Okay so here is chapter 4. Thanks to all those that left reviews. Constructive criticism goes a long way, as does positive words! For those of you that didn't, thanks for reading anyway! I really appreciate it! Also, every time I post a new chapter, I may go back and revise them and add needed explanations. I will inform you guys if it's anything significant.

No I don't own Naruto, stop asking.

Itachi had been training with his Mangekyou Sharingan in secret when his raven he sent to keep an eye on Sasuke suddenly returned. It informed him that Naruto Uzumaki, the Kyuubi Jinjuriki, and village prankster, had led him to a training ground with no one else around. This had Itachi slightly worried, not knowing what the Uzumaki child would want from his little brother. He left the clan compound in a raven shunshin to get to the location his raven told him about. Luckily it wasn't that far and didn't take long at all to get there with the speed he went.

Upon arriving, he was surprised to see the two in a training ground, one of the unused genin ones no less, and about to practice the shuriken jutsu. It was typically something only the Uchiha worked on this early on in their ninja careers. It confused Itachi to think Naruto would know about it, let alone how to practice it. It would be interesting to see if Naruto could actually pull it off. He was perched on a tree some distance away, watching the to boys talk about what they were about to do.

"That's all there is to it really. Accuracy, precision, and timing. More so the latter than anything," Naruto informed.

Sasuke nodded his head somewhat slowly, still not quite believing someone like Naruto could pull off something his brother had spent months perfecting. Sasuke watched as Naruto got ready.

At this point in time, Naruto was battling with his mind and body to make sure what he was about to do wouldn't make it seem like he knew so much more than what he was letting on. He would probably have to miss a bullseye or two purposefully, which would actually be more challenging than doing it perfectly. He was ready as he would ever be, so he jumped up with chakra enhanced limbs to start. He threw eight kunai in rapid succession, four hitting bullseyes, three somewhat missing their mark, and one above the boulder. He then quickly pulled out a shuriken, and threw it at the kunai above the boulder at double the speed of said kunai. The shuriken hit the kunai, successfully deflecting it downward, hitting the bullseye behind the boulder. He proceeded to land in a squat back at where he originally started.

Sasuke had watched this, extremely impressed, with a hint of jealousy, that Naruto had actually done it. Sasuke went behind the boulder only to see that Naruto hit that bullseye as well.

"How'd you learn to do that? The youngest to be able to do it was nii-san, and he was nine. There's no way that someone like you can be better or come close to him!" Sasuke said with confusion and a bit of anger in his voice. There was no way a ten year old that was at the bottom of the class that had failed the graduation exam twice could have done it. Sasuke just couldn't wrap his mind around it.

"What can I say? I practice a lot in my free time," Naruto said sheepishly with his right hand rubbing the back of his head.

"But it's not like I've mastered it or anything, 'cus look I missed three of the bullseyes," Naruto said, indicating the targets with his free hand.

"I guess, but that still doesn't explain how you know how to do it at all in the first place!" Sasuke shouted, demanding an answer from the blonde.

"Well, I had watched an Uchiha do it quite a few times and thought it looked cool, so I decided to learn it." He wasn't lying at least.

"He had been doing it at a training ground that I happen to be passing so don't go thinking I broke into your compound or anything," Naruto said, waving his arms in front of him.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes one last time. If he could learn this to at least Naruto's level, he would impress Itachi and then his brother would probably spend more time with him.

"Okay, so are you going to teach me how to do it or what?" Sasuke said, not really asking it.

"Yeah sure, but let me see you try to do it so I know where you're at."

Sasuke nodded and stepped up to the starting point. He had been practicing this for a while on his own to show his brother but never could pull off the deflecting part. He jumped up the same way Naruto did before and threw his eight kunai at the respective targets. He hit all seven of the bullseyes, but when he went to throw his shuriken at the kunai above the boulder, he had been to late and missed completely. He landed with a huff slightly irritated. He was the best in his class and the worst student could do what he couldn't. He had to fix that.

"Good job, as you can see your accuracy is a bit better than mine. All you need to do is work on your timing. Try making an effort to throw the kunai above the boulder last and have a shuriken that's easy to access at the ready. You have to throw the shuriken roughly twice as fast as you threw the kunai and deflect it off the lower part of the handle of the kunai," Naruto informed, taking out a kunai to show where he was talking about. Sasuke just nodded and got his kunai out to try again. He didn't like taking advice from the dobe, but he'd do anything for more time with Itachi. He jumped up again and threw his kunai. This time, when he threw the shuriken, it grazed the kunai's ring at the bottom, producing a metallic sound. He landed again with a pleased look and turned to Naruto.

"I guess that helped. I'm going to go back to the compound to practice it some more. I'll see you at the academy I guess," Sasuke said a little sheepishly, with his hands in his pockets while looking down.

"Sure sounds good. I have to get back to training too. We should train together sometime. You think we could meet here after the academy tomorrow?" Naruto asked. He couldn't spend the time to come himself, as he had to focus on his own personal training, but he would send a shadow clone that wasn't dumbed down like the ones he sent to the academy.

Sasuke looked a little surprised at this. No one had asked him to train with them before. All anybody at the academy ever said to him was how great he was. The girls would fall over him like some sort of obnoxious fan club while the guys just didn't really talk him out of jealousy. So this was a new experience for him.

"I guess we could. But you better not drag me down." If he had to train with the dobe to impress Itachi, then he would have to stick it out.

"Great! And also, don't take what I act like at the academy seriously. I'm not really like that. It's an act to fool everyone. I suppose you can think of it as an elaborate prank," Naruto said with a finger to his chin. "But anyway I guess I'll see you tomorrow!"

Sasuke nodded, still a little perplexed why he would put on such an act. With that they went their separate ways.

Itachi had watched the encounter curiously. He had been impressed someone had been able to do the shuriken jutsu that was outside his clan and at such a young age. Itachi was by no means arrogant in his power, but he knew he was better than most ninja at Naruto's age. For it to be the kyuubi jinchuriki was all the more strange. To his understanding, Naruto had done poorly at the academy. This was too fishy. He had to find out more. He would follow Naruto back to where ever he planned to train and then confront him about it. As he watched the boy leave, he was surprised how fast Naruto could move, he was faster than most genin and he was only a second year academy student. He would have to question the boy on that as well.

After about five minutes of heading back to training ground 27, Naruto noticed someone was following him. He had gotten pretty good at being able to tell with ANBU tailing him, or least trying to, everywhere he went. This one was a bit better than most though, because it had taken him a little while to sense him. It was the briefest of signatures, but it was there. Whoever they were, they were careful to hide themselves a lot more than the rest of the ANBU that hid from him, or he or she was just immensely better at it.

Naruto changed directions to head to his apartment instead; he couldn't let anyone find out about his secret training ground just yet, or at least anyone interested in tailing him. He got to the roof of his apartment about ten minutes later and decided that he'd call out to the hidden ninja.

"You can come out now, I know you're there." Suddenly Itachi appeared with a flicker. Naruto had suspected it to be him considering he was with Sasuke and close to the Uchiha compound. He was curious to know what he wanted.

"Very impressive Uzumaki-san. I didn't think academy students knew how to sense ninja, let alone a hidden one such as myself," Itachi said stoically. He was dressed in the typical Uchiha way, with a high collared black shirt with the Uchiha crest on the back, and gray pants that were tucked into his open toed combat boots.

"Lets just say I'm not your typical academy student. I train very hard and I like to keep my abilities hidden from others. As you know, the civilian council doesn't think of me too highly, and if they found out that I was actually much more skilled than what my academy scores say, we both know that they would try their damnedest to get me thrown out of the program." Naruto didn't want Itachi suspecting too much, knowing that he'd blow his cover if it was considered a village issue by taking it straight to the Hokage. Yet another reason why Naruto respected the man so much.

"I suppose I can understand where you're coming from. But that doesn't explain why you're trying to spend time with Sasuke." Itachi had heard where Naruto learned the shuriken jutsu, and it was a very probable story, so he wouldn't press into that.

"Well, I saw that he would always train and that he didn't have many friends in the academy. I don't really have many either with the whole village hating me thing, for whatever reason. I figured I could connect to him through training since that's all he seems to do or care about, and I could show him a few things that he'd maybe want to learn." This made sense to Itachi, and regardless of who it was, he was glad that someone was actually trying to become friends with his brother. With him being an ANBU captain, he couldn't spend nearly as much time as he'd like with Sasuke. If he could have a friend to fill in the time that he couldn't, then he wouldn't stop it.

"Alright. Treat my brother well Naruto-san. I'll be seeing you." And with that, Itachi vanished in his trademark shunshin.

Naruto was glad for the way that ended. He didn't have to explain anything all that much and that was okay with him. He started off to the training ground once again, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by a low and ominous sound. "Well, maybe I should eat first."

XXX

Over the next few months, Naruto continued with his training and sending his shadow clones, to the academy, library, and with Sasuke. The academy didn't really change besides the occasional knowing glare from Sasuke after one of his infamous pranks, but he expected that. While training with Sasuke, Naruto noticed that he was more talkative than he was in the previous timeline. Probably because he only had the Uchiha arrogance and not the soon to be hatred to deal with. They would talk about their training methods and about their lives. Sasuke kind of felt sorry for Naruto with him having to deal with the scorn of the village all the time, and for being alone with no family. He didn't think it was right for anyone to have to live that way. He was also surprised when Itachi had covered for him when his father had asked where he'd been going after classes. Itachi had said that he stayed in a training ground close to the academy to train instead of walking back to the compound, which was partly true. His father tried to argue that clan techniques shouldn't be on display for anyone to see and that he should stay in the compound. Itachi again came to the rescue by saying that it was unused and that it would be a safe place to train. Sasuke didn't know that Itachi knew about his training, but was glad that he did so he could keep doing it. Naruto was better than he was as much as it pained him to admit, and surprisingly the so-called dobe had a lot to teach him. With Naruto's help, he was able to complete the shuriken jutsu. Not on the scale of Itachi, but he had gotten the approval of his brother after showing him none the less. After that his father had let him continue to train at training ground nine as long as he came back home before sunset, which Sasuke had no qualms with. He had started to enjoy training with Naruto and would be disappointed if he was forced to stop.

The day before the massacre, Naruto had to make sure to have a serious talk with Sasuke about their friendship. He needed to be certain that Sasuke wouldn't shut himself off to the world and bottle his hatred up like before. After the academy was over, they met up at their usual training ground. This time Naruto had come in person, wanting to make sure he handled this right.

"Hey Sasuke could I talk to you about something?" Naruto asked after they had done their warm up exercises.

"Yeah I suppose," Sasuke said a little concerned. He didn't want to talk about anything deeply personal with Naruto because in all honesty, he didn't know how to handle situations like the one Naruto was in. Over the months they had kind of opened up to each other, talking about their lives and what their dreams were. He realized that Naruto had had a hard life, but the blonde brushed it off like it wasn't a big deal most of the time.

"We're pretty good friends by now right?"

"I guess, if you want to call it that," Sasuke said with a bit of reluctance. He did consider Naruto a friend, but it was still difficult for him to admit it.

"If something bad happened to either us, we would talk to each other about it, right?" Naruto asked, not sure how the boy would respond.

"Well, I'd probably go to Itachi nii-san first, but I guess I'd see what you had to say about it," Sasuke said scratching his cheek. "And I'd probably listen to you if you had somethin' on your mind. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason. I was just wondering. I've never really had a friend before so I was just curious."

Sasuke could definitely relate to that.

"Anyway, let's get back to it. We can't be wasting our training time by talkin' about stupid things like that, dattebayo," Naruto said, doing his best to school his expression to not reveal that he knew something. Sasuke just nodded, wondering what that was all about, then pushed it out of his mind to focus on their training. He had a long way to go if he wanted to catch up to Itachi.

XXX

The next day was a difficult one for Naruto. He had half a mind to tell Sasuke, but he knew he couldn't. He wouldn't even believe him anyway. He had continued to train like usual. This time however, he tried to get Sasuke to train with his clone longer than they usually did, but he couldn't stop Sasuke from leaving, so he let him go. Naruto hoped he had made enough of an impression on him so that they would stay friends, and Sasuke wouldn't push him away. He was tempted to send a clone to observe the ordeal, but thought better of it, knowing that Itachi would be able to find it easily, and Naruto didn't want to have any sort of suspicion from the soon to be missing nin.

Seeing that it was past sunset, Naruto knew what Sasuke was going to walk in on. Naruto only hoped that Sasuke didn't blame him for keeping him.

Over the next week, Sasuke didn't show up to the academy, or the training ground. Naruto would have gone to the memorial service, but he wasn't 'invited'. He'd be kicked out for 'disrespecting the memory of the great Uchiha clan' or something like that. Civilians and their prejudices. He was happy that Sasuke had shown up to the academy the next week, but he had cold, dead eyes. Naruto knew them well.

He was actually surprised to see Sasuke show up to their training ground that same day. He rarely spoke, and kept the same lifeless expression on his face, but he was happy that he came anyway. Naruto had tried to ask him if he was okay, but he just got a cold glare as a response. He supposed it was just going to take time. Life went on like that for the rest of the academy year. That summer, Naruto didn't really see Sasuke because he had stopped coming to their training ground. So, instead, he tried to spend time with Shikamaru and Choji, or at least his clone did. Hopefully, he and Sasuke could still train together next year, but only time would tell.

So that's the fourth. Hopefully I did the whole friendship thing okay. I didn't really get into the massacre itself, because I felt the manga/anime went into enough detail about it, and Kishimoto annoyingly made liberal use of flashbacks too. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it and stay tuned for Academy days part 2! It'll be a long one!

Status: rewritten