"Hello, child. I hear you have some talent for genjutsu. How would you like to become a ninja?"

"Eh, I can't even do the Kage Bunshin. Gotta figure that one out first."

"Very interesting. What language is that, child?"

"What? It's like you've never heard English before."

"We'll continue this later. In the meantime, consider my offer."

I woke up in my bed. "That was a weird dream." Usually I don't remember my dreams at all. I slipped out of bed and started putting on my training weights and favorite black coat over my clothes. "Weird dreams are a bad sign. Even if that voice asked a pretty good question. Do I really want to be a ninja?"

I walked downstairs to the kitchens to find something to eat. The orphanage was always quiet in the early hours before dawn. I nabbed some rice and miso from the prepared food that was intended to be breakfast for everyone in the dormitory. After eating, I washed my dishes and headed outside. I walked past a couple caretakers arriving. They gave me a wide berth and waited until I had passed until they continued their friendly conversation.

Now that it was winter, I had a lot of time off from the flower shop. I only worked there when Inoichi was preoccupied with ninja business. I did some stretches outside while I waited for Naruto. He arrived while I was in the middle of a kata. My taijutsu was a mish-mash of remembered techniques. Some of them I knew I had learned from anime, but others I suspected I knew from real life. Naruto picked up a lot of it during our spars and it seemed like we were slowly starting to work out the kinks.

"Hey, Haru! What are we going to do today?"

"That depends. You finally broke the rubber ball, right?" I asked as I finished the exercise with a kick.

"Yeah! I finally got it to work yesterday. I can't believe it took a whole month just do that." Naruto looked very proud of himself until he finished that last sentence by scratching his head sheepishly.

I took out an empty rubber balloon and inflated it with my breath. I tied it off and handed it to Naruto. "Now you have to do exactly the same thing you did inside the rubber ball inside this balloon. When you can do it without breaking the balloon, then I'll show you the next step. Just try to remember that the more you keep your chakra in a sphere, the better." I passed him a sack of flat balloons.

In my head, the next step was two Rasengan at once. After that, launching Rasengan as a projectile. Naruto was simply amazing. I was pretty sure no three year old was supposed to have that much chakra or chakra control. I could teach him just about anything that didn't necessitate small amounts of chakra or hand seals. He'd do anything for trip to Ramen Ichiraku, so he was easy to motivate.

I considered trying to get him to do an elemental manipulation like I showed him long ago. "That would make him extra deadly, wouldn't it?" I probably would after he mastered the basic Rasengan. I was a little jealous, to be honest. The Yondaime's son had the potential to be a prodigy as long as you knew how to teach him. He'd mastered the Replacement Technique and Transformation Technique. He'd be a monstrous shinobi if he ever got his hands on the Shadow Clone Technique.

"Naruto, why do you want to become a ninja?" His latest balloon popped as I broke his concentration.

"Isn't it obvious? Ninja can do so many cool things. I'm gonna be the greatest ninja that ever lived. You're gonna be a great ninja too, even though I gotta be better." He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"A great ninja," I repeated. I had yet to burst my own rubber ball. I couldn't do any of the academy jutsu. "Naruto, can I ask you to do something for me?"

"Huh? Sure, Haru."

I led Naruto to my customary training spot behind the orphanage. There, I sat on the ground and crossed my legs, meditating. As I waited for him to join me, I began to spread out my chakra. Nowadays there was a bit more meat to my chakra; it had more physical energies in the composition now. It was still a bit lopsided with spiritual energy though.

I could feel Naruto through my chakra as it blanketed the area. It was like if you sprinkled dust everywhere and you could feel all the chakras the dust touched. He sat in front of me without needing to be prompted.

"Naruto, I want to try to teach you a technique. But this technique, I don't even know if I know the right way to do it."

"Huh? What are you talking about? You're not making any sense, Haru."

I just sat there, sheltered in my coat. "The idea behind this technique is that you take all of your chakra and you split it in half. You keep half inside yourself and the other half you turn into a clone of yourself. Do you remember the Clone Technique? It's similar to that, only instead of just being an image, it's an actual physical chakra construct. Because it is made from your chakra, it will be able to think and use your techniques. And when the clone's chakra is disrupted, it will return any chakra that wasn't used up back to you."

"Woah, you can do that, Haru?"

"No, Naruto, I can't."

"How do you know so much about it then? I don't get it."

I chuckled under my hood. "I read a lot, remember?"

"Hmmmmm. So it's like the Clone Technique but better?"

"Yeah, you could say that. I think it would be a good jutsu for you."

"Awesome! Thanks, Haru. So, what are the hand seals?"

"I don't know, Naruto."

"Eh? How am I supposed to learn it then?"

"We're going to sit here and try to make our chakra do the thing I described. If you can do it by the end of the day, I'll treat you to Ichiraku's. How's that sound?"

"Ramen? Yes! I'll learn this technique in no time. You'll see!"

"I'll show you in a genjutsu what it should look like. Remember, you just want to flood your chakra out and make a copy of yourself with it. Just take your chakra and shape it. I'll watch and see if I can give you advice."

Despite trying all day, we couldn't figure it out by the time night fell. I still treated Naruto to ramen anyway.