The third morning, Naruto was awakened by the sound of mayhem on the lower floor. He had been up most of the night practicing Kirigakure no Jutsu.
He had arrived at Tazuna's just in time for dinner and had left right after, mainly because dinner had mostly consisted of the various family members ogling his new hair and cloths.
He started practicing at the waterfront, and quickly got the Jutsu to work, it was an easy technique when compared to the kage bunshin or rasengan, but controlling the mist effectively required a lot of chakra control. What this essentially meant was that he couldn't control the mist too well but he got a lot of it.
By the end of the night he had managed to perform the jutsu using only a bucket of water, but he had a feeling it would be a while before he could pull it off using just the water in the air.
More important now however, was getting breakfast. Naruto slid on his pants and went downstairs, greeted by the sounds of Tsunami fighting her usual battle to get Inari ready for school on time. Watching her, Naruto figured she would have made a pretty good kunoichi.
"INARI!" she hollered, "how many times have I told you to STOP THROWING THOSE KNIVES!"
Naruto walked into the kitchen to find himself facing a number of steak knives embedded in the wall. He idly noted that considering Inari's position relative to that of the knives, the kid had pretty good aim. Naruto had the momentary image of a future battle: 'Tenten, weapons master vs. Inari, Kitchen knife ninja!'
He laughed to himself, causing the rooms other two occupants to finally notice him.
"Oh, good morning Naruto-kun" Tsunami greeted while simultaneously trying to get Inari to stay still and eat his breakfast. This, of course, was quickly becoming impossible once Inari noticed his idol had entered the room, so Naruto decided he better calm things down.
"Ne, Inari, you really should eat your breakfast, if you don't, you'll be late for school, and if your late for school, you'll be in even more trouble," Naruto reasoned.
Inari seemed to process this for a moment, but Naruto made sense and his desire to please both his mother and idol overcame his defiance, so he grumblingly sat down and started to eat.
Tsunami looked gratefully to Naruto before walking over and starting to yank knives out of the wall.
"Naruto-kun," she said as she pulled out another knife, "there's some breakfast for you there too, I made pancakes."
Naruto was in awe; he had never had pancakes made for him. He pretty much just eaten ramen in kono…crap…he had managed to avoid thinking about Konoha until now. He refused to feel guilty about leaving; feeling guilty led to thoughts about the people who would feel betrayed, and he refused to call what he had done betrayal. Betrayal implied that he owed something to Konoha and the people who lived there.
He continued down this thought path and Tsunami could only watch as Naruto looked more and more depressed, she then grabbed him firmly by the hand, jolting him out of his reverie, and dragged him over to the table.
"Sit," she commanded, so he sat next to Inari and waited only moments before a plate of pancakes were put in front of him. He grabbed his fork and decided to thoroughly enjoy this kind of food while he had it to eat, good food wouldn't be common in a life of traveling and hiding.
Breakfast was soon finished and Inari left for school right after. Naruto then quickly helped Tsunami clean up the breakfast dishes and the retreated to his room.
Now again left to his own devices, he snuck out on to the roof, and grabbed Kubikiri from where he hidden it the day before. Hefting the sword over his shoulder, he jumped down to the street and headed for the forest.
Upon reaching a spot that he felt was sufficiently secluded, he unwrapped the sword with a flick of his wrist, and started some basic swings, trying to get a feel for the balance of the blade.
After just an hour, Naruto realized he had some serious muscle building do to. He could lift the sword with one hand, but couldn't control it very well; his movements were choppy and predictable, particularly when he had to reverse direction.
Another hour passed and Naruto discovered another problem, his small stature made it almost impossible to do any kind of upward cut. He would need to be at least a foot taller. He pondered over this conundrum for a few minutes, and after some experimentation, found that he could jump while swinging to give him the extra height he needed.
Naruto was, as always, obsessively persistent with his training, and he was happy with his improvement by the time noon rolled around. He had decided that on the way back to Tazuna's for lunch he would stop at Soba Akira's shop. It was on the way and Naruto wanted to meet the man as soon as possible.
The shop was easy enough to find, and appeared to be just a mid-sized building with a sign out front announcing the place as 'Soba's Stone and Metal Workshop'. Naruto jumped on to the roof and hid Kubikiri, he didn't want to scare the man. He jumped back down and noticed that the front door was held open with a brick, so he just walked in.
Directly in front of him was a rather messy desk, covered in papers and a bell with a label that said 'Ring for Service.' Behind the desk the room opened up into a cement-floored workshop covered in tools Naruto couldn't name as well as pieces of stone and metal in various stages of carving. Naruto shrugged and rung the bell. A sharp 'DING!' reverberated through the building and Naruto heard some shuffling.
A man in his late 20s or early 30s emerged from the back of the shop wearing a leather apron. He seemed a little rough around the edges, but his brown hair was neatly cut and he had an air of tidiness.
"Can I help you?" he asked Naruto with a salesman's smile.
"Maybe," Naruto cautiously replied. "I need a two gravestones for dome friends of mine but don't have too much money, I was wondering if maybe I could help you out in the shop as payment?"
Soba looked skeptical, "work here as payment? Do you have any experience with stone or metal working?"
"Something like that," Naruto replied with a grin, "take me to an block that you need a lot of stone removed from and I'll show you."
Akira led him to a block of stone 5 feet high, with lines already drawn to show where stone had to be cut away. Naruto held out his hand and started to mold his chakra in the familiar swirling pattern.
He opened the floodgates, pouring chakra into the now reasonably sized vortex in his hand.
"RASENGAN!" he called as he slammed the orb into the stone block. It took a little less than 30 seconds to grind away most of the unneeded stone. He turned to Akira who was mumbling to himself with a dumb smile on his face, something about increasing production by 50.
Akira soon snapped out of it and grabbed hold of Naruto's arm, "I'll pay you 2000 yen an hour, when can you start?" he asked excitedly.
"Right now," Naruto replied with his trademark fox grin. (He would later realize that with his new look, said grin made him look frightening rather than cute, but Akira appeared mostly unfazed)
Naruto was expecting requests to use the rasengan again, what he got instead was a 2½ hour lesson about every tool a carver could ever need and the various ways to use them. Though Naruto was impatient, his respect for the man went up a few notches. He was containing his excitement and making sure Naruto knew what he was doing before he unleashed him on the shop. Akira himself mentioned an experience he had had proving just how dangerous sandpaper could be.
By the time Naruto's comprehensive tour of the shop was finished, then sun had set and Naruto realized that he had missed lunch AGAIN. It was starting to become a habit with him. It was like fate, every time lunch came around something important would come up that would end up taking forever, and here he was, starving by the end of the day.
He looked at Akira only to realize that the man had been talking to him while he was pondering his hunger. Having no idea what had been said, Naruto just nodded vigorously, which seemed to be the correct response.
"So, you'll start work when tomorrow?" Akira asked.
Naruto thought for a minute, "I'll be here at noon, I'm busy in the morning so I'll work from 1:00 to 6:00. Sound good?"
Akira nodded, "Yes, that should work nicely. We'll also need to discuss the details of your order."
Naruto nodded as he turned to leave, "Ok then Akira-san, 1:00 it is."
Akira grinned as the boy ran off into the distance, that kids weird energy ball thing would cut his production time in half…he was already drooling. Naruto waited until Akira had turned and gone into the shop before doubling back to pick up Kubikiri, it wouldn't be good to forget it.
Naruto ran all the way home (as he was now temporarily calling Tazuna's house). The day had gone as well as he could have hoped and better. He now had a job that was both training AND paid better than being a ninja ever had. He could even move his plans foreword, maybe as much as 3 weeks. Between the 18000 yen he had left over from shopping and a months salary at 10000 yen a day, he would be set for quite some time.
Naruto jumped up to the roof, hid Kubikiri, slipped down to his window and climbed inside. He figured he had 40 minutes before supper and there was something he needed to do.
He sat on his bed and took his forehead protector out of his pocket. For the second time that day, he gathered a chakra swirl in his right hand and then carefully used his rasengan to grind off the symbol of the hidden leaf. He grabbed a kunai out of his holster and, even more carefully, carved in two kanji.
He tied it back around his head and went into the bathroom to admire his work. His forehead protector now read 'Akuma Shinkirou' (Demonic Mirage).
Naruto had thought a lot about what he was going to do about his forehead protector. Leaving it in its original state would attract attention he didn't want from the leaf, but it was what told the world he was a shinobi, and he had no intention of settling somewhere and finding some menial job.
He had finally decided that he would try to build a reputation on his own merits as a shinobi without loyalty to a village, but doing that would require a distinctive look, and he would have to eliminate everything inside him that could be recognized as Uzumaki Naruto.
It was in that moment, as he examined and pondered his almost unrecognizable appearance in the mirror, that Uzumaki Naruto died, and Fushichou Naruto was born.
It wasn't simply a decision to change a name, because Fushichou had to be everything Uzumaki wasn't. Normal people would consider this as pretending to be someone your not, but for Naruto, it was quite the opposite. He would have to learn to NOT to force himself to act a certain way, and he knew it would take a while.
He started to practice his facial expressions in the mirror. The first thing he tried was smiling, which he soon found he had to be careful of. A full-blown smile showed off his longer and sharper than normal canines, and although they were great for intimidation, not so good for casual conversation.
He tried a scowl or two, and everything seemed okay there, though it was uncomfortable to scowl for more than a few seconds. Naruto continued on like this until suppertime, practicing various expressions.
This wouldn't have been a problem if Inari hadn't opened the door to call him to dinner during his attempting of the 'Nice Guy' pose. He had tried to pretend he had just been examining his thumb, but Inari had kept giving him those odd looks all through the meal.
Naruto announced during dinner that he had gotten work at Soba's shop to the surprise of all, he didn't go into details, just said that Akira had found a use for some of his 'unique' skills. Apart from his announcement, supper was uneventful, as Naruto had thankfully remembered to remove his forehead protector before coming down.
Naruto again quickly escaped to his room, as he wanted to get to bed early and had one more thing to do. He knew what being a missing-nin could do to someone, and so he needed rules for himself, a new ninja way.
He sat down with a piece of paper and started to write:
Never leave a mission uncompleted (He figured this one was a given, but it felt good to write)
Never do a mission because you are told or begged to (This was important, as so many missions were a waste of time and he couldn't afford to work on pity)
Never go into a situation without knowing the way out (This was a rule he felt too many shinobi had died for forgetting)
Never cut twice (Naruto thought of this as an analogy for life, always be sure to succeed on the first try because you may not get a second)
Naruto looked at his list with satisfaction before folding it and sliding it into the slit in his forehead-protector cloth where he had only a short time ago hidden ramen tickets. He then changed and jumped into bed.
As he lay there, staring at the ceiling, he reflected on how much his life had changed in a mere 7 days. It had been 2 weeks since he had stumbled into Konoha covered in blood, wasting his tears because the bastard had an unhealthy familial obsession. He had wasted a week moping about his stupid teammates, and in that same amount of time, he had forever changed his life for the better.
That night, for the first time in his life, Naruto fell asleep with no fear as to what the next day would bring.
Authors Notes: Okay…that took a bit longer than I thought, but I think it came out well.
Translation Notes:
Fushichou – Phoenix, a mystical fire bird that burns itself to death and is then reborn from the ashes
Akuma Shinkirou – Demonic Mirage
Kirigakure no Jutsu – Hidden Mist Technique
Next chapter: Time speeds up and the sand siblings make an appearance