Kyuubi? Who, Me?

by Cynical Kyuubi

An unforeseen trauma during his sealing has stricken the Kyuubi with amnesia! He wakes with no idea who, or what, or where he is. Young Naruto Uzumaki finds himself trying to figure all this out and help this giant wry-fox, all while still trying to prepare himself for the ninja academy. Maybe things will all work out in the end? Only time will tell.

13. Chapter 13: The Training Field

Hello again everyone! Long time no see, I know, and I'm terribly sorry for my hiatus.

I have some important things to say, so, please hear me out.

First, My job has gotten to the point where they're having me come in for a full-time work schedule, when its supposed to be just a part time thing. I like being able to earn more money to support myself with, but it also comes with the drawback that I have almost no time at all to dedicate to the story. I'm looking into ways to enable myself more time to dedicate to the fic, but given that my college loans are here, just calling for days off from my job isn't an option. Also, I'm moving into my own place! And that comes with all the stress and time consuming packing! Yay! Good news though is that I'll finally have a damn desk to work at (thank GOD) No more sitting on the floor with a halphazardly strewn together set of pillows and blankets and a flimsey computer lap table thingy with wires protruding from every direction!

unfortunately, that also is a financial drawback for me, meaning I NEED the constant work days to keep making enough money to support myself. I'm looking into finding a new job, or furthering my intended career of content creation, but I don't have anything set in stone just yet. I considered opening a (insert censored fund donor site here) (no I'm not joking they censored it) or something to help supplement my finances so I don't have to work as much, but that honestly feels like a form of E-begging if this story is all I have to offer. I'll make due with what I have for now. Maybe if my content creation and live streaming starts gaining traction then I'll do a (insert censored fund donor site here) , but untill then, it's off to work with me for the daily grind!

Moving on from personal home issues... I have some unfortunate news. I've been going back and editing earlier chapters to make them easier to read and follow dialogue with, and adding bits of polish and minor things here and there. You all know I was implementing beta readers in the process of printing out my chapters, but due to how new I was to this whole concept, I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing. I recently found out that one of my beta readers has been changing parts of my story and making erroneous edits that significantly changes the context of dialogue in some places. It isn't anything "major"..I think/hope, but its still disheartening to know this has been going on.

They've made alterations to my work before, originally it was just paragraph formatting (something I was grateful for)...but there were obvious changes outside format alterations (changing character names) that I caught and edited out to their original status. There was also erroneous proofreading and text edits I did not approve of. I requested that this beta reader NOT edit my work in such a way in the future, and I thought that had been the end of it and they'd just format paragraphs like they originally offered. Turns out, no it hand't. They'd been altering a whole lot more and I hadn't caught on to it initially due to the subtle nature of the edits. Needless to say, I'm understandably angry and frustrated with this individual (whom I won't name out of courtesy) I asked them to not make these edits without my consent and they've done so anyway despite my requests.

I have a writing style, a method to my madness, a specific way I want my writing to be presented as...and they inadvertently undermined all of that when they did what they did.

I deeply appreciated their formatting help early on, but its gotten to a point where I have to put my foot down and say enough is enough.

I'll do it myself from now on.

I won't name names, I don't want to start drama; I just wanted you all to know what was going on behind the scenes, I hate leaving people in the dark.

I'm going to go back and sift through the chapters to make sure they're exactly the way I originally envisioned them to be, and ensure nothing overly drastic has been altered. It was my mistake for being too trusting (maybe even a bit of lazyness on my part due to how exhausted I am at the end of a paragraph), and I will correct that mistake, but it will take time.

ANywho, that nastyness out of the way...

I'm going through previous chapters and shortening up the word vomity author's notes, makes the chapters less word inflated.

You wonderful readers have waited long enough. I hope you enjoy!

End AN

---

(Near an unspecified Konoha training field: Early Afternoon)

(Late February)

The snow had long since cleared from Konoha's streets, but green hadn't yet begun returning to the trees surrounding wooded areas. It was still quite cold, though it was getting to the point where one didn't necessarily need full winter garb when venturing outdoors. Today specifically was a perfect day to throw on a coat and go out for a stroll; the wind was mild and the temperature was on the moderately warmer side relative to the otherwise frigid temperatures normal for this time of the year.

For Naruto, it was a perfect day to go out and practice his new jutsu.

"Okay, just to make certain that I'm understanding this correctly... You've spent all of last week trying to practice your new jutsu; You have thus far been unable to get it to work one time. It hasn't worked on solid ground, nor on the construction scaffolding you tried using. Now you want to jump out of a tree?" Rai stated in a rhetorical manner.

Naruto stepped up to the main entrance to the training field and checked twice to make sure nobody else was here. "Well, yeah, it's a tree jumping exercise. I bet that it didn't work all those other times because I wasn't trying to do it the way the jutsu scroll said to."

Rai squinted and furrowed his brow in bafflement at the boy's logic, "I seriously doubt that the context of where you perform the exercise has little, if anything to do with your rate of success, or lack thereof."

Naruto blew a raspberry at the fox's reply and slipped a makeshift lockpick into the corresponding key slot on the training field's gate. He deftly clicked the tumblers into place and swung the gate open, tucking away his lockpicks into his coat afterwards. Rai continued to give him grief as he stepped into the training grounds and looked for an adequate tree to suit his needs.

"I cannot possibly fathom what sort of leap in logic you made in order to arrive at the conclusion that jumping out of a tree is magically going to make this jutsu work." Rai firmly believed that the boy's lack of success was more than likely a result of his stubborn desire to goof off and actively waste time with his "breaks". Though, to be completely fair, the boy put in solid effort in his studies from time to time, if properly motivated (and reminded). As such, Rai elected against going off on that particular tangent.

Naruto shrugged "I dunno, I just wanna figure this jutsu out and that's the only thing I could think of. Besides, I'm not just jumping out of a tree, I'm jumping from one tree to another! That's what the exercise says to do, right?"

Rai would have had all manner of snarky retorts to follow up with in response to Naruto's erroneous logic, under normal circumstances. However, seeing as the boy stood to suffer serious injury if this stunt of his failed, the kitsune opted for empathy and reasoning instead of sarcasm and wit. "Look, I get that you're excited to perform this new jutsu of yours, but you're getting too far ahead of yourself. You barely know how to channel chakra for one thing; every attempt you've made thus far to activate this jutsu hasn't worked properly, if one could say it worked at all. Why do you insist on skipping steps and leaping forward before you're ready?"

Naruto eyed over a promising candidate for his tree exercise. He held his hands out and put his thumbs and index fingers together to form a rectangle aimed over the tree in question. "That's exactly why I'm doing this. It's just like how I learned how to do Taijutsu; you do the directions and telling me what I'm doing wrong, and I do the trial and error thing!"

"Your taijutsu training exercises didn't run the risk of causing you serious injury if you were off by the slightest margin… You'd be better off continuing your studies and training yourself to be more familiar with the motions involved in performing the jutsu before…well, this."

"Yeah, but that would be boring. This'll be fun!", Naruto said as he finished surveying his tree. He was about to begin climbing it, but the kitsune continued the conversation.

"Kid, if you're so dead-set on jumping from trees, could you at least pick one that isn't going to cripple you when you hit the ground?" Rai said with a good dose of condescension.

Naruto had half a mind to ignore him, but looking up the tree now that he was standing next to it, maaaaybe the big fox had a point. A quick glance around and he spotted a much smaller candidate, "OK, how about that one then?", he said with a hand outstretched to point in its direction.

Rai looked over the image, noting that the tree was still quite large, but at least the kid wouldn't necessarily break his legs in several places when he fell out of it. "That should be fine…but for the record: I still think this is a-"

"Bad idea… yeah I know; you think everything is a bad idea, especially when it's something I think is fun."

The kitsune bit back the indignant retort he thought up, huffing in agitation and electing to leave it alone for now. There wasn't anything he could say to that comment that he hadn't already said countless times before. 'Smartass.'

Naruto made his way over and reached out to begin attempting to climb this moderately smaller tree. It was small, if only by Konoha standards: meaning that it was still high enough that you wouldn't want to fall out of it from halfway up, but still short enough that someone like Naruto could safely jump from one of its lower branches without hurting themselves.

He utilized a bit of rope that he'd had on hand to help himself climb up to the first branch, given that the tree didn't have a low enough first branch for him to jump and grab hold of. He tossed one end around the branch and took hold of both ends of rope, giving a tug to ensure it was sturdy. The boy climbed and managed to struggle his way up, with a good amount of effort.

Naruto perched precariously onto the branch, steadying himself and getting to his feet. The blonde looked across to the next tree branch, and his gaze gradually lowered to the ground. Suddenly, he didn't feel so certain about this exercise…

The blonde eyed over the surrounding area and tried to guess the distance between the branch he was perched on, and the branch he was aiming for. Well, he barely knew much of anything about actual measurement, but he knew enough about the visual aspect of trajectory from his many hours of pranks, snowballs and shuriken practice to get a visual of how this might play out.

If this plan of his worked, and the tree exercise panned out, he felt one hundred percent certain he could make this jump. If he didn't make the jump, he would be fine as long as he didn't land on his head or anything.

"I bet this is gonna be the one, I'm gonna do it this time for sure! Just you watch!" Naruto said confidently as he slowly crouched.

"Or, this ends like every other attempt, only this time you faceplant into the ground at moderate velocity and potentially injure yourself." Came the kitsune's less than eager response.

Naruto readied himself as best he could, ignoring the big fox's comment. He made what he'd thought to be the "chakra focusing handsign" as was shown in the reading material on chakra. He closed his eyes, struggling to clear his mind…struggling being the emphasized word. Focus was never one of Naruto's strong suits; to him, trying to clear his mind was like trying to clear a street of leaves on a windy day with a broom.

It wasn't his fault though, his mind just always seemed to be wandering at any given time, regardless on if he wanted it to or not.

"C'mon…c'mon!" he grumbled aloud after several anxious moments of unsuccessful chakra focusing. "Why isn't this working?!"

"Well, for starters, you never got this to work properly. Second, you've been studying chakra for, what, a few weeks if that? I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if you still can't get this jutsu to work by the end of next month, let alone the next few minutes.", the fox stated, seeing Naruto struggle in much the same manner as he had on all his previous chakra focusing attempts in the weeks prior.

"Not helping, wry-fox!" The boy was undeterred, growling and pressing his hands together again in a new focusing sign in another vain attempt to channel his chakra. "I can't wait that long! Work darnit!" Naruto groaned in agitation and struggled in vain with trying to re-focus his efforts.

Naruto sighed and let his hand rest at his side after another minute passed yielding no results. "I got this to work before, didn't I?" He thought back to the previous times he'd tried focusing his chakra, trying to remember what exactly he was doing in the cases where he got it to work.

He recalled his successful attempts, and tried once more utilizing what worked for him the last time.

After considerable effort was made, he eventually began feeling that familiar wisp of a sensation surrounding him. 'That's it; just a little more!' he said in his mind while he struggled to get his chakra flowing to his legs where he supposedly needed it.

Naruto had done this several times beforehand, using elevated ramps and small platforms he made using leftover lumber. He was familiar enough with what was written in the scroll to be able to recall all the important bits. The boy turned his mind to the tree branch several meters away, trying his best to keep his mind clear and focused on that destination.

He recalled the steps of the exercise and played over them in his head, 'OK, and now…aim for just above the destination, don't aim at the tree branch…'

Naruto took a deep breath, aimed, and leapt with all his might from his current tree branch, dispersing the chakra from his feet as he did so. For a brief moment, he was soaring through the air; the wind flying past his face and making his clothing flap about.

Then the moment passed, and he found himself rapidly descending towards the ground. "Oh-" was all he managed to say before slamming flat into the ground with a hefty thud.

---

In the treeline nearby, obscured from view, Cat winced and sucked in a breath through her teeth. "Damn, the brat fell like a brick; I bet that hurt."

Her teammate merely hummed in agreement, keeping all of his attention focused on the kid and their immediate surroundings.

"So, do we intervene? I mean, if he keeps at it like that, he could seriously hurt himself with this 'training' of his." She asked.

Fox shook his head, "No, stupidity isn't reason for us to intervene. If he wants to act like a fool, we're obligated to let him. Besides, no one has ever actually died from a tree climbing exercise."

Cat couldn't help but snicker at the choice of words and jokingly commented, "Does that mean we might get to witness a historic moment then?", earning her a look of disapproval from her teammate.

As the two sat there and continued to observe, Fox silently pulled out a pill bottle from one of his vest pouches. Despite his attempt to be sneaky about it, his teammate noticed.

"Really, Fox? Stims, this early in the day?"

The man paid no mind to his teammate's protest as he popped open the bottle and deftly swallowed one of the pills. "Just need a pick-me-up."

His partner wasn't convinced, "No, you need sleep, Fox. The doc said you're putting way too much stress on yourself relying on those stimulants and neglecting sleep as frequently as you've been. Don't even try to lie, I was there when they told you."

"I'm fine Cat, I know what I'm doing. Just do your job so I can do mine." Said the fox masked ANBU as he deftly slid the pill bottle back into his vest pocket.

Cat folded her arms and would have persisted, but there wasn't any point with Fox having that attitude. She kept a close eye on Fox, but was careful to not neglect her actual target, whom was now starting to move again after his heavy fall.

---

Naruto had initially found himself unable to move, mostly from the pain, partially from being dazed by the impact…and maybe a little bit of humility. He didn't say anything, he didn't make much of a sound at all. All he could do was lay there for the moment and contemplate what exactly he did wrong.

Well, he knew for certain that the jutsu hadn't activated. After the many failed attempts to activate this jutsu leading up to this point, this wasn't anything new to him. The only difference was that he'd never faceplanted like this before, which really hurt.

Naruto found himself able to move again, but the distinct pain in his chest warned him against moving too quickly; a pain that seemingly waxed and waned with every breath. This all made it very clear to him that Rai might have had a point after all.

He slowly rolled over to his side and took a few careful breaths, struggling to not agitate the pain in his chest if at all possible. It was at this point that he noticed the rest of his body shared various aches and pains that gradually made themselves more apparent. A light moan left his mouth as he tried to form words; Naruto considered taking the big fox's advice on this and either not jumping out of a tree again…or finding a much smaller tree to jump from.

"I'd say something along the lines of 'I told you so', but that seems a little redundant right now, don't you think?"

The boy did his best to ignore Rai's snarky remark and focused on getting to his feet.

He hoisted himself up as gently as possible, rising from the ground and pausing to examine the spot where he landed. There was a definitive imprint left in the grass, but no indentation in the ground like what he'd see in his comics. That last part left him mildly disappointed, but nothing matching anywhere close to the sting of both failing his jutsu attempt and faceplanting like he did.

Naruto waited for his chest to stop hurting, and after a few minutes it did (or he simply got used to what pain remained). From there, it took a little while, but the rest of him ceased being in pain just enough for him to feel comfortable moving around freely.

"You okay?" Came the fox's token voice of concern.

"Ow" was the only thing said in response.

Rai didn't hesitate to voice his commentary, "So, do you still think it's a good idea to perform this stunt of yours from these trees?"

"The exercise says I have to jump from one tree branch to another tree branch!" Came the boy's stubborn response, though he winced from a last bit of residual pain.

The Kitsune didn't find the brat's stubborn attitude amusing in the slightest. "First of all, that's not the exercise that the scroll suggests you start with at your current skill level. Second, you just fell several feet from a tree and hit the ground hard enough that you couldn't move for a significant amount of time."

In the brief moment Rai paused, Naruto attempted to voice his response, but the fox shut him down by continuing. "Do you seriously mean to tell me you want to climb back up to that tree limb and jump again? Are you really that stubborn, or are you just foolish? Perhaps you're both!"

Naruto looked to the ground and back up to the tree branch he'd just fallen from, his hands making fists. Without saying a word, he went and collected his rope, then briefly looked around the training site to see if he could find a tree branch that was any lower off the ground. The boy spent a good minute doing so.

Failing to find such a suitable tree, he hung his head in defeat. "…No, I'm not."

"Good, you were lucky that getting the wind knocked out of you was the only negative outcome you suffered from that fall." Rai pointed out matter-of-factly.

Naruto didn't respond, he simply plopped onto the ground and took out a copy of cliffnotes he'd made for his agility jutsu and looked over them. Maybe there was something he was missing? He was almost certain that he was doing everything exactly like how he'd been trying to do it in the days prior.

Rai decided to try and get into a reclined position, using his tails as supports, then he got to thinking. A moderate amount of thought went to the kid, contemplating the erroneous logic of literally using trees to test out a mobility jutsu when any other elevated position would better suit the needs outlined in the exercises.

Although it may have been amusing to see the kid continue to fail spectacularly doing things the hard way, it wasn't in the kitsune's best interest to let Naruto continue to risk injuring himself so needlessly. The brat didn't need to jump out of a tree to get the jutsu to work, he just needed to focus. No easy feat, Rai understood that, but…

The fox mused. 'I can't get Naruto to focus on his own, especially not with this damned tree exercise holding the kid's attention. Actually, come to think of it, that gives me an Idea that might allow him to practice this asinine exercise without risking injuring himself.'

The kitsune hummed in affirmation of the idea forming in his head, quite pleased with himself, then turned his attention to the boy directly. "Naruto, what if you tried leaping from the ground to the tree branch, instead of starting from the branch? That way, you'd still technically be doing a tree exercise, minus the 'falling out of the tree' part when you fail."

This managed to immediately grab Naruto's attention. "You think that'd work?"

Rai noted the kid's response and continued, further selling the idea to him. "Well, like I said, it'd still be exercising using the trees. The main difference is that you wouldn't have to worry so much about injuring yourself. If you do manage to get it to work and land on the tree limb, you can hop down and try again until you get a consistent rate of success. From there, you're geared up to move onto the second aspect of the training and leap to the nearby branch of the next tree. If you miss the tree branch going up in this method, you can grab the trunk and keep from falling."

Naruto gave a cheerful laugh and clutched his fists together excitedly, "That's perfect! Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you took this exercise far too literally?" Rai added with a dash of sarcasm. He was still rather irked by the brat's insistence on pursuing this interpretation of what the jutsu scroll was teaching him, but at least the kid was being somewhat reasonable (now that he'd had some sense knocked into him).

The blonde missed the witty retort entirely, or he chose to ignore it in light of his jutsu training; either way, he was already in motion to try out the method Rai suggested.

Naruto struggled to clear his mind, fought to focus on the task at hand and draw upon his chakra.

"Ok, here goes…", the blonde readied himself, crouching into a jumping stance and sending his chakra to where he needed it to be.

He spent the next hour repeatedly leaping at that tree, aiming himself at the branches large enough to support his weight (not that he had any means of reliably determining that). In many of the attempts, he found himself either stumbling and falling on landing, or flat-out faceplanting into the ground. Naruto persisted, dusting himself off after every failed attempt and gearing himself up to try again.

Rai yawned and rested his head on his forearms as he laid back and observed the many failed attempts mustered by Naruto. It was amusing to watch, now that he didn't have to worry so much about the brat injuring himself.

The kitsune had to admit, seeing Naruto refuse to give up despite this consistent rate of failure was always…reassuring, despite occasionally being an annoyance.

As if on queue, "Rai, it's not working! I keep focusing my chakra, but it doesn't do anything, dattebayo!" Naruto said with obvious frustration in his voice after his latest attempt failed.

'And there it is...' Rai had formulated a vague idea of what the kid was doing wrong as a means of occupying his time, ever since Naruto had started practicing this jutsu weeks prior. He'd chosen to withhold the information in the hopes that Naruto would figure it out on his own. Still…he could at least give the boy a nudge in the right direction. "Are you focusing your chakra into your legs, or are you just pooling it into your feet?" The kitsune lazily offered.

Naruto looked momentarily baffled by this, "I…what? Yeah, I'm putting it into my feet so that it pushes me up when I jump, why?" confirming Rai's suspicions in the process.

The kitsune lightly facepalmed, "Naruto, do you just use your feet when you jump?"

"Maybe, I dunno? What does that have to do with anything?"

Rai snorted and rolled his eyes at the brat's ignorance, reminding himself (for the millionth time) that he was talking to a seven-year-old. "Kid, you're not using the chakra as propulsion, you're supposed to be enhancing your muscles."

The blonde hopped in on the Fox's prison and tilted his head at the kitsune in confusion, "I don't understand, I'm supposed to be gathering up chakra for this, right? If I'm not pushing myself with chakra…then why-"

"You're thinking too far inside the box on this one. Or…not inside the box enough...?" Rai said with a hint of agitation, "Think of how you jump normally, without chakra. What do you do with your body when you want to jump?"

Naruto squinted his eyes and thought about it, trying to understand, "I… dunno how to explain. I guess It'd be kinda like coiling up a spring and then releasing it?"

The fox nodded, "A close enough analogy."

"But why?" The boy said, trying to figure out what the big fox was getting at.

Rai made gestures with his hands for Naruto to keep going with the thought process.

"What, am I supposed to be making the spring bigger and stronger, or-", his eyes widened and hung his head back with his mouth lightly agape. The realization hit Naruto and he begun to understand why he hadn't gotten the jutsu to work, not even once. He spoke a drawn out, "Oohhhhh", as that last essential piece of the puzzle fell into place.

Rai allowed himself to smile ever so lightly as he watched the kid figure it out on his own from there. 'Now that wasn't so hard, was it?' he thought to himself.

The boy looked over the cliffnotes, shaking his head and unceremoniously stuffed the paper into his tool pouch. He then turned his attention back to Rai and pointed an accusatory finger at the big fox, "Hey, if you knew I was doing it wrong this whole time, why didn't you say anything earlier?"

The big fox pointed right back at the blonde and stood his ground, "Because I'm not doing your work for you, brat…remember?" In his mind, however, the kitsune was reprimanding himself for being careless. He'd underestimated the kid's attention to detail yet again and got called out on it, again.

Naruto squinted with an incredulous expression at the kitsune's response. He didn't like that Rai kept acting like this, but he guessed the big dumb fox had his reasons. At least now he knew why his jutsu kept failing, that's what was important.

Naruto folded his arms and turned away from the fox, re-applying his attention to his objective, "OK, now I know what I've been doing wrong, let's try it the 'right' way."

Once back outside the prison and standing before the tree, Naruto readied himself and went through the motions of performing the jutsu again. This time, he let his chakra focus itself into his legs…though he didn't feel anything all that different. Still, he went along with it anyway, and proceeded to leap at the tree.

Just like the last time, he couldn't get the jutsu to activate. However, what was noticeably different in this attempt compared to the previous ones was the ease of which he was able to aim the jump. That much was new; normally he'd have had a tough time avoiding toppling over…or falling on his face due to the angle of which he'd land.

Naruto chalked that up to being progress, which emboldened him to press on. He continued his practice, aiming himself, focusing his chakra, and leaping towards the tree branches. Each time, he failed to achieve the desired result, but he also found himself avoiding the usual falls that were common in his earlier attempts.

"See? Now you're getting somewhere." The fox commented

"Yeah, thanks Rai!" It wasn't exactly what Naruto wanted or expected, but he was willing to continue trying; what was the worst that could happen?

Naruto crouched, and then leaped once again, this time aiming for a little higher up the tree and adding a little more chakra into his attempt. It was in that moment that he very quickly found out exactly what that worst thing could be…as he found himself shooting off the ground at high velocity.

The last thing Naruto remembered was a loud "crack" and everything going black.

---

Naruto opened his eyes, and two things made themselves apparent. First: he was laying on his back, in the dirt, just below the tree he'd been aiming for. Second: his face really hurt, specifically his nose, forehead and mouth.

He saw a splotch of red on the tree a few feet up, a bit lower than he remembered aiming for, and a sizeable dent in the bark with some of said bark being chipped off in places. Sitting up and looking around, he could see footprints left in the ground with bits of dirt and grass kicked up around them.

Naruto lifted a hand and felt on his face where it hurt the most, finding that there was a crusted something covering just under his nose. "Wud da heg?", was the first thing to come out of his mouth…followed by an outraged, "OH CUB ODD!" A bloodied nose, great.

He picked himself up off the ground and blew his nose on the end of his sleeve. From there, he proceeded to dust himself off and try to piece things together.

Naruto wouldn't have to piece much of anything together though, as it soon turned out.

"Oh good, you're awake." The voice of the big fox rang out in Naruto's head.

"Awage?" the boy said aloud, "Wud happend?" He scrunched up his face in mild agitation of his nose still being a bit clogged.

"Would you like the good news first, or the bad news?"

Naruto blew his nose again and visited the fox in his prison, "Uhh, good news first, I guess?"

Rai nodded and complied, "The good news is: I believe you actually managed to get that jutsu of yours to work."

Hearing that, the boy immediately fist pumped and let out a gleeful, "Yatta!"

"The bad news is: you still need to work on it, because you catapulted yourself face-first into a tree. You hit your head so hard that it wound up knocking you out for roughly…I'd say a half hour, give or take. An impressive feat, given how hardheaded you are."

"Oh... well, that explains why I had a bloody nose…and why my face hurt so much." He admitted sheepishly. In not so sheepish fashion, he lightly fist-pumped again and declared, "Hey, it worked though; I finally got the jutsu to work! That still counts! It counts, right?" Naruto seemed to be taking the whole knocking himself out thing in stride.

The kitsune couldn't help but chuckle at the kid's unwavering enthusiasm, even after nearly cracking his head open on a tree trunk. "Yes, it still counts. Even though you inadvertently found out what it was like to have your nose visit your brain, you successfully performed your first jutsu, congratulations."

Having Rai confirm his success, Naruto jumped in place and threw his fist into the air. "YES! Step one of becoming a shinobi, completed!" Though he abruptly stopped upon catching the fox's not so subtle joke at his expense.

"Hey, that's not funny!", he said, though he found himself recalling how his voice sounded while his nose was clogged and admitting that maaaybe it was a little funny. It was definitely funnier when he wasn't the one on the receiving end of the nose bloodying, but most funny things were like that.

Rai grinned and rested his head on his forearms. Naruto wasn't finished with this jutsu, not by a long shot, and the kid still had a lot of work ahead of him before he could really say he'd completed his first step. Under the current circumstances, the kitsune elected to keep that detail to himself and let Naruto have this small victory. It'd help fuel the kid's motivation, which was a plus in his book.

Besides, the kid did perform the jutsu, and it was a pleasant surprise that Naruto had effectively proved him wrong in how long it took him to do so. However, he did still injure himself despite the kitsunes attempt to mitigate that. A bothersome detail, but it didn't stop the fox from seeing the positive in this.

Rai had no doubt that Naruto would be able to consistently use this jutsu in no time. Well, assuming he didn't get bored of it and decide to procrastinate from his training with breaks or pranks, or branch off into some other area of study altogether.

Naruto quickly exited the fox's prison and wasted no time in getting right back to practicing his new jutsu, though it would take several attempts before he was able to activate it again.

---

Within the shrubbery a short distance away, Cat was shaking her head and muttered, "Kid's putting way too much chakra into that jutsu… Yeesh, he must have an absurd amount of chakra to keep going at it like that."

Next to her, Fox's attention was drawn to the training ground entrance. "Eyes up, we have company."

Cat immediately activated her Dojutsu and looked in the region around the main entrance. "It's just a kid, chakra coils confirm it."

"Affirmative, let's keep tabs on him just in case."

---

Naruto tilted his head and looked off into the distance. "Rai, did you hear someone shouting just now?"

"I wasn't listening, why?"

"…Nevermind, I guess I'm just hearing things."

Rai still checked with his Sensor Map, just to be sure. He felt the familiar presence of that Cat masked shinobi woman, as well as the troublesome fool that usually accompanied her. The kitsune elected to not bring this to Naruto's attention, as they'd long since proven to not be a threat… and it might hamper the boy's efforts if he knew he had an audience.

However, there was also a new presence, very faint, but not one of fear or anger. It was just outside the training area and slowly approaching the entrance.

Naruto struggled and eventually managed to replicate the jutsu after a few more attempts. This time sent him shooting off just like last time, though, lucky for him, he'd braced himself in case such an event happened. Now, instead of colliding headfirst into the tree, his forearms took the brunt of the impact.

The boy gritted his teeth from the pain as he sat there in the grass just below the impact point. He tenderly rubbed the scrapes and scuffs that now covered both of his forearm sleeves from where they met the tree bark at high velocity. Judging by the marks on his sleeves, he probably bruised his arms or something; nothing serious, but still painful.

Same as last time, there were footprints and clumps of dirt and grass scattered around them from where he made the jump. Instead of a splotch of red, there were busted patches of bark on the tree in a shape vaguely indicating where his arms had hit.

"Yeesh, jutsu training hurts." The boy muttered to himself.

"If it makes you feel any better, you successfully pulled off activating that mobility jutsu twice now." The kitsune stated in a half-joking manner.

Naruto grinned at that, missing the sarcasm and taking it literally. "Heh, yeah, that does make me feel better! Thanks!"

The kitsune rolled his eyes, but remained silent after that. Sure enough, the boy rose to his feet and readied himself to try again, just as the fox had come to expect of him.

Rai noted that this turn of events didn't necessarily make himself feel any better. He hadn't counted on the kid actually succeeding in pulling off the jutsu when he'd originally suggested for Naruto to jump at the tree instead of from the tree. All he was trying to do was to keep the kid from suffering unnecessary injury. Now here it was, Naruto was successfully activating the jutsu…and hurting himself and putting himself at unnecessary risk of injury in the process of utilizing Rai's idea.

The irony in this was not lost on him, it was quite irritating.

Naruto, on the other hand, was blissfully unaware of such irony, and he was far more concerned with his jutsu training to care even if he knew in the first place. His arms still hurt, but that wasn't going to stop him. He aimed a little better this time, focused, and leapt; this time he managed to activate the jutsu on his first attempt.

Naruto effortlessly flew through the air and…straight past the tree limb he was aiming for. Tree branches whipped past him as he soared higher than he intended.

'Oh crap!' rang through his mind, and he immediately flailed his arms around in an attempt to grab any nearby branches. Surprisingly enough, his flailing managed to snag his sleeve on a broken branch, tearing into the fabric and catching him midair. He grunted as he impacted lightly off of the neighboring tree branches, but aside from that, he came out of it unharmed.

The stinging pain that made itself known in his arm and the trickle of warmth that followed quickly corrected that first assessment. Naruto lightly swore under his breath, eyeing over the tear in his coat and trying to assess the damage. The coat had cost him a large chunk of Ryo, and now he was gonna have to either fix it himself or replace it.

Investigating further, Naruto found that he had a moderate gash in his arm where the broken branch must have scraped across. It didn't look serious, but it definitely hurt; he'd have to take care of it once he was out of this situation.

"Darn it, and I liked this coat too!"

"It could be worse."

The boy tried to swing himself free; failing that, he gripped at the branch and tried to use leverage to shimmy himself off of the broken branch, to no avail. "Worse? How could this be any worse?"

Rai casually remarked, "You could have hit your head and blacked out; or you could have impaled your arm. Or, you could have missed the tree entirely and ended up hitting the ground at high velocity…probably breaking all of your bones and/or paralyzing yourself in the process. Just to name a few things."

Naruto wasn't amused. "Oh ha-ha, very funny…"He said with obvious sarcasm, then looked around for a means of hoisting himself up and off of the broken branch.

Rai slowly shook his head and lightly huffed, having not necessarily intended for his previous comment to have been seen as a joke.

Unfortunately for Naruto, the branch he'd snagged himself on happened to be of moderate length, meaning he couldn't just slide his sleeve off the branch by himself. He couldn't break the branch off either, due to its width. If he just had something he could use to cut this loose, or-

Naruto mentally facepalmed, 'Duh! Ninja tools!'

He reached for where his tool pouch was and felt around inside. From there he did a literal facepalm, "Ah dang it! I forgot those were taken away!" Now he found himself regretting not going out and trying to find replacement ninja tools.

Well, he did go out and try to find replacement ninja tools…once or twice, but he wasn't able to find any usable tools in those attempts. He should have searched again, or maybe taken the messed up ones that Rai said weren't usable…but he didn't, and that was coming back to bite him in the butt, big time. 'Okay, next time, no procrestin…procraton… procrash….ugh. No fooling around, I gotta find new ninja tools! Err, after I get outa this tree first. Stupid tree…'

"Whose dumb idea was it to exercise using trees anyway?" Naruto complained aloud.

Rai didn't pass up the opportunity, "Yours."

"Not funny! Besides, the scrolls said to do it!" Naruto shot back. He continued to struggle against the tree branch for the next several minutes, but nothing he tried got him any closer to freedom.

He supposed he could tear himself free from the snag, but in order to avoid falling to the ground, he'd have to sacrifice his sleeve almost entirely. Given how it was placed, and where the branch snagged him and tore into his sleeve, it'd rip a line clean down the arm of his coat. He could probably patch a hole, but not a whole torn sleeve.

Naruto hated the thought of having to destroy his only winter coat…and the huge hit to his funds that'd leave trying to replace it. He'd probably have to go without eating for several meals in order to save up enough, that was gonna suck.

After a good ten minutes passed with Naruto failing to free himself from his predicament, he heard a voice from nearby, off to his right.

"Nii-san, are you in here? The gate was unlocked." Judging by their voice, the individual Naruto could hear sounded like a boy somewhere near his own age.

He glanced over to see who it belonged to, but the tree branches obscured his view. Still, if he could hear them, maybe they could hear him. "Hey, over here!" he said in a decently loud voice.

There wasn't any reply, but it wasn't long before the person came into view below him. As far as Naruto could tell from looking at them, it was confirmed that they were a boy roughly his own age. He wore the usual winter garb as everyone else, but Naruto noticed he also had a toolpouch on his belt, similar to his own (albeit much higher quality.)

"Oh, you're not- err, what are you doing up there? Are you okay?" The kid asked.

Naruto motioned to the branch that currently stuck out from his coat sleeve, "No, I'm kinda…stuck up here."

"Yeah, I can see that. Hang tight, I'm coming up!" Came the kid's response.

Naruto watched as the kid reached into his tool pouch and pulled a pair of what looked like an array of small metal hooks attached to hand straps. He slipped the straps over his hands and fastened them so that the array of hooks were at a downward angle, then jumped at the side of the tree. Surprisingly, the boy stuck to the sides of the tree quite easily, utilizing the claws to begin climbing.

He made it look easy, grabbing into the tree with those claws and pulling himself up one grasp at a time until he reached the height Naruto was stuck at. The kid perched on the nearest branch and removed one of the hand claws, keeping the other and holding tight to the tree with it.

Now that he was near enough to do so, the kid eyed over the scene and took in the details. Naruto, on the other hand, was momentarily forgetting the fact that he was in a tree and ogling the claw thingy still attached to the kid's one hand.

"What the heck are those?" Naruto asked, momentarily forgetting the fact that he was trapped high in a tree.

The kid was taken aback by the odd question, "Uhh… wh- Oh, these? They're Shuko."

Naruto would have gone off on tangent about what a Shuko was, but Rai reprimanded him. "Brat, you're stuck in a tree, remember? You can worry about that kid's tools once you're back on solid ground."

Before Naruto could say anything, the kid jumped to a closer perch next to him. He then reached into his tool pouch and pulled out a small round paddle looking thing with jagged edges all along the sides.

"What's that thing?" Naruto asked, once again ignoring the fact that he was still hanging precariously from high up in a tree by his coat sleeve.

The kid did a double take and looked at Naruto like he was stupid, "It's…a saw. Haven't you ever seen a saw before?"

Already knowing what a saw was, Naruto jumped to the next question on his mind, "How's a saw gonna help? Saws can't cut through cloth too well."

Rai lightly hit his head against the bars of his cage in exasperated fashion.

The boy blinked several times before gesturing to the branch, "I'm not gonna cut your coat, dummy, I'm gonna saw off the end of the branch you're stuck on."

Naruto quickly realized what the kid had in mind, "Ohh, you're gonna saw that end off so it'll be short enough for me to slide my sleeve out! I gotcha, that makes a lot more sense."

The kid shook his head at the blonde's antics and then got to work sawing at the end of the broken branch. Naruto couldn't do much else but watch him work and hold tight.

"So…what were you doing up here anyway?" The kid eventually asked, making a steady, but slow progress with his saw.

Naruto was caught off guard with the sudden question. "Huh?"

The boy momentarily stopped sawing, "How'd you get stuck up here like this? What were you doing?" He then resumed his work promptly after.

"Oh, I was practicing a jutsu!" Naruto eagerly replied.

"A jutsu? Cool, so you're training to become a shinobi too, huh?"

Naruto nodded in affirmation, "Yup! I'm gonna be the best shinobi Konoha has ever seen!"

The kid hummed with a grin in response, then asked, "What kinda jutsu were you trying to do that got you stuck all the way up here in a tree?"

"Mobility jutsu."

The saw had cut just about all the way through the branch by now, so the kid put his saw away and braced himself. "Hold on." He then thrust his leg out and kicked the end of the branch, breaking it off the rest of the way.

"Here, take my hand, I'll help pull you." The boy offered with his free hand extended. Naruto didn't hesitate to take his hand, and the two of them worked to get Naruto's sleeve free from the shortened branch.

After a few minutes of careful shimmying, they successfully got Naruto's sleeve free, and Naruto clutched the nearby tree limbs to pull himself the rest of the way to safety. "Thanks! I thought I was gonna have to rip up my coat to get out of there."

"Well, it looks like you're still gonna have to fix it…but…" the kid began.

Naruto waved it off with a smile, "Better than being completely ruined!"

The two sat there in the tree for a moment, before the kid finally asked, "So, what's your name anyway?"

"The name's Naruto Uzumaki!" came the blonde's cheerful declaration.

The kid offered a light smile in return, then extended his hand in a friendly gesture. "Sasuke Uchiha."

Naruto reached out in kind, and the two shook hands.

A few minutes later, the duo finished climbing their way down the side of the tree and back to solid ground. Naruto immediately looked to his arm to check on the cut he'd sustained, but was surprised to see that there was no trace of him ever having gotten it in the first place.

"What's the matter?" Sasuke asked after seeing Naruto's reaction.

Naruto let his arm back down to his side and casually said, "I thought I got cut earlier…but there's nothing there now."

Sasuke tilted his head ever so slightly, but then offered what he thought was a plausible explanation. "Maybe it was just a surface cut? You know, where you get cut and it looks like it bleeds a lot, but it's actually really small and heals quick?"

Naruto shrugged and went along with it, but he and Rai their own explanation for it (though neither's own explanation necessarily matched the others). "I guess that makes sense…"

He was quite grateful that this Sasuke guy came along when he did, and pretty lucky too. But that raised a point: Naruto had told Sasuke what he'd been doing here, but Naruto had no idea what Sasuke was doing here. He vaguely recalled hearing Sasuke calling someone's name, but that was about it. "Oh, hey, Sasuke?"

"Yeah?"

"Who's this Nisan person you're looking for?"

Sasuke blinked and had a baffled expression for a moment, "Uhh…my brother; he told me he'd meet me here." He then gestured in the direction of the training field gates. "The entrance was unlocked and left open, so I thought he was here already…"

Naruto failed to notice the expression forming on Sasuke's face, and decided to continue with his questions. "So your brother's name is Nisan? What kind of a name is that?"

The baffled look returned, "What? That…that isn't my brother's name, what the heck are you talking about?"

"Well, you were saying that earlier when you came in here looking for him. You were saying, 'Nisan, are you in here', ya know?" Naruto reiterated, only to bring Sasuke to change his baffled look to one of a mix between amusement and confusion.

Rai avoided judging Naruto too harshly, as he knew full well that the boy hadn't yet learned much in terms of "traditional". It wasn't the kid's fault he didn't know that the word wasn't a name, but an honorific. The kitsune was about to explain such to Naruto, but the Uchiha kid beat him to it.

"That's not…do you know Traditional?" Sasuke asked with a quizzical look.

Naruto scratched his head, not knowing where he was going with this. "Not a lot, why?"

Sasuke nodded, understanding the confusion. "I wasn't saying Nisan, I was saying Nii-san. It's a traditional term for 'older brother', or something like that."

"Oh", was all Naruto said initially in response, until he started piecing things together. Then he let out a more lengthy and audible, "Oohhhh, I get it! You're from one of those Ninja clans aren't you?"

Sasuke grinned and nodded, "Yep! I'm from the Uchiha clan, one of-" Though his expression quickly went south and he leaned away as Naruto had suddenly begun intruding on his personal space and squinting at him. "Wh-what the heck are you doing?" He said, raising a hand to keep Naruto at arm's length.

Rai didn't hesitate to voice his displeasure, "Naruto, really?" The kitsune recalled the other times Naruto did this, and a thought crossed his mind, a thought he vocalized. "…Are you going to do this every time you meet someone from a shinobi clan?"

Naruto quickly realized what he was doing and moved away, giving a sheepish smile and rubbing the back of his head. "Sorry! I uh, I was just wondering if you had those cool eye thingies like some other clans do."

It took a moment for Sasuke to get over how uncomfortable Naruto had just made him in staring into his eyes like that. "Eye…things?"

"Yeah, I met this one guy from a ninja clan and he had slits for eyes. Then there was this other time when I met a girl from a ninja clan, she had pretty white eyes without the little black dot in the center!"

Sasuke shook his head, "I- err, I don't…think so? Just…don't do that again, ok? That's really creepy, and weird."

"Sorry, I forget personal space sometimes." Naruto said, giving a nervous smile.

"Kid, you have no concept of personal space." The kitsune was quick to comment.

Naruto ignored this and turned his attention back to the other question at hand, "So…what is your brother's name?"

"His name's Itachi; he's an awesome shinobi, one of the greatest! Itachi said he was gonna meet me here so he could train me some more. I don't have much time left to practice 'till the academy starts, and I wanna have a head start and be just as amazing as my brother was!" Sasuke finished with a fist pump.

Rai saw an opportunity to potentially help Naruto hone his skills, if only temporarily. If this Uchiha kid was also training to become a shinobi, it could go a long way in helping streamline this whole process of Naruto's ninja training if Naruto had a companion that could make tangible progress with him. As much as he didn't like the idea of relying on another kid to get to his end goal, the possibilities and potential positives made up for that.

Well, actually, much of that "potential" was made irrelevant in the face of the fact that Naruto was still treated like an outcast. If this Uchiha kid was from a major clan, it was highly likely that he'd reject Naruto just the same as everyone else.

However, given that the Uchiha kid hadn't immediately turned tail and left upon learning Naruto's identity (or engaging in the usual unpleasantry), maybe there was a chance he might stick around. If he stuck around long enough, some of the short term benefits would still be quite possible.

He didn't see any significant negatives to having this Uchiha brat around, assuming he stuck around, so Rai made up his mind and decided to pass along a suggestion to Naruto.

"Naruto, why don't you-" the fox began, but for a change of pace, Naruto seemed to be ahead of him on this one.

"Hey, Sasuke, you wanna practice ninjutsu with me?" Naruto blurted out.

Rai rolled his eyes and lightly huffed at how his intended suggestion was made redundant. 'Well, the kid's got the right idea at least. I can't fault him for that.'

Not only was Sasuke taken aback by the sudden suggestion, but he also seemed hesitant to the idea. He let his mouth hang lightly agape and looked back in the direction of the entrance of the training grounds, as if hoping his brother might suddenly show up at any moment.

Naruto doubled down, "C'mon, it'll be fun!"

Sasuke eventually sighed and conceded, "…alright. I guess it'd be cool to have someone close to my level to practice with. Sure, we'll practice together, at least 'till my brother gets here."

Naruto clapped his hands together with a smile on his face, "Awesome!"

"What are you working on anyway?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto pointed his thumb towards the tree and said, "I'm trying the tree jumping exercise! So far, I've managed to get the jutsu to work three whole times! But…I kinda also keep hurting myself."

Sasuke nodded, "The mobility jutsu, I'm working on that one myself. It supposedly gets easier the more you manage to activate a jutsu…at least, that's what Itachi told me. I've been more focused on the first half of the mobility jutsu, practicing with regular movement on the ground level, so I haven't tried the tree exercise yet."

The blonde didn't hesitate and jumped at the opportunity to show off. "Well in that case, lemme show you what I can do!"

"Heh, sure, let's see it."

Naruto took the stance in front of the tree, bringing his hands together in the proper hand sign. He focused his chakra and aimed, making sure he had a decent trajectory this time, then took a deep breath.

It took a few tries, but once again the boy was able to get the jutsu to activate. He leaped at the outer tree branch at moderate velocity, holding his hands out in case he missed this time. Unfortunately, missing the tree branch was not something he should have been worrying about.

No, he was completely on target, just not in the manner he wanted.

Naruto once again found himself having the wind knocked out of him as the tree branch hit him square in the belly, making him double over and around the tree limb. He didn't have the time even to emit a proper noise to describe how much that hurt, as him starting to slide off the branch triggered a panicked response. He wrapped himself around the branch and steadied his perch the best he could… then proceeded to make noises alluding to the pain he felt.

"Wow…you okay up there Naruto?"

Naruto reached to the side and gave a thumbs-up in response.

Sasuke folded his arms as he replied in a joking manner, "Well, at least you didn't break the tree branch!"

Rai chuckled aloud and said, "I like this kid's sense of humor."

"Of course you do..." Naruto weakly commented back to the fox.

---

A few minutes later, Naruto was back on solid ground again and trying his best to walk Sasuke through how he got the jutsu to work…leaving out the parts concerning Rai's involvement, per the kitsune's reminder.

Sasuke took in the…helpful descriptions of the steps the blonde took in activating the jutsu, trying to gain whatever information he could from what was available. The fact that Naruto was able to figure all this out on his own without any help was impressive to him and kept him from judging Naruto's questionable methods and poor descriptions too harshly.

When Sasuke thought about it, that roused his curiosity with a few questions. He addressed the easiest one first, "You know, kids aren't allowed in here unsupervised. How'd you get in here anyway? Was the gate unlocked when you got here too?"

Naruto smirked and took out his lockpicks to show them off. "I'm good at getting into places people don't want me to be. Sometimes I get in trouble, but most of the time I get away with it."

"Vice versa," the kitsune corrected.

Sasuke eyed over the lockpicks with disbelief. "But, aren't your parents gonna be mad that you're out here practicing jutsu by yourself in a shinobi training field? I mean, not to mention the fact that you're breaking into places…"

Naruto blinked at the statement, and unceremoniously answered as if ignorant to the weight of what he replied with. "I don't have any parents."

"You don't- …oh…" Sasuke quickly looked away and rubbed his upper arm as the awkward self-consciousness set in. "You don't…have a brother or anything? Friends?" He ventured to ask, but Naruto shaking his head in response made it even more awkward for him.

After that, there was a brief minute or two of silence between the two of them. Not wanting to waste any more time, Naruto forced a smile on his face and waved it off as if the whole situation were nothing. "Hey, don't worry about it. Besides, I have a giant fox inside my head that keeps me company!", the blonde said in a fairly cheerful manner.

Sasuke made a face and snorted, "A giant fox in your head? Really?" He tried not to laugh at that, but he ended up laughing anyway once Naruto egged him on with his own laughter. Sasuke and Naruto both had a decent, albeit short-lived laugh, and the bulk of the awkwardness passed.

Rai noted that while Naruto may have given an outwardly cheerful response, the distinct depth of the presence he left in Rai's Sensor Map very clearly painted a different picture. There were more important things to worry about though, so he left it alone for now.

The kitsune would have reprimanded Naruto for so foolishly mentioning his existence, but he ultimately decided against it seeing how things turned out in the end. He supposed it was a clever icebreaker, but he made note to remind Naruto to take care in what he said in the future, just to be safe.

The last thing they needed was someone taking it literally, or worse.

"Well, how 'bout we stop fooling around and get started practicing then?" Naruto stated with a mild tone of impatience in his voice, but also with a lighthearted smile on his face. Before Sasuke could respond, Naruto was already getting into position and readying himself to perform a jump.

Rai couldn't help but laugh out loud at that; it simultaneously irked and amused the kitsune.

Naruto wasn't sure why the fox was laughing. Did he miss a joke? If the big fox was laughing at it, he probably wouldn't have found it funny himself; the fox's sense humor was weird sometimes. Still, he was curious enough about it to pop in on Rai's prison and ask, "What's so funny?"

"You, but more specifically the double standards. I have to constantly remind you to get you to spend any consistent amount of time practicing, and you keep wasting time doing trivial things… Here it is, this random kid comes around that you can practice jutsu with, you suddenly jump to your feet and act like there's no time to lose and you get serious about it."

The blonde folded his arms and looked a mix between indignant and confused, "….Well, yeah, but what's funny about that?"

Rai shrugged, "Its less funny, and more 'amusing', really."

"That still doesn't make any sense!"

The big fox rolled his eyes, "It usually doesn't with you."

"Hey! I'm not stupid wry-fox, dattebayo! It's not my fault you keep making things all complicated and stuff when they don't have to be!" Naruto shot back, clearly offended by the implications left by Rai's previous statement.

Rai gave an amused huff before reiterating, "I didn't say you were stupid, brat; all I said was that things don't often make sense to you."

Naruto folded his arms and spoke with a slightly resentful tone, "Yeah? Well it sounds like you're calling me stupid."

"Well, I'm not, so you can stop with the indignant attitude!" Rai said with a hint of indignation himself.

Instead of complying, or voicing a retort, Naruto stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry at the fox.

In a moment of lapsed judgement, the kitsune furrowed his brow and stuck his own tongue out and blew a raspberry right back at the blonde.

Naruto recoiled, wide eyed and quite surprised at the big fox's response.

Suddenly becoming self-conscious of what he was doing, Rai quickly sucked his tongue back into his mouth and tried to pretend like that hadn't just happened. Despite his efforts, the blonde burst into laughter.

The thought of just how ridiculous that interaction was eventually got to Rai as well, and he couldn't help but join Naruto in a light bout of laughter himself. He softly shook his head and composed himself shortly after.

Naruto smiled up at the fox and said, "See? You don't have to be allergic to fun all the time!"

Rai casually waved his hand in a "shoo" gesture and said, "Yeah, yeah… go on and get to your training, kiddo."

Once back in reality, Naruto glanced around to re-establish where he'd left off, then continued with the tree exercise.

Sasuke soon joined Naruto, observing how he performed the jutsu for a good few minutes before attempting it himself. He equipped his Shuko and readied himself for his own jump.

Naruto had gone several jumps now, none of which ending in success, but also not the spectacular failures he'd had earlier either. He was close to nailing it down, and in his next jump, he actually managed to land both feet on the branch….before losing his balance almost immediately and having to fall back to the ground.

When Naruto turned to see what Sasuke was up to, the boy was missing. He heard a simultaneous "oof" and a thump, followed by the rattle of tree branches. Glacing up to the Tree, Naruto saw Sasuke doubled over around a branch just as he himself had been earlier.

Naruto was about to call up to him and see if he was hurt, but Sasuke quickly pulled himself up and onto the branch before he could do so. He then wordlessly dropped to the ground, holding his stomach.

As Sasuke lined himself up for another go, Naruto took his own turn and went too high over the branch. He followed shortly behind Naruto, managing to kick off the branch before passing over it himself and almost landing on top of the blonde.

A few tries later, and Sasuke found himself just barely managing to land feet first onto the branch. Unexpected as it was, he went about flailing his arms to try and maintain balance. Doing this, he managed to dig one of his Shuko into a neighboring branch to steady himself, and he looked back at Naruto with a grin after all was said and done.

Naruto laughed and shot his fist into the air, "Yatta! Sasuke, you did it!"

"Your turn, Naruto!" Sasuke replied back, with an expectant look on his face.

He considered the point behind jumping up to the tree; why didn't Naruto simply practice by jumping between slight elevations, or using marked spots on the ground to jump between? That seemed like it would have been a lot easier… but he had to admit, this was pretty fun.

Well, when it didn't involve injury.

Naruto shot up to the tree and just barely managed to land feet first onto the tree limb. Unfortunately, he landed with bad footing, and almost immediately lost what little balance he had. His arms flailed about frantically as he fell off the tree branch as quickly as he'd jumped up to it.

Sasuke winced as Naruto hit the ground.

The blonde looked up at him with a look that seemed like a cross between anger and disappointment, that much becoming clearer after he spoke. "Sasuke! What the heck? Why didn't you try to catch me?!"

Sasuke held out his hands, palm facing forward towards Naruto. He gave them a wiggle to emphasize as he said, "Shuko."

Naruto looked and remembered the arrays of tiny spikes, he then looked down to his own hand. "Oh, right, uh, thanks for not catching me then."

"You're welcome! Come on, get up and try again; I bet you can do it this time!"

Grinning at the words of encouragement, Naruto jumped to his feet despite the weariness from the fall and tried again. However, before he made his next attempt, he voiced a thought that he'd nearly forgotten about. "Hey, wait a minute…how come you're allowed to have ninja tools but I'm not? I thought kids weren't allowed to have shinobi gear!"

Sasuke looked at Naruto as if he'd spoken in a foreign language, "…wait…that's a rule? That sounds kinda dumb."

"Yeah it's a rule! I got my own ninja tools taken away after I worked hard to get them!"

Sasuke had to think about that, "Well…these aren't really my ninja tools, they're my brother's old tools…so…it doesn't count, maybe?"

That didn't really offer any help or closure to the question, but it made enough sense to the blond for him to let it go.

As Naruto struggled to leap at that first tree branch, Sasuke decided to venture forward and test out the next step of the exercise based on what he remembered. He carefully lined himself up, keeping his balance, and hopped along the branch to make sure he could keep his footing when landing.

After several hops, and now feeling confident enough to do so, he aimed towards another branch on the same tree and leapt to it.

He successfully made the jump, but had to quickly crouch and grab hold with his shuko to steady himself.

"Hey, no fair! I haven't gotten to the first branch yet!" Came Naruto's indignant outcry.

Sasuke stood up and shot back, "Well then hurry up and do it already, slowpoke!"

It took several more tries, but Naruto was able to successfully land on the first tree limb, though he ended up flailing about and gripping at the core of the tree to prevent himself from falling. Still, he made it, and that was more than enough for him to celebrate the little victory.

"I think you have to work on your balance." Sasuke commented once Naruto had finished his cheering.

Naruto cautiously took a few steps along the branch before asking, "How am I supposed to do that?"

Sasuke chuckled and pointed to Naruto as the blonde continued taking steps across the branch, "You're already doing it, see? Just keep walking across the branches, get used to the new footing. You can try jumping on the one branch too, like I was doing."

The idea sounded good enough to Naruto, so he decided to go along with it. He took a few more steps, then decided he'd worked up enough courage to jump in place. The shaking of the tree branch when he came back down made him panic and grab hold of the core of the tree in desperation.

Nevertheless, he soon tried again, and then again. He kept practicing with keeping balance and holding his footing there on that branch until he was confident enough in his footing to try and leap over to the tree branch Sasuke was perched at.

Unfortunately, Naruto hadn't aimed the jump properly, and he was coming up short for the distance. He reached out to try and grab hold of the tree branch, but he could quite reach far enough.

Naruto fell straight to the ground and landed with a thud.

The blonde slowly rolled over and held his chest with a pained expression, an expression that turned to an accusatory glare up at the boy in the tree.

The glare was met with a shrug and a lighthearted smirk from the Uchiha kid, "If you really want me to turn your hands into hamburger, I can just shake your hand with these on if you want." He emphasized with a wave of his hand, displaying the array of spikes once again.

Naruto mentally facepalmed, 'right, shaku…duh.' He could hear the fox chuckling in the back of his mind, and so he grumbled a response under his breath.

After he got up and dusted himself off, Naruto immediately aimed and leapt for the tree branch. It took two tries before he got the jutsu to activate again, but he managed and grabbed hold of the branch, pulling himself up. He stood next to Sasuke and lightly grumbled, "Sorry, I forget you have those spike gloves on."

"Shinpai nai." Sasuke said with a casual dismissive wave of his hand.

Naruto tilted his head and squinted his eyes, "…Shin-what-now?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and explained it, "It's a phrase, it means don't worry about it."

"Technically it translates into 'no worries', but he's close enough.", the kitsune idly corrected.

"Oh, well okay then." Naruto then grinned as an idea popped into his head. He playfully tapped Sasuke in the shoulder with the back of his hand and said, "Let's see who can make it to the river first!"

Before Sasuke had time to react, the blonde had already jumped ahead and managed to stick the landing by the skin of his teeth. "Hey! No fair!" Sasuke called out, before aiming and hastily making a jump after Naruto. Due to his haste, he missed his target and fell to ground level leading into a tumble.

Naruto glanced back and laughed.

"This is a really bad idea.", Rai lazily commented, knowing full well that his words fell on deaf ears.

Naruto went to give his stubborn reply, but the lapse in attention caused him to make a mistake in his trajectory and he ended up slamming into the next branch he was aiming for.

"I told-" Rai began.

"I know!" Naruto interrupted with a pained grunt. Given that his field of view was currently aimed downward, he happened to notice Sasuke racing past across the ground. "HEY! Cheater!" he yelled out as he struggled to get back to his feet on the tree limb.

Sasuke glanced back to Naruto and shouted as he ran, "Takes one to know one! Besides, you never said how we had to get to the river!"

Naruto hopped down to the ground, and took off running after Sasuke, though the boy already had a sizeable lead on him. He ran as fast as he could, and he even started gaining enough ground to eventually close the gap between them.

Suddenly, right as Naruto thought he was about to pass him, Sasuke had a burst of speed and very quickly distanced himself from the baffled blonde.

"What the heck?!" he said aloud to himself and struggled to try and catch up.

"I assume that speed boost he used is from the part of the mobility jutsu you decided to skip over. The part concerning athletics."

Naruto hopped in on the fox's prison and had a confused expression as he said, "Wait, really? Where'd it say anything about running?"

Rai gave the boy a deadpan look, "Literally the entire first section you skipped over; the material concerning athletics, as I just said seconds ago."

The blonde groaned aloud, but when he exited the kitsune's prison, he immediately mistepped due to the momentum he'd forgotten about and wound up faceplanting. Naruto quickly picked himself up and kept running, but he utterly failed to catch up, or even gain any ground.

By the time Naruto caught up, Sasuke was already at the finish line. He was leaning against a tree by the edge of the river and waiting. The kid had a mildly judgmental expression as he said, "So, did you skip the first part of the mobility jutsu or something? Didn't think I'd leave you in the dust like that."

Naruto thought about denying the claim, but hesitantly decided to admit to it. "I thought the first part looked boring… The other part, what with the jumping around long distances and super high and stuff; that looked way cooler!"

The Uchiha kid stared at Naruto with a judgmental look for a moment, then shrugged it off whilst offering a comment. "Well...jumping around and leaping long distances is pretty cool I guess." He then snapped his fingers before continuing, "Hey! Maybe that's why you had such a tough time with the tree jumping exercise and I didn't!"

The blonde looked at Sasuke with a confused expression, "What's running got to do with jumping out of trees?"

Funnily enough, Rai was thinking the same thing, and had voiced such at the same time Naruto did.

"H-Hey, I didn't say I knew for sure! I'm just guessing; maybe cause you're running around and it gets you used to channeling chakra through your legs and stuff." Sasuke said in a mildly exasperated fashion.

Naruto seemed to think that the explanation made sense. Rai was less than convinced; though he had to admit that the Uchiha kid's explanation was plausible at the very least.

---

A short distance away, Cat and Fox's observation was interrupted as an ANBU unexpectedly arrived next to them in a seemingly rushed fashion. Cat was immediately put on guard upon the ANBU's arrival, though Fox was quick to try and mitigate any escalation on her part.

"We're on strict assignment from the Sandaime, state your business." Fox calmly demanded.

The ANBU nodded and quickly retrieved a small, specially sealed parcel from his front pouch before handing said parcel over to Cat. The particular seal used signified that this was from the Hokage himself.

Fox eyed the ANBU cautiously as Cat wasted no time in reading over what was written within.

Cat leaned to Fox and gestured to the paper, on which were recall orders; It was genuine by the looks of it. The two of them were apparently being summoned by the Hokage on matters concerning their mission, though the exact reason wasn't stated.

Ordinarily, this may have set a shinobi on edge, being randomly recalled in the middle of assignment for unspecified reasons…but for Fox and Cat, given the sensitive nature of their assignment and everything regarding their overall objective, it wasn't necessarily that out of place. It wasn't the first time either, as a matter of fact.

"OK, this one's taking over for us until we return. Let's go." Fox stated, and he and his partner quickly exited the training ground.

However, they briefly stopped just outside the gates and shrouded from view. Cat and Fox eyed one another before Fox whispered, "Smelled like a friendly, but I didn't recognize them… Anything unusual to you?"

Cat shook her head, "Nothing, no screwy business with the writing, no unusual chakra signature from the guy…but same as you, I couldn't recognize them. Think he might be a newbie?"

"…That seems plausible, actually. He has to at least be from the village, otherwise one of us would have sensed something out of order." Fox eventually said after a brief bit of thinking. "Hiruzen-sama needs us, let's keep moving."

"Right behind you." And the two ANBU took off towards the Hokage tower.

---

Rai felt around and noticed that the distinct presence he'd become used to appeared to be fading into the distance. 'That's…odd. The bothersome shinobi woman and her friend seem to be leaving. Wonder where they're off to?' He thought to himself.

Peering a bit further, he picked up on a new presence that was now nearby. This one was just out of sight of the brat and his new friend, near where the observing duo were previously. The newcomer seemed to have a miniscule level of fear, but aside from that, nothing really seemed off about him.

Then again, he didn't really have any significant frame of reference for shinobi outside the usual two observers and that asinine Hokage person. The ones called Shikaku and Inoichi might have been a decent reference, had he seen any semblance of them outside their usual interactions with the kid…

Nevertheless, If Naruto's observers saw fit to let that newcomer be here in their stead, then it was reasonable to assume he wasn't a threat… Rai elected to pay no mind to the individual, at least for now.

He turned his attention back to the boys; Naruto seemed to be chatting with the Uchiha kid, going over their jutsu and trying to pool their knowledge together in order to make additional progress. Although, from the sound of it, it almost seemed like they were trying to balance out their skill difference, or even things out or…

'Are they…? They are! Those infantile brats are actually arguing over which aspect of the mobility jutsu is more appealing!?' The kitsune let out an irritable groan, followed by a deep sigh. He reminded himself, yet again, that he was still dealing with children…

Rai saw that there really wasn't anything he could possibly add to the situation, nor did he want to involve himself in the first place. He elected to lay in a relaxed heap, curled up amongst his tails. Now seemed like as good a time as any to sleep, or just let his mind wander as was usually the case.

'I'll check up on the brat later, he'll be fine in the meantime with that Uchiha brat keeping him occupied.'

Back in reality, the two boys had come to agree to disagree on the topic of which was cooler: the acrobatic or Athletic aspects of the mobility jutsu.

"Well, I guess being able to outrun people is handy… but I still think being able to reach almost any height by jumping is way cooler." Naruto adamantly asserted with his arms folded.

Sasuke scoffed, "And I still think being faster is better since you can get anywhere you want quicker…but, the jumping aspect is pretty cool too I guess."

Naruto grinned and stubbornly chalked that up as a victory.

The blonde turned and looked to a crooked tree that sat at the edge of the river, some of its roots visible due to the effects of erosion on the river bank around it. However, there was something that caught his eye, near the end of the branch. A Shuriken sat embedded into the side of the branch just out over the water a few feet.

'Yatta! Just what I needed, a good start to getting back my ninja tools!' he thought to himself with a grin.

The boy focused the best he could and tried to leap up to the one branch that gradually leaned out over the river. His first attempt failed, as expected, and he landed flat on his butt with an "Oof!"

"Naruto? I don't think that's such a good idea to mess around by the river, that water's gotta be super cold." Sasuke warned upon noticing what the blonde was trying to do, though not yet seeing why he was doing it.

Naruto turned to Sasuke and, with a dismissive look, readied himself for another attempt. "It's just water, Sasuke! If it were dangerous, they'd have this place fenced off."

"Umm, they do have this place fenced off…" Sasuke replied matter-of-factly.

"You know what I mean!" The blonde retorted in exasperation. "Come on, There's a shuriken at the end of this branch with my name on it!" He then leapt again, managing to half-ass the jutsu and jump just enough to reach out and grab hold of the branch.

Sasuke folded his arms as he watched the idiot blond go about his endeavor, "Is that dumb shuriken really worth risking falling into frigid river water?"

Naruto was about to turn and reply but was interrupted by a sudden pinch in his left leg that caused him to lightly suck in a bit of air out of reflex. Looking down, he ran his hand over the spot and pulled what appeared to be a splinter from his pantleg.

To his side, he saw a spot of exposed wood fragments, probably from shinobi training as far as he could guess. Must have been where the splinter came from. "Dumb old tree…I hate splinters." The blonde idly chucked the offending object into the river and set about moving himself closer to that Shuriken.

Naruto carefully tip-toed his way down the branch, inching ever closer to his prize.

There was a subtle ache that made itself known to the blonde, somewhere in his left leg. 'Damn splinter must have gone deeper than I thought….stupid wood.' He thought to himself as he kept himself focused on balancing.

However, the ache became more pronounced the further along the branch he got. Actually, now that he thought about it, he was starting to ache in other areas too. Did he push himself too hard again? Rai warned him about overexerting himself.

The blonde waved it off, as he was nearly to the shuriken, close enough to reach it if he'd been laying down.

Naruto inched one step closer and carefully went to get to his knees, only to find that he was a bit stiff…it was difficult to bend his legs for some reason. With a bit of extra effort, he managed to get down on one knee and brace himself with his one hand, while using his free hand to reach out.

He was so close, he could practically touch the thing. The boy gingerly edged himself closer, just close enough to get his thumb and index finger into a grip over one of the shuriken's prongs. 'that's it, now to just pull it….out….just, pull…!'

Naruto went to pull the star out of the bark, but found it to be more difficult than he thought. He tried to get closer, but…he couldn't seem to get enough of a wiggle in to inch any closer. '…what, what the heck is going on?' The boy struggled and fought, with a bit of extra effort, he finally got the Shuriken free, but noticed he was having a great deal of difficulty keeping his grip to the tree. He also noted that the ache from earlier had spread throughout his whole body.

'OK, this is freaking me out, is this shuriken cursed or something?' Naruto turned and, with great effort, managed to toss the shuriken to shore, near where Sasuke stood. Though it landed a lot closer to him than he'd intended

"HEY! Watch it!" came Sasuke's justified response upon having a bladed throwing weapon embed itself into the dirt near his feet.

Naruto apologized as he tried to stand up, "S-sorry! I'm…I can't…" He couldn't form the right words with how much he was struggling to keep focus on his balance.

The blonde was finding it excruciatingly difficult just to move. Every part of him ached, his left leg was stiff as a board and he couldn't so much as bend his knee. Naruto barely managed to get to standing, and he fought to tip-toe back to his starting point.

Panic set in, as every moment the problem continued to get progressively worse.

Despite his pained effort, he soon found himself nearly unable to move at all. It wasn't that his whole body was stiff, sure his left leg was stiff…but everything just….ached and felt weakand unresponsive; not one part of his body would do what he wanted it to.

It almost felt like a combination between a muscle cramp, and that feeling like he'd just woken up and was trying to get out of the bed while half asleep, only ten times worse.

"Uhh…Naruto, you alright up there?" Sasuke called up to the blonde.

Naruto motioned to respond, but no sooner did the first word leave his mouth did his left leg seize up.

The boy's breath caught in his throat, his heart pounded like a drum in his chest… and the next thing Naruto knew, the world was spinning, and he was falling...

to be continued...

---

Author's notes

Hey folks, I know its been a while. Terribly sorry but there's not much I could do about that.

This chapter sees the introduction of everyone's favorite edgelord, sir duckbutt himself! (ha! overused jokes, get it?)

overused memes/jokes aside, I had a spot of difficulty with writing Sasukes charatcer since we see so little of him prior to his traumatic shift in character during the academy. Or maybe I just haven't paid enough attention? Either way. I did as much research as I could, and came to the conclusion that this version seemed like a fitting characterization. Gives hints of his future self, hints of how his relationship with the beloved blonde idiot will be, etc etc. I tried to keep him in tune with how we know his character to be in the anime, minus the whole "brother murdered my clan" thing since that hasn't happened yet. ALso hinted at possible neglect from his family being a thing, since that was kind of a thing in the anime if I'm not mistaken. I don't think Naruto and Sasuke met prior to the academy in the anime, so, uncharted territory ftw!

We've officially bypassed any semblance of "divergent story" and skipped happily into the realm of AU at this point, so...weeee I guess?

OH, on an important note, I also used this as an opportunity to flesh out how I'm gonna handle jutsu explanations and stuff, along with the inclusion of actual ninja tools! Shaku were a thing, and I know what you're thinking "Well, cyncialkyuubi, since ninja can just use chakra to stick to walls and stuff, why would they ever need shaku?" Well, in case they needed to conserve chakra for long missions or for children who haven't learned that technique yet, duh! In all seriousness, I'll always have an explanation for why I add things.

SO, yeah, we're gonna be expanding the shinobi arsenal a tad, because I think that'd be interesting to see, don't you?

As for jutsu explanation, I'm...gonna be decidedly vague in a lot of areas since I don't think it offers much in the line of plot progression to go into significfant detail into the emchanisms behind jutsu. I'm going to have context be given for jutsu, and what does what and such, and I'll continue having it shown that Naruto is making tangible progress and I won't wave my magic narrator wand to give him things.