Two years later Naruto rocked up to class on time for the first time in almost four months. The teacher said, "So, you've decided to get here on time today then have you?"
"Yes sir," Naruto said, happy about getting there on time.
"I hope that it will last longer than last time."
"Yes sir! I believe that it shall sir!" Naruto said, causing most of the students to laugh. The only ones that didn't, were Amayah, who was well aware of the reason that he was always late, and Gaara, who Naruto had found didn't possess a funny bone in his body, not even in his elbow thanks to his darn sand armour.
When Naruto was sitting down, Amayah whispered, "What level are you going to put it up to next?"
Naruto whispered back, "Well, it's on level four now, but, like I said, this time I think that I'll leave it there for a while; at least until the end of the year anyway."
"I see."
"Are you still absolutely certain that you don't want me to include it in yours too?"
"No. the bands are good enough for me. I don't have anywhere near the strength, or stamina, in me to want to wear them all the time."
"Well, if you insist," Naruto shrugged.
Naruto turned to pay attention to the teacher as he was saying, "…because of that, for the rest of the year you shall be undergoing individual training under one of the our village's shinobi. Naruto, you shall be going with…"
One of the other students called out, "Hey! Why is Naruto going first? It's normally me!"
"Yes Shayla, but this time I shall be doing it in reverse alphabetical order. Now, Naruto, you will be getting training from Pakura. Amayah, you'll be going with Rei; Gaara, Baki…" he took about ten minutes to list all of the students with their respective trainer. "…and with that, you can have the rest of the day to yourselves."
Most of the students rushed from th eroom to spend their effectively last day free, doing whatever they wanted, typically nothing. But Naruto stayed behind and went up to the teacher and said, "Hey, Igahara-sensei, could I use 'the range'?" referring to the training area that they used for kunai and shuriken practice.
"Well, I don't see why not. Though I don't think that that will help you any."
"Why's that?"
"Well, your abilities in that area are all over the place. For some reason, when you do hit the target, few and far between as that is, your kunai stick in further than any of the other students', but then, for some reason, they start to degrade again. The same thing happens when we're training in taijutsu as well."
Naruto scratched the back of his head and said, "Yeah, well…"
Amayah , who hadn't left Naruto's side, cut him off and said, "That would be because of his coat sensei."
"Shhh…" Naruto said, putting his index finger up against his lips.
Igahara-sensei raised an eyebrow and said, "How's that? Didn't he just buy it at Michiko's or Kikinawa's, like everyone else does?"
Naruto started waving his hands in front of himself, silently begging his friend not to say what he just knew she was going to. His silent pleas fell on deaf ears as Amayah said, "No. Didn't you know that Naruto was the one that came up with them?"
"Eh? Seriously?"
"Yeah, and he 'n' Mum are always working on the darn things. I swear, it's almost like some kind of damn competition between them." Naruto hung his head. He sighed as Amayah continued. "That," Amayah pointed to Naruto's coat, "is what he calls his 'prototype'. Though for some reason all of his 'prototypes', always seem to work.
"Yeahh. That's because I do that hard yards before I even attempt to put them in place. The gravity seal took me almost a month to create." Igahara-sensei's eyes widened. "Then it took me another one to join it with the other seals."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa…hold up a second here," Igahara-sensei said. "What's this about a gravity seal?"
Naruto explained, "Well, it's not really a gravity seal as such. It's just a fūinjutsu application of Jiton."
"It's a…how is that possibly?"
"Well, the earth has a magnetic field, right?"
"Yes. But how did you know that? That isn't covered in class."
"Akane-sensei loaned me a book. Anyway, the 'gravity seal' just increases the field of the one wearing it. After I got used to wearing it I found that I got super fast when I took it off, so I set about engineering a levelling system for it. That caused me to have to rework the entire array." Naruto grumbled a bit about it taking another month for him to fix that.
"Wait. You just said a 'levelling system', right?"
"Yeah. What of it?"
"What 'level' is it at right now?"
"Level four. Why?"
"Level four!? So you're telling me that, right now, you are moving about just fine under four times the 'gravity' that the rest of us move in?"
"Yeah, why? Is there something wrong with that?"
"Is there…?" Igahara-sensei slumped in his chari and said, "I don't know where to begin."
"My mother says that a lot too."
"Yeah, I bet she does," Igahara-sensei said as he thought, 'If he thinks that creating and modifying an array as intricate as that one must be in under three months is nothing, then it's no wonder that Rei says that a lot.' He sighed and said, "Fine. Go ahead with the range. It's free for now, though I would like to stress that other classes have first priority on the range."
"Priori…"
"They come first."
"Ah. That's fine," Naruto said as he and Amayah left.
Igahara-sensei said, "I'd better inform Pakura about this."
XXXXX
A few hours later Igahara-sensei met Pakura at Shinichi's, a shinobi bar that most Suna shinobi came to drink at. When he managed to gain her attention, Pakura exclaimed, "Shō! It's been a while," slapping the teacher on the back as she ordered another one.
Shō said, "Pakura," always having had difficulties stomaching Pakura's drunken side. "I need to discuss something with you."
"'Kay, at's great. Just let me finish this," Pakura said, always having difficulty whenever she had to deal with her cousin.
"No," Shō said, placing his hand on his cousin's arm as she raised it to her lips. "You need to be sober for this."
Pakura sighed and put her drink down as she said, "Fine, what is it Shō?"
"You know the student that you will be teaching?"
"Yeah. What about the brat?" Pakura asked, irritated by the assignment that she'd been given.
"You know what, maybe I shouldn't tell you after all."
"Oh no you don't," Pakura said. "You don't get to just walk away after getting me to put down my drink."
Shō sighed and shook his head. He said, "Fine. Uzumaki Naruto, the student that you've been assigned, is the one that originally designed the coats that have gained such popularity these last couple of years."
"Okay, that's great," Pakura said, turning back to her drink.
Shō sighed and said, "Fine. But don't say that I didn't warn you."
XXXXX
The next day Amayah didn't go to class. Instead, she went straight to Rei's house, hoping to see Naruto before he left. She didn't, Naruto having left early to make sure that he had more than enough time to get to their class on time. When she got there she found the door open, so she went straight through. She found a note saying, 'Sorry Amayah, I was held up at i o's ea on s e.'
Amayah exclaimed, "The hell?!" and sat down to wait. After about an hour of doing nothing, Rei still wasn't home. Amayah screamed. Then, calmer, she said, "Okay, enough screwing around," and picked up the note and read it again. And again. And again. Not seeing anything different she sighed and said, "Okay, so what now? Am I supposed to guess or something?" She sighed."Well, looking at the letters that are there, it's probably Michiko's, but…well, what've I got to lose?" Amayah took to the rooftops and reached Michiko's in only five minutes. When she had entered the store, she walked to the front desk she nodded and said, "Michiko-san."
"Amayah," Michiko said, having a soft spot for all of Naruto's friends, even when their mother sold a competing ninja tool to a rival store.
"Is Naruto's mother here?"
"Rei? No. Why?"
"She left this note here," Amayah said, reaching into her pocket to get the note that she had brought with her.
Michiko looked over the note and said, "Yep. It sure does look like it says to head here. But she left after messing around with some of the kunai over there," nodding in the direction of the stock that she had just received from Tanigakure, which had wavy blades and lacked a hole at the end of the handle, replaced with some weird design that looked kind of like a pair of outstretched wings. Michiko followed Amayah to the kunai, wanting to know just what her friend was up to.
Seeing nothing of any note, Amayah activated her dōjutsu to test a theory and saw a series of glowing green fūinjutsu characters that circled around a spiral design. She grunted and said, "That crafty…" having to admire what Rei had done, despite the annoyance that welled up within her, realising that Rei would have had to draft Naruto in on this little game that she was being forced to play.
Michiko looked at Amayah and said, "Crafty? What are you talking about Amayah?"
Amayah sighed and said, "Rei had Naruto help her devise a seal to lead me on a damned chase through the village."
"A…" Michiko shook her head. "I'm sorry, can you say that again for me?"
"Naruto, jerk that he is, has all these seals plastered about his room, none of which are visible to the normal eyesight of even a shinobi. Rei told him to come up with one telling me to meet her at her favourite restaurant." Then, in a lighter tone, she asked, "Do you want me to get rid of it for you?"
"Sure," Michiko said.
Amayah linked her thumbs and held her hands with her palms towards her and said, "Chōinjutsu: Kai!" the seal glowed green and released itself, disappearing from Amayah's vision. But then she could only see red. Literally. Naruto had gone the extra step and included a, really rather childish, booby trap, should someone try to forcibly remove the seal. He had set it up so that red paint would fly in the direction of the source of the chakra that had disturbed it, covering her from head to toe in red. Amayah stood there, blinking, not thinking of anything other than, 'I've been covered in something!'
Michiko suppressed her amusement to ask Amayah, "Are you going to be alright Amayah?"
That broke her out of her funk and Michiko would have seen Amayah's face turn red, had it not already been so. Amayah shouted, "NARUTOOO! YOU'RE DEAD! YOU HEAR MEE!"
Michiko idly thought, 'I'm pretty sure that the entire village heard you. Anyway…' She said, "Amayah, I could let you use some of the clothes from here for today if you want."
"I couldn't do that! Today's the first day of about six months of individual training and, from what Naruto tells me, his mother can be a real demon when she wants to be!" Then she sarcastically commented, "I think that my clothes can attest to that."
"Maybe so. But you can just pay for them later if you feel that you must."
"Well, if you insist," Amayah shrugged.
"I do. Now go on, choose away. But first…"
Amayah was led out the back, taken to a shower and told to rinse herself off. When she was done she walked though the store, flipping through rack after rack. Eventually she settled on a pair of dark orange pants, a tan shirt and red knee-high sandals. When she exited the changing room she grabbed a sand-coloured coat from a rack and shrugged it on before walking over to where she had left her own coat to retrieve her ninja tools.
Amayah angrily wasted her entire repertoire when she found that she couldn't withdraw her weapons from the seals in her coat's pockets. Michiko blinked as Amayah swore bloody murder upon her best friend. When Amayah had exhausted her list of curses, she said, "Chōinjutsu: Kai!" attempting to release whatever it was that Naruto had done to her coat.
Michiko said, "Well, I guess that he really didn't want you to be abloe to use that coat of yours today Amayah."
"Why would he want that?!"
Michiko sighed and said, "I don't know. But I'd say that Rei's got something to do with it."
"Well in that case, can I get some weapons too?"
Michiko sighed again and said, "I really shouldn't, since Rei went to so much trouble to make it so that you couldn't. But I suppose that there is one that I could give you."
"I'll take it!" Amayah eagerly said, knowing that without a weapon of any kind, she didn't stand a chance against her friend's mother, due to her limited chōinjutsu abilities.
"Keep in mind that it is still in the early days of testing so…"
"Sure, whatever. It doesn't matter. Just gimme it."
"Alright," Michiko shrugged. "Here you go."
Amayah said, "This is…isn't this one of those things that you gave Naruto-kun a while back?"
"Not quite. Those were a prototype themselves interestingly enough."
"So what is it?"
"It's a variation of the upgrade that Naruto made on the ones that I gave him. But this one can shoot the blade from it by making a half-ram seal with the other hand. After the first one has been shot, the blade is replaced with another one that has been sealed inside it. Unfortunately that apprentice that made it isn't yet good enough to make a seal that would allow for more than one additional blade."
"I see. Thanks Michiko-san," Amayah said as she strapped the… "Uhh…what's it called?"
"Mateo is calling it a Hidden Dart System."
"Right,"… Hidden Dart Blades onto her forearms. When she was done, she said, "Thanks for that. Now, on to Shichinaka Ramen Stand."
"Shichinaka Ramen Store? Why would you need to go there?"
"Well, the note did say to go to Rei-sensei's favourite restaurant, right?"
"Ah. Well, then you'll need to be going to Kirasaka's."
"Eh? I would've thought that it would be Shichinaka's. I mean, that is the only place that we've ever gone when our families got together."
"Yeah, maybe so. But that is Naruto's favourite place to go, not Rei's."
"I see," Amayah said, "thanks again," and waved over her shoulder before leaving the store.
Around five minutes later Amayah was standing outside the restaurant , catching her breath, readying herself to go inside and start accosting her friend's mother for what she had put her through when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at the owner of the hand and levelled a baleful glare at the owner. She demanded, "'The hell is wrong with the pair of you?!"
Rei said, "To be fair, the paint wasn't my idea. I just wanted Naruto to seal your coat so that you couldn't use it on this first day of training."
Amayah sighed and said, "Alright, fine. What are we doing?"
"Well, we can get to that later. For now, I'm hungry." Amayah's stomach rumbled its agreement.
20 minutes later they left Kirasaka's with Amayah saying, "That was really good, but…"
"Why did we never come here before?"
"Well…yeah."
"I took Naruto here once and he threw up."
"Must've been really bad if it stopped you from coming back for what, five years?"
"Actually no, that's not what stopped us from coming back."
"Really? What then?"
"Well, Naruto said that he didn't like the attitude of the waiter that had been serving us the entire time, but it only got worse after he got sick. About a week after that incident, Naruto snuck back in during the day and placed some…interesting…seals all over the place."
"Interesting? What do you mean?"
"Well, he got into the plates and anything that got put on them turned purple. Any drinks turned black. That was on top of the seals that made a very…distinctive…sound when a sustomer sat down. Amayah was too stunned to do anything other than blink. "So I guess that you could consider Naruto's paint prank kind of light when you think about it."
"He did all of that?!"
"Yeah."
"He must really not have liked what he was served."
"No. I think that it was the waiter and Naruto just went overboard in his retaliation after they refused to get rid of him the first time."
"First time?"
"Oh yes. The first shot he had was three days after the incident when he set up a time-release seal to go off on all of the napkins and lights so that bright blue splashes of colour shone under a blue light. Rasa had a hard time keeping it together when the owners told him about what was happening. They thought that it was a ninja using some kind of genjutsu to try and embarrass them. That or some rival trying to force them out of business."
"So how did they figure out that it was Naruto-kun's handiwork?"
"They didn't. Naruto couldn't stop laughing that night. Then he locked himself in his room for the rest of the week. After the complaints started to come in, he couldn't stop laughing. It really wasn't difficult to put together."
"Didn't you or the Kazekage force him to apologise?"
"No. Why would we?" Rei said, "Naruto was right. That waiter really did have a bad attitude, and neither of us particularly liked the chef at the time."
XXXXX
A/N
Chōinjutsu handseals
Seireikō: the user links their thumbs and holds their hands with their palms towards themselves
