Chapter 2 - Troublesome Training.

Pairing: Self Insert x Mikoto Uchiha

THIS WILL NOT BE A HAREM

A/N: Before we start, I just want to say thank you for all the support and feedback on the last chapter. Those reviews were awesome to read, and I tried to respond to everyone, but I apologize if I missed someone.

Also quick note, Mikoto is most likely going to be the clan heir. Mostly because it could add a lot of scenarios for Yami to go through, and it would make it a bit more interesting. So sorry to those that preferred it to be Fugaku.

Training Grounds

The day that had been long-awaited, had just happened a couple of days ago. He had finally turned five, which meant that Yami had to make quite a big choice for himself. Something which he never had to do in his past life, or rather, not at such a young age. Before he turned six years old, he had to figure out whether or not he wanted to be a Shinobi and serve the village like his father was doing.

And if he wanted to be able to live, comfortably and without a worry in the world, then the answer would have to be yes. He was going to be a Shinobi, and follow in his father's footsteps, and become part of the village's military power. He had already gotten the offer to start training just yesterday, hence why he was, at this very moment, laying on a public training ground a few miles away from their house with the cool morning air flying through his unruly dark hair. Just waiting for his lazy father to show up as planned.

Speaking of his father, his name was apparently Sukehiro. Really made him wonder how they came up with the name Yami, those names didn't sound or look the same whatsoever. Oh well, who cares.

At one point, he had looked forward to this. Mostly because this was some kind of quality time he had never expected to experience, and secondly because this was actual Shinobi training. And on the other side, it was probably going to be tough and tiresome, exhausting was most likely the correct word.

Around ten minutes later, Yami blinked as he heard someone approaching from his left. Without lifting his head, he turned it slightly to the side and glanced out of the corner of his eyes. His dark eyes landed on the approaching figure of his dad, who was yawning quite audibly as he did so.

Yami gave a light chuckle as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, his legs crossed in front of him as he responded to his dad's yawn with one of his own while asking, "Did you just wake up or something?"

While wiping the sleep out of his eyes, Sukehiro gave a light grunt with a smirk, "And you didn't?"

"Touche…"

Sukehiro merely gave a grin at his son's reaction, not that there was any surprise about it. They were like the champions of laziness, if there were prizes for being the laziest, they may have won. "So, are you ready to start training?"

"As ready as one can be I guess. Just such an exhausting drag, I could've spent that time napping… or watching clouds. Or napping and watching clouds at the time." Yami mumbled to himself, almost already daydreaming about all the possibilities he could choose from if he decided to scrap the idea of being a Shinobi.

But then again, he wanted to be strong enough to live comfortably. And with the knowledge of what was going to happen, or most likely going to happen, in the future, then he wanted to be strong enough if something should come his way. Which meant that training was a necessity, no way around it.

From the moment he realized where he had ended up after dying in his previous life, he had set the goal of being strong enough to be able to live his life comfortably, without having to worry about every and any fool that may have some kind of grand plan. He had thought of characters, or well, people like Pain. He still hadn't gotten completely used to the fact that this world was the real deal, and it existed.

As his father yawned one last time, he flopped down with his legs crossed as well, in front of him. "Alright, I suppose we can start with all the basic stuff that you'll eventually learn in the academy, but it's beyond boring when they explain it so if you can get ahead of it early, then feel free to nap in class with my permission. Just don't get failing grades because of it, too troublesome to go to parent-teacher talks…"

"Permission to nap in class, got it." He nodded, probing his elbow on his thigh and resting his cheek against my palm, trying to look interested enough. He honestly already knew the basics, that's what you got from writing several stories of your own, and when counting the published and the stories that had yet to be published, then he had probably researched almost any and every aspect of Shinobi in this world.

Mimicking the sitting position of his son, Sukehiro gave a brief hum, "Well, I guess the most basic of all is chakra. What do you know about it?"

Yami scratched his cheek and thought this had to be the easiest question to answer ever, "Well, chakra is a mix of spiritual and physical energy, we commonly use chakra with the help of hand seals to help us mold it, thus we achieve certain techniques. We can't live without chakra, exhaust it all and you're toast I guess. Ehh… what else… each chakra has its own signature to it, I suppose that helps with fuinjutsu and sensor types…"

Sukehiro sat and listened to his son's explanation of chakra, looking a bit more impressed than what he thought he'd be. His son had always been a bit odd, compared to other kids. He rarely ever cried, and questioned if he had ever heard him cry before. He also learned incredibly quickly, it was with record time he learned how to read and write. "Correct, I'm surprised you know so much about it. Oh well, have you felt your own chakra before?"

Shaking head, Yami shrugged his shoulders, "Not yet, but I suppose I just have to… find it within myself or whatever."

Sukehiro scratched his beard and hummed a bit at that, "I suppose you can look at it that way, but the thing with chakra is that everyone feels it differently. It mostly has something to do with your chakra affinity, but we can first be certain of which one you have once you can access your chakra, and use a piece of chakra paper to figure it out, but you can get a pretty good idea from just accessing your chakra for the first time."

Yami sighed for a second, before closing his eyes, "So… meditation?"

Nodding his head, his father sat back and relaxed, "Yeah you can go do it that way, just don't fall asleep."

"Sounds like you're talking from experience," Yami noted with a light smirk as he got comfortable on the grass, taking a deep breath, and closed his eyes. Resting his hands in his lap, Yami started to look into himself. Or at least attempting to do so.

Sukehiro flinched lightly at the comment but decided to not comment any further on it since it would most likely just ruin his son's concentration. Well, this could perhaps take a while… so maybe a small nap would do-

"Ah, I see. Wow, that's an odd feeling." Yami noted while slightly grimacing, it felt like he had a second source of energy within, but then again not really. More like there was more energy than he thought he had, so it was a mix between an odd and good feeling that he just had to get used to.

His father, however, just stared at him while occasionally blinking out of confusion. "That was… quick. You sure you haven't tried it before without telling me?"

Yami slowly opened his eyes and gave a slight nod. He kind of knew what to look for, from the countless fanfiction stories and wiki pages he had read, he had a few ideas of what could work. And one of them had proven to be correct, so it had only really been a matter of seconds before he discovered it. "Never done it before."

Sukehiro gave a small sigh before a grin morphed onto his face, a hand traveling to the back of his head to scratch his hair, "Troublesome, and here I thought I could've had a small nap."

With a sweatdrop, Yami gave a shrug of his shoulders before chuckling sheepishly, "Didn't mean to ruin nap time for you Tou-san."

Waving it off with snort, Sukehiro cupped his chin so his beard tickled the skin of his hands and mentioned, "No worries about that, just kind of surprised. The only other Nara I've heard of, that could get to his chakra that fast, was the clan head's kid Shikaku…"

The mention of that name made some wheels start turning inside of Yami's head, 'Shikaku, wait if he's a kid now, then…' Yami thought to himself, looking up to his dad before asking, "How old is this Shikaku?"

Shukehiro gave a hum and scratched his beard in thought, "Well, he should be roughly the same age as you. A year older or so, I think, he's about to enter the academy."

Nodding his head in understanding, Yami went back to thinking again, 'Shikaku is part of Minato's generation! That means I'm born in the same era as he was, so if my calculations are correct… Then I'm back some time before the second war. Roughly a year or two before it since I think it started sometime after Kushina got here, and she didn't start the academy the same day Minato did…'

This new piece of information gave Yami something to work with. He had just gotten his suspicion confirmed of being born the same time era as Minato had been, now the real question was whether or not Minato existed in this universe.

There were too many factors to take into consideration at this moment, so his best attempt at meeting him would be to wait a year and enrolling at the academy. The reason for this being that even if he was born at the same place in time as he had, there was no guarantee that Minato even existed. Yami wasn't supposed to exist, he had just been dropped here the moment he died. So this obviously had to be an alternative plane of existence compared to the canon show. Just, hopefully He would be in the same year, or class as Minato, or that plan would be a bust.

At least he knew that Shikaku existed, so the possibility of the whole legendary Ino-Shika-Cho trio existing was definitely likely. Inoichi and Choza would also be a great pair of people he wanted to meet. Mostly because they'd be useful allies and comrades, at least from what he could recall from the show. They seemed friendly and dependable, so making friends with the Ino-Shika-Cho formation seemed to be a good idea.

Not only because of the value they'd have in comradery, but also because they were going to be future clan heads. If he were on good or great terms with those three, he'd most likely have access to a lot more within Konoha. His goal would be easier to accomplish if he had those kinds of resources.

Even if they weren't clan heads yet, they could still be useful allies and friends. Not that everything had to do with getting power and status, but knowing what would be coming soon aside from the second war, then he'd like to be well prepared. Because even as heirs, they'd still have access to more private clan techniques. Shikaku, more than likely, got taught some stuff that other Naras didn't.

Perhaps he could learn a bit from Shikaku if he decided to get friendly with him, and maybe be able to try the infamous Shogi board game. Not that he had any faith in being able to win against Shikaku of all people, but it would be fun and profitable for his brain.

He was broken out of his line of thoughts by his father that was now standing up, so figuring that it was time for another lesson, Yami too got out of his seated position on the ground and stood up in front of his father.

Sukehiro gave a light smile at his son, and rested his palms on his hips, "Alright, since you already got your chakra, I guess it's time to start teaching you some basic exercises. Chakra is as you said, made up of spiritual energy and physical energy. So in order to properly grow with your chakra, we got to do physical exercise, as well as various tasks to challenge your brain. Not only will it help your chakra capacity grow, but your control should also get a bit of a boost from it. Both will be needed for learning our clan techniques. So even if it's a drag, just get through it."

A series of sweat drops fell from Yami's face, once again questioning if this had been too much of a drag to get into, but then again, backing out of it now would just be an even bigger drag. His mother would never let him live that down.

Hours passed, but it felt more like years to Yami. Because after each and every hour, he was once again drenched in sweat on the training ground, panting for dear life and cursing the hell out of the Shinobi world. This was just the beginning stages of course, and it would get easier with time, but he would definitely feel this tomorrow. If not sooner.

He had spent the entirety of the morning doing physical exercise. With his father obviously lazing around in the shadow of a tree shouting out instructions. And thus, he understood what he'd do from this day onward, regarding his daily routine. With the exception of Sunday, which was reserved for cloud watching, he had the daily routine of pure and unadulterated torture. yippee...

His physical training routine consisted of doing several sets of ordinary exercises such as push-ups, sit-ups, juice, and stamina training done through variations of jogging and sprinting. This was a very light beginning, but it was effective enough for a beginner, especially for a child, nonetheless. Even if he had lost count of how many sets he had done, his father still reminded him ever so often that he shouldn't get comfortable. Mostly because the increase in exercises, sets, and difficulty, would come sooner, rather than later.

After Sukehiro had concluded that this had been enough physical exercise for the day, after a measly six hours, he proceeded to start teaching Yami about chakra control exercises, saying that it was a good idea to begin early, especially since he'd need the concentration and control for the clan techniques.

The first exercise that he would learn, was the one where you would stick a leaf onto the forehead and keep it there by applying chakra to it. Too much and it would blow off, and too little would just make it fall. It had to be a specific amount, but it was nowhere near as precise as the tree or water walking exercise which craved for a lot more accuracy since both body weight, balance, and several other factors had to be accounted for in the process, and that's ignoring the fact that the feet is the hardest place to draw chakra to.

Using chakra for the first time had been an odd experience, he didn't know how he would describe the sensation running through his body after the crash course of hand seals his father had given him. Maybe, like adrenaline? It was odd, but at least he could feel that it was working unlike with physical exercise where you had to wait to see the results. Using chakra, he could already feel it running through him from the core and all the way up as he tried to stick the leaf to his forehead.

He had been unsuccessful for a couple of tries, but there were some great advantages to being book smart regarding Shinobi aspects. This was how Sakura was supposed to be, she was said to be book smart but she rarely knew anything useful whatsoever until she learned medical ninjutsu.

Which was a shame, since that at the moment, he clapped himself on the back for having looked so much into chakra and shinobi techniques when he had been writing stories in his previous life. It was really coming in handy now, and he should use all of this information as much as he could. The more he used what he had stored in his brain, the faster he would progress toward his goal.

On another side, he kind of wished that his father would let him go train on his own one of these upcoming days. Not that he had anything against his old man teaching him, having a mentor was always helpful, but if he wanted to really utilize what he knew, then he should practice in private. Kind of hard to explain how you knew how to do shadow clones and whatnot, or well, at least the theory behind them.

Having all the information was one thing, but actually carrying out the techniques was most likely a ton more difficult. The tons of information he knew would at least be helpful though, but there was a lot of stuff that he didn't know much about. Fuinjutsu for one, using seals was mostly a mystery to him. Sure, you could use seals for a lot, but they were hardly ever explained in detail.

Elemental techniques, on the other hand, there were specific guides on how to do them. Each explanation of a technique came with details about it, how it was performed, necessary hand seals, range and rank, and anything else you could possibly have needed. So you had all the building stones and just had to put them together. So learning how to do hand seals by pure muscle memory, was also something he wanted to start doing.

It really was an amazing thing to have those years of experience from his previous life, and being able to start afresh as a kid with all that knowledge still in your head. So with a very simple plan, he decided to continue doing all of these exercises his father had instructed him to do, and then in secret, start practicing everything else.

By the time he enrolled in the academy, he wanted to be able to at least utilize some of the clan techniques, and have either tree or water walking down. He also wanted to be able to remember all the hand seals there were, so he didn't have to bother paying attention in class. Last but not least, when he felt comfortable, he wanted to be able to create one or two shadow clones.

Why shadow clones? Ignoring the obvious, get out of the academy jail-free card, it was simple... Just one clone would be able to double all results of anything that wasn't physical exercise. He had to do that himself obviously. And if he could somehow make two clones, he'd be able to learn three times faster. Plus, his chakra pools would be growing if he pushed his limits with shadow clones.

There was a capacity for the amount of chakra one could have, it all mostly depended on clan, body, and whether or not you were a Jinchuuriki. As a simple Nara, he didn't have the luxury of having Naruto's endless reserves of chakra. So he had to grow his chakra pools, and get a ton of control faster.

Some may ask why more control was important, and the reason behind his desire for good control was that the more control over your chakra you had, the less you could make a technique cost in chakra. There was almost no limit to how good you could become with a jutsu. For one, you could master it's basic stage with all the hand seals down to the lowest chakra cost, and then there was the possibility of not needing the hand seals, and the next step being using the tiniest amount of chakra for technique, with close to no hand seals involved, or maybe even improving the effects with the same amount of chakra thats being utilized… The possibilities were endless..

Yami truly doubted that there was an actual limit to how little you could make a technique cost in terms of chakra. It was all about mastery, and being able to utilize the full potential. There were, however, certain scenarios where more chakra would be needed to make jutsus or techniques bigger and stronger in power, but even those could be cheaper to use if he just practiced enough, and besides… Unlike shippuuden where the ninja world became a battle of explosions, for the most part, all a jutsu needs is just enough to kill a person.

It would be a long journey, but if he could pull those clones out of his sleeve soon, then he was positive that by the start of canon, he'd be able to achieve his goal. Being the strongest lazy ass around.

A week passed from the day that Yami started training with his father, and the man had joined him every single day, and surprisingly enough he had been on time for all of the days. Well, he was no Kakashi, so maybe he shouldn't be that surprised. Even if Nara were lazy, they were at least punctual for all he knew. Well, maybe only some of the time… Maybe he should start Obito's, and later Kakashi's tradition of being two-three hours late? It'll give a bit more time to procrastinate, unless it's an urgent business.

But today had finally been the day where his father had gone back to his Shinobi duties. Not that he had stopped in the time frame that they were training, but more like he had taken a mission that required him gone from early in the morning. So he was alone today, and ready to go do some of the things he had wanted to experiment with for a bit.

More specifically, he could finally test out of his theory about lots of knowledge helping him being as beneficial as he thought it'd be. So, looking to both sides for a moment, to check that the coast was clear, he quickly browsed through his mental library for everything he could about shadow clones.

Maybe… This was a bad idea, but oh well you wouldn't know before you tried. And if he could do it now, then it would just be too troublesome to figure out later that he could have done it years ago. He would take it slow though, even if he could do this shadow clone trick to speed up his training, then it was limited how useful it would be.

Reason being that due to his limited amount of chakra, and that he wasn't Uzumaki Naruto, then he couldn't create a field of clones to train with. Four at the moment seemed like a bad number as well, because the more he split his chakra up, the less time the clones would have to work their magic in. So the smartest choice might be to settle with using a couple of clones to speed things up efficiently, instead of creating a chaotic amount that would have close to zero efficiency.

Oh yeah, and chakra exhaustion was a thing.

Not that he would depend on the clones for learning stuff, they'd be useful, but he was more convinced that the knowledge in his head was the biggest edge he had. If you put intellect together with hard work, then you should, without a doubt, be able to outshine the shadow clone training method on its own. So by mixing book smarts with ninjutsu, he should be able to get the maximum results out of his training.

He kind of got lost in thought while standing there, because the possibilities to this were endless. You could, as mentioned, speed up specific stuff, but there were also other things you could do. Like creating a certain amount of clones, and have them all do individual tasks. Reading, chakra exercises, jutsu practice, research, and so on. It was like an ocean of possibility, and he couldn't wait to get started.

Even if it was very un-Nara like, he wanted to get started as soon as possible. The Nara in him would hit him when he was done though. After each day of training and practice, he had napped soundly for five or more hours. His mother wasn't too thrilled with that discovery, but what can you do, a Nara would always be a Nara.

So with his master plan in mind, he took a deep breath and gathered his chakra. Lifting his hands up to create the required hand seals by crossing his pointer and middle fingers in front of his chest, pushing the chakra into it, and carefully mumbling to himself. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

Even if he shouldn't be surprised, he still was, because beside him a cloud of white smoke appeared, but as it cleared it revealed nothing. It didn't sadden him though, quite on the contrary. It had worked. Someone might question his sanity for believing it had worked, but he had just gotten confirmed that he was doing it right. Nothing had appeared, so it was a question of not using enough chakra and the lack of visualization in his head. Jutsu probably were more than just weaving hand seals, it was molding, crafting and building the shape.

He still had to be careful not to use too much, because then there would either appear one with too much chakra, or too many clones with too late. The latter was the most likely possibility, since he wasn't able to control the number of clones he created yet.

Due to the lack of results, Yami figured that he should first of all work on the idea of clones first. So, by asking his mother to show him the ordinary illusion clone, he got to work on doing that. It took roughly a week's worth of practice till he figured out that it was indeed the visualization he lacked to perform it.

So with the tiger seal in front of his chest on the sixth day after his failed shadow clone attempt, he closed his eyes and started to visualize his clone before his eyes. Body structure, height, hair and it's length, facial features, arms, legs, clothing. Trying to get it all down to it's last detail. It didn't work on the first try though, the clone looked more like a cartoon than the first season of the anime had.

It all came with practice, day after day after his daily training, he practiced the clone jutsu. Getting all the details in place, until he finally came out with a product that satisfied him enough. It was still just an illusion, so nothing to yell hooray about, but it was still one of the three techniques he needed to pass the academy. And he had gotten that down in a week and a half? Seemed pretty good to him.

He decided to give the shadow clones another try a week later. His reserves didn't feel affected so far whatsoever, and this was supposed to be taxing, so he pumped a generous amount of chakra into it this time, and opened his eyes to watch as yet another white smoke cloud appeared, before smirking lightly to himself when he saw a classic Naruto clone on the ground, looking like it was melting away.

This was progress, which he welcomed, but he could already feel the drain on his reserves. He wasn't fatigued or tired yet, so he was still able to go, but he had to be quite cautious of the amount of chakra he decided to spend from here.

Seemed like it was back to the drawing board for another week, he was positive that the visualization was down at the moment, so maybe it was a question of control now. Which meant, more leaf exercise. Yay...

And as many would say, third time's the charm. As the third cloud of smoke appeared a week later, and subtly cleared, a perfect clone of him stood right there at his side. There was still one thing he had to test though.

"Hey, go into the woods over there and draw a symbol in the dirt with a stick. And then go ahead and dispel." Yami ordered the clone, and blinked as it just did as it was told without question. He probably didn't require much explanation to figure out that a copy of himself knew the plan inside out.

He was quite winded now though. His chest falling and rising with some low panting, the first two failed clones hadn't taken too much out of him, but a successful one like this managed to feel like a knee in the gut. He had mostly used too much chakra for it, but whatever, a clone was a clone, all that mattered was that it was done correctly.

Even though it was good, he should probably refrain from creating anymore until later or tomorrow. Just to be on the safe side of things. One thing was pushing the limits, another was accidentally killing yourself in the process.

The chakra he had spent was also more feelable now, like a water bottle that had been half emptied. The lacking chakra was very evident, and with his inexperience at the matter, he'd guess he was a bit under half capacity. So making another clone would definitely be the height of stupidity. Certainly a very un-Nara-like decision if he decided to do it.

Even if he had thought he was fine, the knee in the gut sensation started to get to him. With a slow chuckle, he mentally cursed himself before falling backward and slumping into the grass. Yes, the foolish reincarnated Nara had just passed out from making a single shadow clone. How Naruto could make thousands and make it seem like they cost nothing was beyond him.

Chapter 2, hope you enjoyed it.

Question of the day:

Which character is your favorite from before Naruto's generation? And why? I can barely decide on my own. Either Sakumo, Mikoto or Minato.