A change in scenery
Chapter 2 -- Training me
When Naruto opened his eyes again his first instinct was scream bloody murder, for the third time, in what felt like ages but had only been a day, he didn't know how he had gotten to the place where he had woken up and, being honest, he hadn't the faintest clue as to where this place was.
On the other hand, and despite the fact that he was almost sure he had never been to this place before, after all he was bound to remember something like this, he still couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity that only grew as he look around what could only be described as the strangest maze ever seen.
For a minute or two Naruto occupied himself with trying (and failing) to break, what he could only assume was, an impressive and huge genjutsu, he finally admitted to himself that this wasn't a genjutsu when he realized he couldn't break it, seeing as there wasn't a genjutsu good enough that he wouldn't break eventually or at least identify as one, this wasn't him being arrogant it was merely a fact.
Since he was little Naruto had trained tirelessly on this particular art, he had learned all about it and more, in the beginning it had only been a matter of little to no choice at all, he had been five at the time when he started his training and at the time learning taijutsu, although useful and eventually incredible important, hadn't been the best choice for a boy that age who would eventually need to fight enemies at least twice his size and three times his strength; but ninjutsu wasn't the answer either, since, even if his chakra reserves were huge for a boy that age, he wasn't even on par with a high genin much less with anything more powerful and therefore he couldn't really master any high powerful ninjutsu, not yet anyway.
So in the beginning he had focused all his efforts on the complex field of genjutsu to the point where he was considered a master on the art, despite his small age. After that he had went on to practice taijutsu, while he work out separately to developed his chakra reserves, training to a point where he could fight (and survive) and all out battle with Guy, which was really saying something, and last but not least he focused his efforts in ninjutsu and was already on his way to dominating the field; all the while learning things in other fields as medical and sealing arts and other stuff that spiked his interest.
He wasn't all powerful or anything like it, he honestly believed he still had a long way to go, and he had had to basically train until he drop for many years in order to get to where he used to be, and, even with the help of some great teachers, it had been a painstaking slow and hard task, but he had a good reason for doing it, it had been Naruto's dream to become more powerful than all the sannin put together and that had been where he was aiming from the start … and now he would simply have to start over, he wasn't about to give up on his dreams…if only he could figure out where he was first.
The first thing he realized was that he was in a maze, a tridimensional maze with stairs and doors all around him, some of which seem to defy gravity and lead nowhere, but it was still a maze, 'a scary, impossible to figure out, and seemingly endless maze' Naruto was seriously beginning to wonder what god he had offended in another life because he just couldn't, for what felt like the thousand time in the last day, avoid the thought that someone (his bets where still on the whatever-it-was that send him here) really hated him, however he discarded this train of thought in favor of contemplating some way to get out of that godforsaken place.
He couldn't avoid the feeling that someone or something was calling him over, and reluctantly he decided to follow the 'feeling' and he just hoped to god (one that didn't hated him) that he made it alive. His main reason to pursue this curse of action, was the simple fact that sitting around would lead him nowhere and walking around aimlessly would probably led him into a trap or something like that…so he went with the only other available choice and looked for the something that had been giving him the feeling.
He walk and walk and walk, through doors, stairs, a couple of walls, up and down and he was starting to feel really lost when he ended up in front of a door with an imposing appearance and a menacing, and yet familiar, air around it. He walked forward and the door seemed to sprint open by its own will, he wandered inside and into an area that was lit as a medieval room with torches and a couple of fireplaces on the side walls, but it was the front wall that claim his attention because it was in this place were a giant cage stood and inside of it there was one of the scariest thing a person could probably see, and that he had personally saw only once just before his death, in it stood the Kyubbi no kitsune, the demon king.
'My mind is a giant maze… hmmmm… at least is not a sewer' was the first thing that crossed Naruto's mind once he saw the cage, because now he knew, with absolutely certainty, that this was his mind, since that was the only logical way for the kyubbi to be trapped in a cage and for him to be staring at it, especially given that the fox was now (apparently)sealed in him, 'there goes my hope that this was just a very bad dream…this day has been way too long'.
'Why is it still sleeping?' Naruto couldn't help but wondering once he got over the shock (again) of seeing the kyubbi (again) and entering his mind without any help or any apparent reason for it 'I'm starting to wonder how much more can I take before I lose my mind…although, by the looks of it, it doesn't seems to had never been a very safe place to begin with'
Back to the original question, he knew exactly how the seal worked and there wasn't any reason for the fox to still be sleeping 'maybe he is just lazy?' The seal acted first and foremost as a prison for the demon, but, instead of simply letting him rest in peace, it was designed to slowly withdraw the fox's chakra and combine it with the jailor's chakra until the chakra of the demon was completely exhausted and the fox would eventually… disappear into another world or wherever demons went when they ceased to exist… it also had a couple of failsafe mechanisms that allow the jailor to call out a huge amount of chakra of the fox, for a limited period of time, in order for it to aid him in battle and for other nice procedures that were basically there to protect the host, the whole draining process took between 17 and 18 years depending on the amount of chakra used, but it was slowly taken place since the moment the seal had been put into place.
Either way, apparently the kyubbi wasn't interested in waking up, and Naruto honestly wasn't fascinated enough with the idea of a chat with the demon in order for him to wake him up, so instead he resolved to go back to his own body and maybe come back another day…now that he knew that this was his mind he wasn't worried about going back to the real word so he just relaxed and opened his eyes in the real world.
This time when Naruto opened his eyes heat least knew where he was (he hoped this meant that he's bad luck was over) but that didn't meant that he was happy about it, he was far from it actually and not only because this apartment, (which was apparently his) wasn't exactly the most comfortable of places, but because this wasn't the place where he wanted to be right now, he wanted his own house, he was Naruto Namikaze heir to the Namikaze clan and he shouldn't live in a rundown apartment…except that he wasn't … in fact he wasn't Naruto Namikaze, he was Naruto Uzumaki and it seemed that that meant that his home was a rundown apartment .
Naruto loved his mother, even if he hadn't actually met her or even remembered her because she died when he was just a few weeks old, he still loved her, but for the life of him he couldn't understand why he was using her last name, and what was worst, most people assumed that his last name was given to him by the Hokage so he couldn't even claim his mother's family techniques and heirlooms as the rightful heir… he so didn't like this world.
Finally done with the self pity trip, he went to get something to eat and to plan his next moves, there wasn't much in the fridge, so he had to settled for a couple of apples and a glass of water (the milk was past its expiration date) and just sit, think and hoped to come up with something good.
First he had to analyze the memories he had from his other self (or original Naruto as he decided to refer to him) information is power and at this point he needed any help he could get, then he needed to get used to this body and to the things that were different from his own word, afterwards he needed to buy more food and he desperately needed a new wardrobe (he refused to use the 'kill me' suit any longer than he had to), finally, and probably more important, he needed to organize a training schedule in order to gain back some of his strength and on a side note he wanted to investigate what caused the demon fox to attack twelve years early in this dimension, maybe there was more to the battle than what everyone had assumed.
Naruto was a Jounin (at least in mind) and as such he had had the responsibility of training and helping in the training of both genin and chunnin so, at least in theory, he knew what he had to do… but still, it might be easy with a little help, so he decided to stay focused in the basics until the new teams were assigned and then work out a schedule with the help of his new sensei.
Luckily Iruka had mentioned the night before that the team assignments were going to take place in a couple of weeks so he had time to do a couple of things and still enlist the help of the jounin-sensei in his training.
With all the decisions made and the basis of a plan already put into place he decided to get started. First the memories, so he went to meditate and submerged himself in the memories of his other self that he had gotten the night before.
He was 3 years old and he was trying to play quietly with the toys of the orphanage by himself, he knew that if the grownups saw him they will take the toys away and would probably give him a spanking 'Because monsters like you don't deserve any toys' He didn't understand why they never let him play and he didn't know what he had done wrong, maybe if he was really nice they would let him play with the other kids for a little while…maybe
He was 4 years old and he was really hungry, the orphanage had kicked him out, the owners had said that they weren't willing to keep taking care of a 'demon boy' and he didn't deserve to take the space of some nice children. The children weren't nice, not to him anyways, and the guys of the orphanage hadn't really been taking great care of him, but at least they fed him (most of the time) and it was usually warmer than outside, he was alone and scared, he just wanted to go home.
Another half year went by…Naruto was happy, the old man had given him an apartment all of his own so that he didn't have to live in the streets anymore and even some money so he could buy stuff like food and clothes, maybe things would get better now…maybe.
Naruto was six and the old man promised him that he could go to the academy so that he could be strong like him, Naruto told him that he would be the Hokage, so that everyone would acknowledge him, nobody was going to ignore him or be mean to him and since he would be going to the school now, he was going to have friends, the old man said so and t he old man didn't lied so it had to be true…at least he hoped so.
Naruto was seven and he was wearing the orange monstrosity for which he would become known nobody was going to ignore him now, not while he wore this…at least he desperately hoped so.
Naruto was 8, and since nobody seemed to noticed him he decided he would be loud, nobody was nice to him so he decided he would prank them, nobody was teaching him anything so he decided he would stop trying…his mask was born.
Naruto was 10 and the new professor wasn't mean to him, he liked that feeling, maybe someday the teacher would actually be nice…maybe
The memories came to him like a flood and he felt like crying by the time they were done; most of them were bad, some weren't so bad but the good memories were few and far between… sometimes it sucked to be right, he had told his father, told him that he was expecting too much, that the villagers were going to be hurt and they wouldn't be able to handle the true, they would simple blame the child for everything that had happened, mistake the jailer for the prisoner, but his father wouldn't hear it, he believe in the village and Naruto was sorry that he couldn't have been right.
Naruto had grown up to the smiles of those around him, and the admiration and friendship of almost everyone he knew, those where some of the perks of being first the son of his father and later who he was. He had seen the smiling faces of the villagers and now he was seeing the scowling ones, he would get through this, he always did.
In some ways he was relived it wasn't worse, a part of him had fear it would be, and he guessed that to the Hokage and most of the villagers all these things were minor wounds, they haven't hurt him deeply, they had just been some simple and small injustices. But he had been only a child and those small wounds were deeper than they seem in the small body, he didn't have some happy memories to forget the bad ones, he couldn't find comfort in the better times, all he could do was hope, hope and dream it would get better. He prayed to whatever god was listening that his father had honored his last whishes, he couldn't deal with the idea of condemning some innocent child to the same fate he had seen he would rather to go through it again.
Analyzing his memories of his own childhood and the new ones he had some mix feelings. For one part, he couldn't help to feel extremely lucky, seeing how his life could had turned up under different circumstances made him tremendously glad to grow up like he did; for the other part he was mad, no matter that he understood he still didn't have to like it and the behavior of the villagers hurt him and piss him off, how could they honestly believe that he was kyubbi resurrected.
'They don't believe it or if they do they need some serious help, I mean how can they treat the 'demon' like this? They're hoping that when he loses it they'll be the first ones he kills? Honestly what are they thinking?'… so essentially he was upset… on another hand he was a little puzzled by certain things 'why did the old man Hokage didn't tell them who my parents were? It probably would have helped me in the long run … so why keep it a secret? … And where the hell is everybody? I mean, sure my parents are dead, but what about everyone else? ... My brothers, my sisters, my uncle and aunt… I mean, I know we aren't related by blood but they were always around and I thought they, out of everyone, would have seen me for me…"
This last question brought with it a strong feeling of nostalgia, he missed his home, his family and friends, people in this world may look similar but they weren't the same and he couldn't get rid of the emotion that seem to be holding his heart in a visceral grip: loneliness…he had never noticed it before but he had always had someone (more like several people) to rely on, he had always counted on them and they could count on him…now that list didn't took all the fingers in one of his hands and that thought alone let him feeling more empty than ever before.
Taking a moment to compose himself Naruto decided to focus on his plan, eventually he would find persons to add to his small list and when he did he needed to be ready to protect them, because now he knew how his soul felt without them and he vow to make everything in his power never feel like that again.
Well, now at least he knew where he stood, and why he was wearing the bright orange jump suit that screamed 'kill me', he was a pariah and haven't received any proper training, he was going to have to start at the beginning and hopefully he would work it out from there, he would have to be cunning and careful with his new knowledge, keep it hidden for a while and start showing it slowly, he couldn't risk being caught and doubted, that will led him to all kinds of trouble and he would rather avoid that for as long as possible. However he wasn't sure he could convincible act the cheerful idiot part all the time, nevertheless maybe he could chuck it all to finding out about the kyubbi and becoming a genin? That was as good excuse as any and nobody was going to question it (much) thus for now it will have to do, and now to the rest of his plan.
The first step was that he needed to familiarize himself with this body, luckily it wasn't so different than his own and as long as he was careful he could still manage most things, but it was still smaller and that meant that his movements were clumsy and his mind sometimes overcompensated, causing him to, for lack of a better term, trip with his own feet, it had already happen the night before and he had been humiliated, that alone was bad enough, but in a real battle it could led to a fatal mistake and that was a risk he couldn't (and wouldn't) take, it was already going to be hard enough get used to the limits that his new 'condition' forced upon him without any additional complications, so he started with a couple of stretches and simple exercises to help himself adjust to this body.
After half an hour or so, he decided to take a break, he knew it will take a couple of days, if he was lucky, to completely ge used to his new body, so in the mid time he was gonna try to be patient (even if that had never been his forte). So with that in mind he decided to go shopping first and worry later.
Naruto knew from his recently acquired memory that most shops would either refuse him service or charge him colossal prices for substandard products thus he needed to make some 'adjustments' for his shopping trip.
First he needed to examine his appearance…what he saw wasn't all that surprising (if you valiantly ignored the orange outfit) he wasn't all that different from his 'old' appearance, he was shorter, but that was mostly due to the lack of healthy eating habits and proper training, he was skinnier, again for the same reasons, and had whisker-like marks in his face; other than that he was exactly the same: almost a carbon copy of his father. 'Maybe they are all blind' it was the only justification he could think of as to why nobody had noticed the family resemblance before… 'I'm getting tired of this…ah, well there really isn't anything I can do about it, maybe someday they will figure it out, but right now it doesn't matter'
He needed to change his appearance, but a henge was still too obvious, fortunately nobody had bother to teach this world's Naruto the correct way to use this technique so by some strange luck Naruto actually learned something more useful.
The henge is for the most part a genjutsu, a simple and easy genjutsu that doesn't require much control or power but still a genjutsu, in other words is meant to be an illusion, you aren't supposed to be able to change, just trick the others into thinking you did, however Naruto's technique was the real deal when you changed you actually changed. Is basically like your usual henge is a bunshin and Naruto's transformation a kage bunshin they may look the same but are actually completely different. Of course the original Naruto didn't have a clue about this fact and just assumed that the technique was supposed to work like that, so no one knew of this technique and, for a while at least, he will keep it like that, maybe later he would tell them, but right now it was a perfect way to trick the pesky shopkeepers.
So he changed his appearance, careful to not change the dimensions too much (it wouldn't do for the clothes not to fit) and checked his new appearance in the mirror: brown straight hair, green eyes and no scars, a simple black t-shirt, brown pants that stopped about mild calf and white tennis to complete the look and nobody would recognize him.
His first stop was the grocery store, he needed more food, he wasn't really picky but he draw the line at expired food, so that basically leave out anything currently at his house and meant he would have to buy many things…'I just hope I'm done in time for lunch' The catchier didn't looked him twice and only packed everything and gave him the right price (which was a third part of what the original Naruto would have had to pay) so with everything packed he send a clone home and asked him to unpack and start getting the lunch ready while he went to the clothing store.
In the store he bought a couple of simple t-shirts (like the one he was wearing) for everyday training, along with simple dark blue pants for the same propose. Aside from that he bought 3 black pants that were tight in his waist and then started to lose around the thigh, allowing easy movements, a couple of baggy brown pants that were comfortable, 2 long sleeved shirts (one gray and one black), 3 shirts whit short sleeves in blue, green and black, a black vest whit many pockets (that reminded him of his jounin vest), black fingerless gloves and one pair of black combat boots. All in all he was pleased with his choices and happy he wouldn't have to wear the orange monstrosity anymore.
After a quick lunch and a change of clothes he decided to analyze his current level and design a training plan based on it, he wasn't really expecting much, he already knew that it was a miracle that the original Naruto could actually use a couple of techniques with the training (or the lack of it) that he had to endure, but he had already done it once and, even if he wasn't looking forward to doing it again, he knew what had to be done and he was going to do it, he just had to know from where to start, and to that propose he headed to the clearing where he first arrived to this world.
After a couple of hours checking his abilities and testing his potential he decided that maybe (and that was a big maybe) god had forgiven him for whatever he had done in the first place, it wasn't going to be an easy task getting to an appropriated level and undue all the damage that had already been done but it wasn't as hard as he had first thought it would be. For starters there was one thing that had him almost giddy with pleasure: he was a chakra mammoth…perhaps he wouldn't kill the whatever-it-was on sight.
Naruto had always been powerful and had had a large chakra reserve, that was mainly due to the fact that both his parents were powerful in their own right, and that he had been training every day since he was four, but apparently having the kyubbi sealed in him had made him triple the size of his chakra, and that was without any source of proper training, so right now he was at sannin level in his chakra reserves and Naruto felt like singing, this was probably the first good news he had received since he arrived in this world…so of course it also had its setbacks.
Because the huge amount of power and the small amount of training, Naruto's control sucked…big time; it wasn't that he didn't have the right amount for let's say a medical jutsu; it was that he used from 3 to 5 times the necessary amount for any technique and couldn't even make it stable enough in most of the cases. Had his power levels been monitored in his childhood (like they were in his own world) this fact would have been noticed and fixed without mayor problems, but because he was a pariah and nobody bother enough to give him the time of the day if they could help it, nobody had ever done nothing about it and the problem had keep getting worst as he grew up…and now it was going to take a miracle and some intense training (more like torture) to solve it.
For a moment or two Naruto entertained the idea of going to the Hokage and demand an explanation for this huge oversight… 'yep, that would go well…and I could probably convince him that some strange hero that was walking by at the correct time, just felt the need to explain all this to me, because there is NO way he is actually going to believe that I, the 'dead last', actually figure it out all on my own, and there is still the fact that there isn't anything that the Hokage could do; is already too late for the easy way out…just my luck'
He was just going to have to do the time and hopefully it would be enough or maybe the miracle option would come true, if only he could be sure there was a god that didn't hated him he would have started praying, but as it was he still had his doubts (specially about the whatever-it-was) so he decided to go with plan a) torture….I mean training.
As far as his other abilities went, well…he didn't have any…he hadn't ever learned any type of taijutsu (not even the academy one) because nobody would teach him and there wasn't anybody with whom he could practice, he couldn't cast a genjutsu to save his life, he couldn't dream to practice any medical jutsu for the time being (he was going to fix that eventually), he hadn't ever touched a sword or any weapon for that matter except kunai and shuriken and he wasn't really all that good with those either … 'This is still going to be hard'
The only things he had going for his side were stealth and traps (which came from his pranks) survival skills, albeit basic ones, and Fuuinjutsu (sealing jutsu), which he could still remember and use without any sort of training… 'That's something at least…'
He couldn't do much for the moment, and he would rather wait for the teams assignments to start any serious program, so for the moment he was going to concentrate in 2 things: strengthening his body and improving his control.
In order to improve his body (fast enough for him) he needed a couple of things, first he needed gravity seals and resistance seals, those where hard to do but worked ten times better that any weights since they affected the whole body and not just a few areas and he had been trained by two of the greatest seals masters of the world so he wasn't really worried about making them.
He would also had to design a workout routine, 'not much just a light routine: 30 laps around the forest (to avoid being seen), 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups, stretches, 20 laps in the river and 1 hour of practice from the basic katas of my own style every morning and every night should be enough…if not I could always add something more'
The control thing was a little trickier he could use shadow clones, one of the advantages of all that chakra power, but it would still take the better part of a month just to get his control to an acceptable level…'well is better than nothing I guess'. He would had to start with the leaf floating exercise and the tree walking, maybe by the end of the month he would be able to do the water walking exercise for a couple of minutes, but it would take at least two months to really master any of those exercises.
In the mid time he would also needed to master a few jutsus, his arsenal was really small right now and it didn't even include the bunshin, which he would had to fix and fast, a ninja that didn't know the tree basic jutsus was just depressing (except for Rock Lee but he was a different story), I guess that's it for the next couple of weeks, 'man this is just going to be boring as hell …well at least I'll have time to figure out what to do around other people because I refuse, on principle, to act like an idiot and embarrass myself.'
The only other thing that worried Naruto was the Kyubbi attack, but he couldn't take the risk of getting caught intruding where he shouldn't… at least not right now and with his current skills the risk was just to high… so he was going to have to wait around until a chanced presented itself. 'I also had to find a way to see my dad and mom's things…specially the special kunai and the Uzumaki's sword' with that final thought he headed home to get some rest and prepare what he needed for his training.
It had already been a week and the training was going well, honestly, he was actually surprised by the speed to which his body seem to recover and on further investigation he discovered that somehow the remains of the kyubbi chakra that weren't completely purified, somehow served to enhance his healing rate which allowed him not only to recover more quickly but his muscles seemed to grow to a faster pace …all in all he was happy to discover another good thing about hosting his own personal demon and had already upped his training to accommodate for the special healing.
His control was already improving and he had already learnt a couple of useful jutsus, although he hadn't actually been able to master them yet, but at least he could make them work in a basic level. He finally managed the bunshin as soon as his control improved and he had already relearn a couple of wind techniques like Futon: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough) and some other small C-rank moves, he still was a far cry from ready, but at least he no longer felt completely defenseless, he also had managed a couple more difficult jutsus like the Bunshin Daibakuha (Clone Great Explosion) and the Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique) which actually were easier to accomplish than the smaller ones, but he knew he needed a wider repertory and that even if he could use this techniques he was still wasting more energy than necessary so he still kept with his control training.
He had decided that he loved the shadow clone technique, he didn't think that he would have made it without it; of course he had known for quite some time that when a clone disperse itself all its knowledge gets transfer to the original, but that hadn't meant much before he took the wrong turn to the afterlife; because even if you could manage the technique maintaining it while training was usually impossible, but then again so was creating more than a couple dozen copies and he could make hundreds, and on an even bigger note coming back to life was also unattainable but he had managed to do that (although it was more the whatever-it-was who was responsible, but still… ) so, in any case, now that he had such huge chakra reserves he could train with a couple (hundreds) of clones and increase the speed of his training, and he was sure that was the only reason why he had already accomplished the tree walking and leaf hovering exercises, sure he had yet to master all the levels but considering where he had begun this was already something huge and as a result he had found a new favorite jutsu: the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.
However right now he was taking a break in order for him to take his registration photography, he had decided to were his black pants with the grey shirt and the black vest over it, his headband was hanging loosely around his neck (like it always did) which set free his spiky hair and when all's was said and done he look so much like his father that it was scary, 'but why would I hide who I am? It's not like I'm doing it on propose or anything and what if I found it funny? It's still not my fault…well maybe a little, but still…' so that's why right now the Hokage was looking at him with ill disguised interest and why the other ninjas in the room seemed like they had just seen a ghost… 'Ok, maybe is hilarious…but came on I'm not even wearing the cape…mmm, maybe I should have… that would have been amazing…oh well too late now, maybe another day…'
