NARUTO'S FOURTH BIRTHDAY was right around the corner. Hannah and Hinata had come to the past party, and he was sure they'd come to this one as well. Jiraiya and Gai were coming, and at the moment they were training Naruto in the backyard. They put music on so they could all keep pace and not leave Naruto behind. It was Naruto's favorite song for the moment. Hinata and Hannah were there as well, and Hinata was training, too, even though Taijutsu was not her strong suit.
'The fire's in their eyes and their words are really clear. So beat it, just beat it!' Naruto was getting off track. He pumped his chubby little fists into their air, inventing his own dance as he punched, kicked, and twirled.
'You better run, you better do what you can. Don't wanna see no blood, don't be a macho man. You wanna be tough, better do what you can! So beat it, but you wanna be bad...' Now Naruto was breaking it down in the true style of the song. Jiraiya and Gai exchanged glances as Naruto began to kick up dust with the sheer exuberance of his dancing. Then they smiled as they proceeded to shrug into imaginary coats. Hinata howled with laughter as they began to strut their stuff back and forth across the yard.
Jiraiya and Gai strutted shamely across the yard until they met the edge of the fence. Then, they spun around, kicking a leg into the air. They proceeded to sit down on the lawn chairs and sing along, just like the singer was famed to have done.
'You have to show them that you're really not scare! You're playin' with your life, this ain't no trurth or dare. They'll kick, then they'll beat you, then they'll tell you it's fair! So beat it! But you wanna be bad—"
Kakashi looked out the window and into the backyard where he saw what Jiraiya and Gai were doing. Any normal man would have dropped the dish he was watching and promptly passed out. Not Kakashi.
He ran outside to watch as Gai and Jiraiya danced and swirled, Hinata cheering them on the whole while, all pretenses of shyness forgotten. "Shake it!" she yelled, clapping her hands together.
'Just beat it, beat it, beat it! No one wants to be defeated! Showin' how funky and strong is your fight; it doesn't matter who's wrong or right. Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it! No one wants to be defeated! Showin' how funky and strong is your fight! It doesn't matter who's wrong or right!'
Kakashi smirked beneath his mask as he willingly gave in to the insanity. With joyous abandon, he began to leap and swirl in a perfect imitation of the original performer of the song.
'Just beat, beat it, beat it, beat it; no one wants to be defeated! Showin' how funky and strong is your fight. It doesn't matter who's wrong or right! Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it!"
Hannah covered her eyes, unnerved by the sensuality of Kakashi's dancing. Hiashi would not be happy if he found out about her leering at a young man's body. Although, wasn't he eighteen by now? She furiously blushed and looked away, ashamed of herself.
'Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it! No one wants to be defeated. Showin' how funk and strong is your fight. It doesn't matter who's wrong or who's right. Just beat it, beat it, beat it. Showin' how funky strong is your fight. It doesn't matter who's wrong or right. Just beat it, beat it, beat it! No one wants to be defeated. Showin' how funky and strong is your fight; it doesn't matter who's wrong or right! Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it!'
Two faces appeared over the edge of the fence. They'd heard the sounds of music and wild cheering and were naturally intrigued. The pudgy boy with swirls on his cheek glanced at his dark-haired companion. "What is this?"
'Beat it (hoo hoo!) beat it, beat it, beat it! No one wants to be defeated! Showin' how funky and strong is your fight! It doesn't matter who's wrong or right!' Naruto waved at his friends, calling for them to come in as he danced a wild tattoo upon the Earth. The two looked at each other before hastily clambering over the fence. The large of the two fell to the ground, unable to coordinate himself properly.
"How troublesome..."
'Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it! No one wants to be defeated! Showin' how funky and strong is your fight. It doesn't matter who's wrong or right.' Shikamaru and Chouji proved to be excellent dancers, despite the latter of the two's heftiness. Naruto was having fun dancing, though he didn't know if normal people had this much fun doing these kinds of things. 'Just beat it, beat it, beat it! No one wants to be defeated! Jut beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it!'
Naruto cold have sworn he saw a face bearing wistful onyx eyes framed by black hair staring at them longingly. He only caught a glimpse of it before it disappeared and he was left wondering if he'd really even seen it at all. He stared for a moment and then everyone plopped down on the ground, spent from dancing so vigorously.
'Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it! No one wants to be defeated! Showin' how funky and strong is your fight! It doesn't matter who's wrong or right: just beat it, beat it! Just beat it beat it. Just beat it beat it! Just beat it, beat it!
They listened to the last verse, simply staring at the clouds as they blew by. Some of them pointed out what they thought they saw while the others agreed or disagreed. Naruto tended to find more optimistic things, whilst some of them found the sadder, pessimistic possibilities in the clouds. Naruto, had he been without his father, would have been one of those pessimistic cloud watchers.
[.-_-.]
"FOCUS, NARUTO! YES, it may seem stupid, but I promise you that it will help increase your youthfulness!" cheered Gai, pumping his fists into the air. Naruto whined slightly as he yanked his jacket off again.
"Now through it back onto the hook with more passion this time! Let the burning of your fires show!" Gai was practically screaming with excitement as Naruto flung it with a bizarre grin on his face.
"I'm trying, Mr. Gai! I just don't see the point!" Naruto yanked his coat off the peg that Gai had drilled into the tree for him. Not using any tools of any kind, no, simply his strength to force the piece of wood into the tree.
Naruto dropped his jacket on the ground, grunting angrily as he bent over to get it. "What does this even—"
"Naruto, have I ever let you down before?" demanded Gai, his voice suddenly serious.
Naruto debated a moment as he yanked his jacket back on. "Hmm... well, there was that one time that you were saying how you and Kakashi were rivals and you almost let me—"
'Why does he have to act so cool?! Kakashi is rubbing off on him!' thought Gai, gritting his teeth. "Naruto! In regards to your training, have I ever been unyouthful even in the slightest? Have I ever led you astray?"
"...No, Gai-sensei." Naruto sighed softly and renewed his efforts with burning gusto. Gai cheered happily and did a handstand. He walked around the small boy nearly fifty-times before he resumed an upright stance.
"All right, Naruto! Time for stretching! Let's begin with a simple one. Bend and touch your toes. If you can do that without pain, or you feel you need to stretch more, let your arms hang and try to touch your nose to your knees."
Naruto did as he was told, calling upon his flexibility to press his nose to his knees. At first the backs of his legs protested, but then a warmth spread through them signifying that the stretch was working.
They worked on these exercises for the next few months, with Gai showing Naruto new stretches and making subtle changes to the way that Naruto performed the jacket exercise. He promised that when Naruto turned five he'd tell him what the trick was for, or if he progress enough with it before then. Naruto had returned to the task with gusto over the past month. Now Gai was beginning to question whether or not Naruto would need to wait until then.
Gai longed to teach him more adept stances and things of that nature—he was certain the boy could adapt to them easily—but Kakashi had refused Gai that right. He had explicitly stated that he wanted Naruto to be able to do the basics in his sleep before he could progress to the literal stances. Gai was performing the jacket exercise as something he'd seen done before when someone was excited to learn fight, but hadn't thought about blocking.
The motions of removing the jacket would be very useful when he teaching Naruto to block. He'd also teach Naruto pain resistance—an ability that would allow him to hit, be hit, and still keep fighting—but that was only after he'd taught Naruto that the most important thing to do was to dodge so that he didn't need the pain resistance, but he had it to fall back on.
As Gai watched Naruto running laps around one of the training grounds, he smiled to himself. Naruto might grumble when he didn't understand the purpose, but if you could show him why he was doing it, he'd do it in a heartbeat. When he'd told him that he needed to train and eat more healthily to be as strong as himself, Naruto had immediately sought out his father and demanded a healthier alternative to the ramen that they both loved.
Kakashi was pleasantly surprised; he'd been trying for a few months to get Naruto to eat more healthy foods. Now if only he could get Naruto to listen to him when he demanded things...
[.-_-.]
"WHAT AM I supposed to do again, tou-chan?" asked Naruto, cocking his head to the side as he stared up at his father.
Kakashi sighed and calmly restated what he'd already repeated three times. "All right. I want you to focus on your body. Listen to the sound of your beating, and the rhythm of your heart. And then I want you to try and feel your... it's hard to explain but think of it as a kind of river or energy that courses that your body at all times. It's called your chakra.'
"Catchra? Is that what you use when you change yourself into the boogie monster to make me do my chores?" inquired Naruto, grinning widely. "I wanna learn how to do that!"
"It's chakra, Naruto. Now do what I said and maybe—just maybe—I'll teach you how to do it." Kakashi bargained, grinning lightly behind his mask. Naruto grinned and plopped down on the ground.
Kakashi told him to sit cross-legged but Naruto ignored him and lay down on his back. "I feel more swishy at night," he said calmly, not bothering to open his eyes.
Kakashi watched anxiously as Naruto lay on his back, his hands curled into fists on either side of him. "When you find the chakra let me know. It may take some time to find because you don't want your looking for, but after you find it I'll let you know."
Kakashi sat down and crossed his legs as he waited for Naruto to find it. He meditated to build his own reserves as he waited. He knew that he could be reading Icha-Icha, but he didn't want to miss out on Naruto's first chakra-experience by reading. Sure, he'd be paying attention, but his mind wouldn't be completely on task.
After a half-hour trickled by Naruto grunted in anger and sat up. "tou-chan, is it weird that I sat there talking to myself half the time?"
"No. But I told you to clear your head—that's probably why you couldn't focus on your chakra." Pointed out Kakashi, cracking his eye open to take in his son's disheveled appearance.
"Yeah, but it was like an older me that I was talking to! I think it was me, at least. That me kept telling me to be careful because I have a lot of chakra and I can hurt myself when I disturb it if I'm not careful. Is that true?"
Kakashi was quiet for a moment as he considered what Naruto had told him. "I think that's your conscience... Maybe you're just scared. The only way you could hurt yourself is if you do have larger than normal chakra stores, which wouldn't be completely out of the realm of possibility after all of the training you've been receiving from Gai... Hmm..."
Naruto's eyes widened when Kakashi reached up to slip his hitae-ate away from his left eye. "W-What are you doing, tou-chan?"
"Just checking the flow of your chakra... Don't worry, it won't hurt, I'm just checking..." Kakashi furrowed his eyebrows when he focused on the sharringan, calling on its power for the moment. As Naruto's chakra network came into view, he frowned, realizing just how much chakra the little boy had. It wasn't actually that much for a normal ninja—less than that of a genin—but more chakra for a four year old than Kakashi had ever seen before.
"What's wrong, tou-chan?" asked Naruto, his voice reduced to a whimper of nervousness.
"You just have a lot of chakra, that's all..." murmured Kakashi, rubbing a finger across his masked-lips. "I think that you're right. It could hurt you if we're not careful, but we need to start training you soon so you can get a handle on this before it gets way out of hand..."
Naruto sat still for a moment as he considered Kakashi's words. "Why is that bad? Isn't have a lot of catchra—I mean chakra—good?"
"Having chakra means nothing if you can't control it... If you can't control your chakra you're not going to be a very good ninja. I want to train you before you get too much to ever learn to control it properly. Chakra wasting won't help you in a fight," reasoned Kakashi.
Naruto nodded with resolve, though his nervous gulp didn't help to make him look any more determined. "So... what do we do?"
"First, you need to disturb your flow. Get into a position where you can easily locate your chakra reserves and then I will find the weakest point I can. I am going to ask you try to find it yourself, but if you can't I'll show you where to push out the chakra. I am going to warn you now. Push as little as you can at first. If you push to hard... I don't know what will happen." Kakashi's voice was grave and serious; Naruto couldn't help but tremble at the prospect of what he might do if he pushed too hard.
Naruto lay back down, closing his eyes as he centered himself again. He focused on the sound of his breathing and the rhythm of his heart, as his father had instructed. The voice in the back of his mind was quiet this time.
Kakashi's sharringan-eye focused heavily on Naruto's chakra system, trying to pinpoint a weak spot in the flow. It moved very quickly—Kakashi was worried by the different colors of chakra that he found. There were red patches of chakra—very few and in-between—floating around in Naruto's light blue chakra. There were other colors as well, some green and some multicolored, as though the off-spring of a bizarre internal prism.
"Naruto, have you found it yet?"
"I'm trying, Dad, hang on. I think... yeah! I got it! No... wait... I lost it." Naruto gritted his teeth as tried to refocus. When he found it again, he didn't say anything. He focused on it until he could feel it circulating throughout him in a mass of swirling energy. Before his father could say anything, a small voice in the back of his mind told him to focus his chakra into the area between his eyes.
Thoughtlessly, Naruto did as instructed, though he didn't listen to the warning the voice gave about using as little force as possible. In fact, he was so excited that he pushed with all the strength he possibly had.
Kakashi's eyes widened when Naruto's chakra—the light blue variant—began to gather around his face in alarming amounts. He could see it pooling on the surface of Naruto's skin, swirling and massing in plain sight.
"Naruto!" he shook Naruto out of his trance, relieved to see the chakra abate at once. Naruto opened his eyes slowly, giving him a fatigued look. "I told you to only push a little bit!"
"Sorry! But it said to do between my eyes, and it told me to be careful but I—I got excited..." Naruto grinned sheepishly at the look of confusion and worry on his father's face.
Kakashi was racking his mind, trying to think of all the reasons that Naruto could be seeing himself in his mind. He resolved to ask Sarutobi about it at the nearest chance. If it was the Kyuubi attempting to win over Naruto's trust so it could get him to do what it wanted... he couldn't allow that. But he couldn't say anything about it either way, because he wasn't yet allowed to tell Naruto about the Kyuubi. "All right, then. Come on, that was quite a feat! Wipe the blood of your face and we'll go to get some Icharaku."
Naruto gleefully hopped up and scrubbed the slight trickle of blood from between his eyes as he and father marched off to Icharaku's. He was so overcome with joy at the prospect of ramen that he didn't notice his father's slightly perturbed behavior.
"Hey, Dad, do you think we can ask if they have some healthy ramen choices? Gai said—"
"I know, he told me," laughed Kakashi. Internally he was frowning, wondering why Naruto could listen to Gai and even the weird voice in his head, but not him. Was he doing a bad job?
Author's Note- I know you think I am on crack. I'm not. I didn't have school today because my teachers had a meeting. So enjoy! WAHOO!
This chapters featured author is KunochiDreamer. I like her story- A new Beginning. YAY! Check it out!
Edited: November 9, 2012
