you Raven-niisan?" she asks elbowing Raven in the ribs.
"Hai," Raven laughs before guiding them inside, "Come on the others are waiting for us." Raven directs the Itachi and Sasuke to the backyard where the other children were playing and ordered Itachi to have fun or else he'd make good on his earlier threat.
As the children played outside the adults sat around the living room reminiscing about old times as well as catching up on current events. "I still can't get over how much Naruto reminds me of his parents," Mikoto comments from her seat on the couch beside Raven. Although none of them were ever told about Naruto's lineage, they all knew Minato and Kushina well enough to know without a doubt whose son Naruto was.
"I just can't believe I never say it sooner," Tsume tells them sadly as he looks down into her glass as if hoping to find forgiveness in its contents.
"Very few of us did," Inoichi replies his voice betraying the guilt he feels at allowing his friends' child to grow-up alone for these past four years.
"And what difference would it have made if we had known?" Shikaku asks his teammate, "What could any of us have done then that we can't do now?"
"We could have taken him and raised him as one of our own," Tsume nearly snarls at the lazy genius of their group.
"And who exactly who would you suggest take care of him?" the Nara asks the Inuzuka although it was Shibi who answers.
"Shika-kun is correct," the Aburame Leader tells them. "While anyone of us would have gladly taken him in and raised him as if he were our own child the fact remains that he would have known he didn't belong to any of our Clans." His simple is met with reluctant nods and agreements.
"So looks like I'm stuck raising the brat," Raven grumbles good naturedly, "Figures. Minato makes a mess and I'm stuck cleaning up after him. Kami, even in death he's still as irresponsible as a freaking Genin."
"You know you still love the Baka," Mikoto giggles nudging him. She is rewarded with a smile as he wraps his arm around her shoulder to pull her into a one armed hug.
"At least I've still got your help," he grins, "Right Mikoto-chan?"
"Of course Raven-niisan," the Uchiha matriarch replies, "It'll be just like when we were Genin under Ero-Sensei."
0o0o0o0o0
Over all the remainder of the first year was rather uneventful. Every weekday Raven would wake Naruto up an hour before dawn to begin his morning exercises which would always increase each week until by the end of the first year Naruto was running five laps around Konoha before breakfast followed by three hundred sit-ups, three hundred push-ups, four hundred jumping jacks, five hundred squat-thrusts, one thousand punches (five hundred with each hand) and one thousand kicks (five hundred with each leg). The remainder of his training consisted of mathematics, history (both Konoha's as well as the entire Shinobi Nation as a whole), etiquit and culture (including literature, music and theater).
On weekends Raven would allow Naruto to visit with his friends either at their home or one of the Clan Compounds. During this first year Naruto had grown closer to his new circle of friends and found that he had as much fun with them individually as he did with them as a whole. Choji and Naruto had become fast friends over food and would often comment and critique various foods that ate as well as the restaurants they ate at.
Shikamaru could always challenge Naruto intellectually and they would often spend hours playing Shoji and Go. At fist Shikamaru had a large lead over Naruto but as the year progressed, Naruto managed to close the gap until they ended up exchanging leads in their little Rivalry.
In Kiba Naruto found a kindred spirit that was just as loud and energetic as he was as well as a partner in crime. Over the course of that first year Naruto and Kiba were responsible fore no fewer then three dozen pranks involving civilians and shinobi that would either bad mouth the duo themselves or someone the duo cared about. While Tsume would constantly attempt to discipline Kiba, Raven would only make Naruto run extra laps every time he was caught. The end result was a vast improvement in both boys' stealth as well as regular tracking practice for the Inuzuka and Hyuugas.
Also during that same year Naruto had grown remarkably close to the Uchihas to the point that both Sasuke and Itachi had begun to view Naruto as their younger brother. Naruto of course began to refer to them as his Niisans even in public.
Naruto's relationships with Shino and Hinata were perhaps the most unusual out of all of his other relationships considering the difficulty involved with getting both of them to open up and actually join in on a conversation. Hinata's inherent shyness along with Shino's reserved nature made normal communications extremely difficult and in the end Naruto was forced to devise means of working around each of his friends' unique quirks. For Shino this involved learning to read the Aburame heir's body language and for the Hyuuga Heiress he simply had to be patient and allow her to warm up to the conversation before gently guiding her towards participating.
Naruto's relationship with Ino proved to be a source of much amusement between the adults as the young blonde girl took great enjoyment in bossing her fellow blonde around and being the nice guy that he was Naruto often found it easier to allow her to have her way rather then to fight with her. Of curse this lead to almost continual teasing from their friends about them being a couple and while both adamantly denied it Ino no the continued to boss Naruto around and he continued to let her.
0o0o0o0o0
The following year saw a drastic change in Naruto's training regiment, much to the blonde Jinchuuriki's pleasure. For it was this year that Raven began teaching his ward how to, mold, control and manipulate his chakra.
Raven had begun out slowly, spending an entire week going over the basics of both molding chakra and chakra manipulation before he even allowed Naruto to attempt to mold chakra for the first time. After that Raven began to integrate chakra control exercises in with the rest of Naruto's established training regiment.
The first chakra control exercise Naruto learned was sticking a leaf to his forehead using only chakra. It had taken him nearly a week to complete the task and Raven had refused to teach him any others until he was satisfied that Naruto had the exercise completely mastered. As a result Naruto spent the first two months of his fifth year sticking leaves to various parts of his body while going about his normal daily regiment before Raven finally considered the exercise Mastered. After that Raven had Naruto work on the leaf floating exercise for an additional two months. Being the task master that Raven proved himself to be he refused to consider the exercise mastered until Naruto could run five complete laps around Konoha covered in leaves floating less then an inch from his body which took Naruto an additional two months to accomplish.
After the Leaf exercises were mastered to Raven's satisfaction he then began to teach his blonde ward the basics of Taijutsu as well as the Tree-Walking exercise. Much to Naruto's pain and suffering Raven decided to combine the two and forced Naruto to spar with him while leaping around in the trees. This lasted for more then three months at which time Raven decided that Naruto was ready for the Water-Walking exercise. Again this proved to be almost pure torture for the young Jinchuuriki as his Guardian and Sensei would again force him into sparring matches while trying to remain above water and by the end of his fourth month of these exercises Naruto was about ready to forgo becoming a shinobi and just let the villagers have their way with him reasoning that it would be far less painful.
After eleven months of intense chakra control exercises combined with seven months of bizarre Taijutsu training Raven added a new element to Naruto's already strenuous training regiment, Kunai Balancing. Now ordinarily this wouldn't be so bad except that Raven would force Naruto to do this while performing his push-ups on the tips of Kunais stuck into the ground.
0o0o0o0o0
By the time Naruto's sixth birthday rolled around the young blonde was now seriously reconsidering his decision to become a shinobi. Not trusting Raven who he was now beginning to consider the Devil he turned to the only active Shinobi he knew he could trust, Itachi. It was the weekend before his birthday and Naruto was sitting on a dock overlooking one of the lakes in one of the Uchiha training grounds with the Young ANBU Captain beside him.
"I don't know what to do Itachi-niisan," he confesses to his adopted older brother. "I don't know if I can take anymore of Raven-Sensei's training."
"Raven-san's methods are a tad extreme," Itachi agrees, "But can you really deny the results of his training?"
"What do you mean?" Naruto asks.
"I've seen your workouts," the Uchiha prodigy admits to his 'younger brother', "And while his standards are a tad high I don't know of any other children your age that have even advanced past the leaf floating exercise," he tells the younger boy. "In all honesty Naruto-kun, most shinobi don't even learn the Tree-Walking and Water-Walking until after they've become Genin and Kunai balancing is a Jounin Level exercise," he tells the now wide-eyed youth, "Especially when applied in the manner that Raven has you using it."
"So you mean I'm even better then Sasuke-niisan?" Naruto asks almost bubbling with excitement.
"Not quite," Itachi says trying to reign the boy in carefully, "You've been focusing on more advance forms of chakra control this is true. But Sasuke has been focusing on his weapons as well as learning a couple of our Clan's Justus."
"Raven-Sensei won't teach me any Jutsus until I start the Academy," Naruto sulks crossing his arms over his chest.
"That may be for the best," Itachi tells him ruffling his blonde hair. "Given your larger then normal chakra reserves it would make more sense to have you Master your Chakra Control before progressing to Ninjutsu and Genjutsu."
"I guess," Naruto says before Mikoto's voice calls them both in to have dinner.
0o0o0o0o0
A/N: Okay I'm going to end things there for now. I know I kind of Glazed over Naruto's training but honestly I only wanted to give an overview as to what he's been learning for the first couple of years. I'll go into more detail about specific aspects of his training later in flashbacks.
For those of you that haven't figured it out, YES, Mikoto was on Raven's Genin Team. I honestly don't know if she was a kunoichi or not or even who all was actually on Jiraiya's Team with the fourth so I'm going this route since I like it the best. Also as I've stated in my profile I'm going to change the Uchiha Massacre up slightly. Sorry but you'll all just have to wait to find out how… Hehe…
Well that's about it for now, Next chapter begins Naruto's first year at the Academy as well as the next stage of his training with Raven. Again please remember to leave a review and let me know what you think of the story thus far.
Later,
Raven