Chapter 4: Preparing for the Return

::1 Year Later::

Summary of the Past Year: Hiraku and Misaru moved onto Hidden Stone Village 4 months ago, so that they could once again avoid Leaf Village's eyes and ears. In the past year Misaru has trained Hiraku incredibly hard, forcing the young boy to improve at an astounding rate.

"Hiraku, I've been thinking lately, and we need to take your training up to the next level." Hiraku nearly dropped his bowl of ramen as he heard what Misaru said.

"What are you talking about Misaru? I've been working insanely hard over the past year. You yourself said that you had rarely seen one my age improve so much!" Misaru sighed out loud as he heard Hiraku's words. He had expected the boy to react to his words this way, but he had to get Hiraku much stronger in a very short period of time.

"Listen Hiraku, I want to return to leaf village soon, and at your current level you would only hold me back. I have to get you to be much stronger, and to do that we need to step up your training. Starting today, we begin to go over all the basics again, but this time we will add a few twists to them." Hiraku's face once again gave Misaru a sour look.

"Also, you might not want to eat so much before we train today." Taking the bowl of ramen from a protesting Hiraku, Misaru tossed it into the sink, and then made Hiraku join him outside on the training field.

"Okay Hiraku, put these on." Misaru pulled out some ordinary looking ankle and wrist weights from a bag that he had on the ground, and then handed them to Hiraku. Misaru allowed himself to have a corrupt smile on his face as he saw Hiraku be pulled to the ground by the weights the moment they were dropped into his hands.

"WOA! Misaru, how much do these things weigh?!" Struggling, Hiraku managed to place the weights on himself as he sat down on the ground.

"I'd say around seventy-five pounds for each of the ankle weights, and about forty pounds for each of the arm weights. Pretty light compared to the weights I'm going to make you wear next week." Once again Misaru gave Hiraku a wicked smile as he said his words.

"You must be kidding me Misaru!" The boy tried to push himself up to his feet, but kept on being pulled over by the weights every time he got up to his knees.

"Nope, and you probably should know that in two weeks we will start to relearn our basic jutsu training exercises by having you do them with the weights on." Hiraku's mind started to go numb as he thought of doing tree climbing and water walking with the insanely heavy weights he was wearing now.

"Well see you later Hiraku, I'll be back in about eight hours to get you. By the way, don't try to take the weights off; I put a jutsu on them so they won't come off for a week." Giving Hiraku another wicked smile, Misaru walked away in the direction of the city.

For the next twenty minutes Hiraku struggled with getting to his feet, and then once he got to his feet staying on them without falling over.

"MISARU I HATE YOU!" Hiraku screamed this phrase over and over again over the next eight hours as he forced himself to begin doing regular exercises with the weights on. Hiraku found the surprisingly the longer he wore the weights, the easier it was for him to move around in them.

"Well, I'm back Hiraku! Did you have a good day of training?" Misaru's jaw then dropped as he watched Hiraku run towards him at half the speed he normally did without the weights.

"That boy is wearing near four times his own weight in weights, and he is able to run around in them at about half his normal speed after only one day!" Misaru commanded himself to regain his posture, and then he gave Hiraku a pat on the head.

"Well, that is enough training for the day Hiraku. It's time for us to go back to our apartment and get some sleep. You've got a big day tomorrow, since I've decided to shorten the week you'd have in those weights to only one more day. Also, you might want to prepare yourself for the chakra training that will take place in for more days." Misaru smiled as he heard Hiraku start to yell at him.

"This is going to be a very fun year of training."