Chapter 3: road to ninja

It has been 5 years since the kyubi was released on konohagakure. While the road to recovery has been difficult, it was managed all the same.

Only five years prior shikaku took in the newly born naruto, and already in such a short time he has made a great impact. Shikaku has noticed the kid is always bright and cheery, and tiresome. Very tiresome.

Today shikaku has ino, naruto and shikamaru in a place to train. "Ok, so we've already unlocked your chakra. Now onto the hard part, chakra control. If you want to become a good ninja, you need to work on your chakra control." Shikaku says to the three children.

Shikamaru yawns and asks a question. "Whys that so important?" Shikaku immediately answers.

"Chakra control is necessary to perform jutsu, as well as to not waste chakra while performing jutsu. You three have a year until you enter the academy, so I'll give you a bit of a head start. Who knows, maybe you three will graduate early." He says.

"Now, there are several methods of training to better control your chakra. What you'll be doing is the leaf sticking exorcise. What you need to do is take a leaf, and channel chakra to your forehead, and put the leaf on and try to keep it there." Shikaku explains to the group. He hands them each a leaf.

Naruto and ino immediately get at it, while shikamaru waits, and begins to think. It takes ino a few tries but she manages to get it, naruto however can't seem to pull it off. After thirty minutes pass shimanaru finally makes an attempt, getting it on the second try.

"Naruto, try using less chakra." He says to his blonde haired brother. "If you use too much or too little it won't work." He explains.

Naruto nods his head, takes a deep breath and finally managed to get it to stick. After an hour passed they all have gotten a decent hang of it.

"Good, now let's stop for now. Since you all can stick the leaf tomorrow we'll work on expanding further. Sticking the leaf while moving, but we'll save that for another day. Now it's time to work on your aim with shuriken and kunai." He says handing them some shuriken and kunai.

The three begin the grueling training, with only some complaints being heard. By the time their training is done the three kids are sprawled out on the floor, watching the clouds drift by.

"We'll call it a day, ok?" Shikaku says. "Yoshino should have dinner ready shortly, if you wanna eat with us ino." He offers.

The three follow shikaku Inside and enjoy dinner with him and yoshino. Overall it's a pretty good dinner. After dinner is over shikaku takes ino home, though yoshino knows it's mainly his excuse to see inoichi and choja.

Meanwhile, naruto and shikamaru are out back cloud watching, talking.

"Hey shika, what's your dream for the future?" Naruto asks his brother. "Don't know, be an average ninja and have little work I guess, you?" He asks naruto.

"Easy, I'm gonna become the hokage one day!" Naruto declares with a smile on his face. "And I'll be there to support you." Shikamara responds. The two boys smile and head inside to sleep.

The next day the two boys and ino meet with yoshino. "Shikaku is busy, so today I'll handle the training." She says grinning.

"Troublesome, can we not train today?" Shikamaru asks, knowing the answer. "Nope, now today we'll be testing your chakra control. You'll be sticking the leaf to your forehead and move around while I throw rocks at you." Yoshino says with a grin.

The three kids find a leaf and begin sticking it as yoshino begins hurling rocks at them all as they run around.

Ino manages to keep it on her head while moving fairly easily. Shikamaru struggles a bit at first, but after a few tries it stays on. Naruto, well naruto has a lot of problems with it. He quickly loses concentration at first and can't keep the leaf stuck.

It takes him about an hour but eventually naruto does get it. After two hours of working on this yoshino then has them all run laps and work on taijutsu.

She notices shikamaru is doing everything reluctantly but spots naruto is enjoying it all. She smiled and thinks he'll be a good influence on her son. She hopes at least. Who knows with naras after all.

A month goes by and the three make great progress. "Ok today you'll be taking a break from your usual training." Shikaku tells the three kids, much to the delight of shikamaru and horror of naruto.

"Well your physical training at least. Today you'll be training your mind. The three of you will be reading books on strategy, and then later today you'll each play shogi with me to test what you've learned. Then at the end you'll all work on your kanji." He explains.

"Why kanji?" Shikamaru asks curiously. Shikaku smirks. "Simple, it's the foundation of fuinjutsu. While I don't expect all of you to want to become fuinjutsu masters, it won't hurt to at least begin learning some. Plus a ninja with a varied skill set is what truly makes a good ninja." He explains.

Shikaku hands them each a few books. "Shikamaru, don't let your mother catch you napping." He says as he walks off to leave them to their reading.

"Soon enough you'll all be able to join the academy, who knows, maybe if you do well you can graduate early." Shikaku says. He walks inside to take a nap while the kids read.


thank you all for reading, as always please leave a review! I'll be uploading chapters 1-2 times a week on , however I will be uploading them to my patron as they're finished , chapter 5 is now live.

I also publish a one piece fanfiction that's sort of a time travel fanfic. If you wanna read either story ahead go to my which is stidhamlucas999

it's only 5 a month, plus if I start any further projects they will be uploaded their first.

bankai777: great question! I'm not sure on when they'll meet and interact, but it is inevitable.

zx20000006: honestly naruino is my favorite pairing for naruto. Better left unsaid was my introduction to it actually. There will definitely be a friendly rivalry between Itachi and naruto, idk about hana and ino or not just yet.

question for you all as I'd love everyone's thoughts on this, should naruto be taught the Nara clan jutsu? And should he get the uzumaki chakra chains?

I'm thinking he probably will get the chakra chains, the Nara jutsu I'm on the fence about still.