Chapter Twelve.
Naruto Uzumaki - Part 6.
(Naruto's Childhood - Part 4: Childhood's End - Part 1.)
30th of July 1909 - The Ninja Academy:
It had been four months since the day he saved the young Hyūga girl from the bullies and got Mirai and Aiko. Since then, life for one Naruto Uzumaki had only gotten harder, if you can believe it. He thought his life was bad before Mirai and Aiko, but once he got the two young kitsunes, it seemed to get worse. The shopkeepers put their prices up even more for him, he got named called more and the bullies went after him even harder, all because he got two kitsunes.
Also, whilst the senseis didn't help much to begin with, they now allowed people to steal his books, or have them get lost somehow, and wouldn't give him new copies so he could try and keep up. To fix some of that, he had to sneak into the Academy's library at night to catch up what he should have learned during the day.
Not that Naruto cared too much. They were already treating him badly before, this was nothing. It just made him want to prove them wrong, show them he wasn't some kind of demon. Although there were times that he wanted to beat those who hurt him, that feeling quickly turned into deciding that it would be better to prove them wrong by not acting on his hate.
As for Mirai and Aiko, he was absent from the academy because of them, not that it really mattered, considering that neither his teachers nor his classmates seemed to care much about it. As far as they cared, he could fall off the face of the Earth and they wouldn't give a damn. In fact, Naruto suspected that most of the village would throw a party if that happened and, more importantly, if it killed him.
Either way, the two young kitsunes were slowly getting better and would soon be able to return to the wild. Naruto could say that he was saddened by the thought, as they were the only company that he had these days. Sure, he could go and see Hana and her mother, but he didn't want to make things hard for them by visiting too often. They were part of a handful of people who were kind to him, and he didn't wish for his presence to ruin their business.
Either way, it was Friday afternoon and he just finished classes for the day. That day was the start of their summer vacation, actually. At the moment he was walking through the village, passing by various stores, bars, vendors, cafes and stalls, where the villagers were giving him an extra wide berth. It had been the same for the last few months since he got the kitsunes. Every time he walked towards a group or a family, he would see them move over to the side of the road or stop at a safe distance to let him pass, all the while giving him the cold shoulder or sending him very cautious, hate-filled glares. It was like everyone was looking at him as if he was something sick and disgusting that they wanted to stay away from, a thought that had Naruto's face turn sour, his skin going clammy and his blood running cold. Some whispered that he was a demon and that he was a kitsune lover.
This sense he was getting from the villagers, feeling completely unwelcome and unwanted, day in and day out… it was horrible. He hated it. He always had.
Wanting to do something about this sensation, the young Naruto decided to make a small detour from the main road and into the side streets. Trekking to a more isolated area dotted with apartments, small homes, and surrounded by lush gardens and picket fences, the blonde took his brooding stint to a less conspicuous part of the neighbourhood, away from prying eyes. When he finally reached an empty reserve sitting adjacent to a group of houses, the youngster felt himself starting to get a little wet around the eyes and, stopping in his tracks, wiped his face against his forearm.
"Damn it. My life really sucks." the boy mumbled miserably to himself. Noticing the open field next to the footpath and seeing how empty and spacious it was, the orphan then decided to wander around a bit towards the forest on the other side.
Ambling into the woods a couple of minutes later with a mild sense of curiosity, the child soon stumbled upon a thick bamboo grove inside the collection of oaks and birches. Tilting his head at the tall pillars and trunks standing high before him, all of which were lit by the glow of the still present sun, Naruto walked over to the stalks and placed a hand against one of the nearest. He then blinked as he looked at how tall the bamboo shoot was.
"Wow." Looking back down at where his hand was pressed, the kid then curled his fingers into a fist and pressed his knuckles against the green wood. Putting his weight against it, he was able to get a measure of how sturdy and flexible it was, which had him smile a little.
In the months following his fateful encounter with the bullies and Hinata, Naruto had spent every waking hour of his life working himself to the bone and driving himself up the wall. The blond had knuckled down to continue his training harder than ever before, focusing on polishing up his fighting skills, sharpening his reflexes, stamina and endurance, and increasing his strength. After four months, he was starting to make dents into the wooden log dummy that he was using to train with, and was now looking for something stronger to train with.
He knew that his taijutsu wasn't the best, what with having no training experience or someone telling him how to improve and what he was doing wrong, and unless he got in the first few hits, where his strength would normally allow him to win, the other students would win. So if he couldn't win by skill, he would win by strength or outlasting them until they were worn out, and he trained hard to do so.
That being said, Kurome and Akame Uchiha, twin sisters in his year, showed him that strength wasn't all you needed to win a fight. Both of them could beat him without much problem, and they weren't the strongest students in the class. Neither of them show any mercy in their fights when going against Naruto, he could tell that it was like they were imagining that they were fighting someone else. Someone that they wanted dead. Not surprising, considering that their Clan was after whoever killed all but a few of their members.
To help him to keep track of how he was doing, he decided to maintain a journal about his growth, like how much he was doing per sessions, so that he could do better the next time. He wrote down some ideas on how to do so. He wasn't a fan of writing or reading, but to become stronger he would try his best to change that.
Anyway, when he saw the bamboo, Naruto blinked and thought back to one of the classes he had earlier today. 'Some ninja use logs and training dummies to practice taijutsu by hitting them, right?' One of his senseis, Suzume, had started showing the students some of the basic katas that they used in combat from a picture book; a subject that greatly fascinated Naruto and captured his interest. But whenever he tried to ask questions about it, the teacher either nervously dodged them or ignored him entirely and went on to answer another student's questions.
As annoying as it had been, the blond had still managed to learn a great deal from simply listening to the woman's lecture. He learned about how some ninja trained, what they used, and the areas where they had the most practice. There were even some exercises the Chunin showed the class that they could do at home, which had been a great help.
It was at that moment Naruto looked at the bamboo pillar in front of him a little more thoughtfully. After a bit of staring, he was suddenly struck by an idea. 'Sensei Suzume didn't say anything about practising on bamboo."
His sensei informed them that bamboo was a lot stronger than wood and almost comparable to steel, it made using it as part of martial arts practice very risky. From what Naruto already knew, people only used the plant as a building material; ideal for setting up frames and holding up buildings.
But had they ever considered it for practising combat on a regular basis?
Curious as to where he could go with this idea and wanting to let off some steam from the terrible day he'd just had, Naruto frowned determinedly and set himself into one of the fighting stances he remembered from his lesson. Holding out a hand and drawing his fist back into a loaded position, he then concentrated hard before throwing a hard left seiken.
"Ha!" Naruto shouted, his corkscrew punch slamming into the bamboo trunk with a loud 'klok'. He then pulled it away a second later with a pained yelp and shook his hand. "Ow!" Looking to see the red bruise that was starting to form on his knuckles, he then took a deep breath and forced down the pain. Glancing back up, Naruto then put on another brave face and, reassuming his horse stance, brought both hands back and started again. "Ha! Ha! Ha!"
The silence of the reserve was soon filled with the sound of Naruto's yells and wood clacking echoing throughout the area, as he repeatedly started hitting the wood over, and over, and over.
It wouldn't be until nightfall that Naruto stopped practising his punching and kicking techniques on the bamboo, by which point both his knuckles and shins had been cut open and were bleeding all over the place. Managing to bite back the pain, he limped to his apartment where he bandaged himself up, so that by tomorrow he would be able to go at it again. As he bandaged himself up, Mirai and Aiko would whined as they licked his wounds, worried for their friend.
o0OoO0o
10th of October 1910 - Underground Training Facility:
It had been over a year since Naruto found the bamboo grove and started his new training regime: every morning and evening he would start himself off by doing an hour of sprinting laps around the village, hurtling over and dodging obstacles, avoiding people, and leaping over gaps between buildings. Then he would go to the grove to spend an hour before the academy, and a few hours after practising his katas before he began punching on his new bamboo dummy. During the evenings, he would also throw in hill sprints, vertical climbs, and other taxing exercises, including pushups, crunches, squats, chin-ups and dips.
He would power through fast, full-on rounds on the makeshift heavy bag for five minutes apiece with fifty-second breaks in between, using an egg timer during each round to measure his progress so that he was practically dying at the end of them.
This improved his fitness, endurance and stamina to an insane degree.
Hitting the bamboo also toughened his hands, forearms, elbows, knees and shins, as striking the wooden pillars for the first few sessions cut his skin open, bruised it, cracked his bones, and caused his knuckles to bleed. This occurred regularly in the first few months of his new regimen, but after that he'd managed to strengthen his limbs to the point that they could withstand this new level of vigorous striking, allowing him to start putting them through even harsher trials.
He would also practice with his bo-staff during the evenings, using not only the bamboo dummies, but also a series of wooden logs that he set up in the trees. He needed to practice on moving targets and this was the best he could do with no one to help him.
It helped that he was wearing the training outfit that he got for his eighth birthday. The seals on it were meant to make him stronger and faster, and they worked like a charm. When he wasn't wearing them, he was moving faster than other kids and was punching holes in his wooden dummies. But in the recent months, he found that it was getting easier to move about in his training outfit. The seals weren't adjusting themselves anymore. He would have to go and see Tsume about getting a new outfit for him. He hadn't started working on Sealing yet, so he couldn't do it himself.
As time passed and Naruto found that his training was going well, he decided to work on his coordination and aerial manoeuvrability, jumping through the forest and the bamboo grove's canopy and practising his acrobatics. He got the idea for this when he saw some monkeys in the village doing it, Naruto thought it was a good idea to try and do the same.
When he first started, he would spend the first half hour working his muscles by climbing and holding his position in the branches high above the forest floor. By doing it barefoot, he could also practice holding on with his toes much like a monkey, strengthening his more awkward grips.
The first few tries ended with him falling out of the trees and crash-landing in the bushes, even breaking his wrist and cracking a rib once - which he found was healed with a good night's sleep or two, depending on how bad he was hurt. He found he could heal faster than anyone else he knew and without any real scars. Naruto wondered if he got this ability from his parents. But he didn't know who to go to about his parents, so he pushed the thought aside and worked on training himself. Once he'd gotten the hang of holding on with his toes like a monkey, he was practically flying through the trees.
In the last few weeks, Naruto decided to start training in kunai and shurikenjutsu, knowing that this was one the key points in being a ninja. So he started to throw rocks and stones at targets that he set up in the grove. At the moment he was working on his accuracy, because it was his main weakness. The plan was, once he worked on his accuracy enough, he would try hitting the targets as he was moving from tree to tree, because he knew he would have to be able to hit targets on the move.
As for building up his body strength as a whole, he was planning to do some pure strength-based exercises. The first part of the plan was to use several of the enormous boulders lying in the nearby field; pushing and rolling them across the open ground, carrying them on his back, or lifting them through various bench and leg press exercises. He knew it would be hard, so he was planning to start with smaller rocks first, then slowly move up to the big rocks.
But that was later. For now, he was meditating, with Mirai and Aiko seating straight with their eyes closed next to him. Naruto often thought that they were meditating themselves, trying to copy him. He wouldn't be surprised if they were.
As Naruto opened his eyes and looked down at them, he thought back over last year or so. They had become great friends. When they were healed enough Naruto had tried to free them back into the wild, as he didn't want them near the villagers for longer than they had to. They were giving them strange looks and Naruto feared that they would try and do something awful to his friends if they stayed much longer.
So one night whilst it was dark and hard to see, Naruto snuck out of the village and in a farm close to the walls, about an hour's walk away, and he set Mirai and Aiko free. Naruto gave the two young vixens what he thought would be the last smile and a pat on each of their heads, while they affectionate licked to his knuckles, and he put them down with a few gentle strokes of their backs.
But as he was walking away, determined to leave before any waterworks could start up and ruin the moment, the blond suddenly heard the pitter-patter of tiny footsteps behind him. As he looked over his shoulders, Naruto stopped when he saw the two little black vixens following right behind him, their yellow eyes fixed squarely upon his person. When he stopped walking, the kitsunes sat down on the road and barked, their tails flowing elegantly behind them.
Naruto tried to tell them that they were free, that they could go and live in the wild. But in response, the two vixens got up and walked up to him, where they rubbed their heads and bodies affectionately against his legs like a cat. They then walked around his feet, nearly tripping Naruto over before they stopped behind him, sat down, and gave another yip of assertiveness.
Staring down at the kitsunes in bewilderment, Naruto's clear blue eyes met their yellow ones. As he gazed right into the windows to their souls, they stared back at him, and it felt was like the three of them were communicating with one another through thought and silence. The young orphan experienced a sudden moment of clarity.
It was something only someone with a strong bond and attachment to another person or creature could have experienced; a sense that'd been built and developed over a certain period of time. Whether this was purely an emotional thing or something even deeper seated and spiritual, none of them knew. But after having felt these same emotions fill his head and heart time and time again in the days they'd spent with one another, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and gave the foxes a warm smile.
Like him, they were orphans, with no one to look after them, to keep them safe. Over the time they spent with each other, they felt safe and felt that they belonged somewhere, neither of them wanted it to end and they knew they would be happy together. Naruto knew they wanted to stay with him, and he wanted them to stay too, as he felt they were friends and he didn't want to lose that, so with a smile, he agreed.
It was the best decision of his young life, as strange as it sounded. Since becoming part of his family the vixens helped Naruto with his training. They seemed to understand what he was trying to do, so they would launch themselves at him at different times, they would bite through the ropes while the logs were swinging, they would dash between his legs while he was dodging something else.
This was unlike his other dodging training, because he didn't know when the attacks would happen, like in real life, so he had to learn to get used to the surprise attacks. Not only that, but Naruto had to deal with two, three or more attacks that he had to dodge. The kitsunes would try and hit him in different directions, while the log which would swing in one direction, back and forth. All of this taught Naruto how to improvise in a fight.
Now that Mirai and Aiko were staying with him for good, Naruto would love nothing more to bring them to the academy. Before, they would stay in his apartment when he went to the academy, seeing that he had no idea if they were going to stay or not. But now that he knew they were staying, he wanted them to be around him as much as possible, but his teachers told him that, should he bring them to the academy, they would have him kicked out.
Naruto tried to argue that the children from the Inuzuka Clan brought their dogs to the academy, but he was shot down on that. They informed him that the dogs were Clan animals, so they had more rights to be at the academy than those 'kitsune monsters'. The Inuzuka had to train and bond with their partner. Naruto was upset about this, but he knew it was a long shot.
But one good thing about having Mirai and Aiko around was that they were able to find some kind of forgotten underground training facility. Naruto found the place fascinating, it had different training tools, training dummies, old training weights, just to name a few things. Then there was the obstacle course, the monkey bars and a huge hall. There were even moving dummies and balls for him to dodge.
Naruto couldn't believe his luck. Looking around, he realized that they found the perfect training ground for them. No one would be able to find and bother them, something that worried him for a while. He feared that if he was found out, the villagers would interfere to make sure that he couldn't get stronger. He'd realized a while back, due to how his teachers were training him, that they didn't want him to get stronger, nor become a ninja. But he was going to show them that they couldn't stop him, and this place would help him out greatly.
Naruto had to wonder why this place was abandoned. Sure it was run down, but that was mainly down to it not being looked after, it had everything that one would need to become a ninja other than that. A huge pool to swim in, a wall to climb up on and other stuff. The only reason Naruto could think of for this place to be abandoned was that this was here before the Hidden Village was created and once the village was built, they took the training above ground.
Although, when they found the training facility, he faced some strange undead skeleton chakra beasts, be it human skeletons or those strange creatures he never had seen before. Fighting them showed him how much work he needed to do. He won, but it was rough. Not only were they good at taijutsu, but they were good at using kenjutsu, and Naruto had had to dodge many of their sword attacks. After getting cut so many times, he was even more thankful for his fast healing. Truly, the path to becoming the Hokage was a long and grueling one.
But as he defeated these undead beasts, he saw that they left behind brown (or red, if they had fire abilities) glowing balls of chakra. From what Hana told him, these seemed to be pure chakra and there were people trying to research what they really were since they appeared ten years ago. The main problem they had at the start was that they couldn't keep them for long, as these chakra orbs disappeared after thirty minutes. But about six years ago, they were able to find a way to keep them longer. Hana didn't know how they did it, just that they could, and ninja from every village were hunting these chakra beasts.
Since then he had been fixing up the facility and using it to train, doing what he could to get better and stronger. He wished he had someone that could help, someone that he could talk to without causing them problems. He would have asked Hana or Tsume for help, but Hana was either training or on missions, and as for Tsume, Naruto didn't want to create even more problems for her should anyone find out that she or her eldest daughter was helping him.
At the moment he was doing his meditating after a few hours of training in the underground facility. He started this a month ago after an incredibly embarrassing moment. When he started this walking meditation, he often walked into things, as he had to close his eyes for this to work. Over time though he got used to his surroundings and knew by heart where most things were, and except for any wild animals that might walk in the area, he would be fine. However, a month ago, he accidentally walked into the young Hyūga girl that he had helped a while ago.
Now, this wasn't the embarrassing part, oh no it wasn't, the embarrassing part was when he fell on top of her. As he tried to get up, he accidentally placed his hand on her chest. He could feel the forming buds that people called boobs - he couldn't help but squeeze, because they felt so soft. This made both of them blush, but that wasn't the end of it. As Naruto tried to get up and apologise, he placed his hand lower down in an even worse. This made both of them turn crimson. Naruto began to stutter an apology. But as he did so, Hinata used her hands to crawl backwards, stood up, and ran off in embarrassment.
Naruto was just as embarrassed. He had no idea how it got this bad so quickly, nor why she was there in the first place. He knew that, if she was with her Clan, even if he went looking for her to say sorry, and even if she was willing to listen to him, they would kill him. But he knew that if he was going to do this walking meditation, he would do in the facility so that kind of embarrassment wouldn't happen again.
Anyway, as he was coming out of his meditation state, Naruto was shocked to see an aura of darkness surrounding Mirai and Aiko. It was like they were in the centre of black flame. He had no idea what was happening to them. Worried about his two friends, Naruto wearily reached his hand out to touch them. But as he got near the flames, he was shocked to see that there was no heat.
As he touched them, he called out softly and worriedly as he shook them softly, "Mirai, Aiko, wake up girls, you're covered in flames."
As he did this, the vixens 'awoke' from their own meditation state, and as they did their black flames disappeared. "Are you two feeling okay?" Naruto asked them, to which they yelped that they were. But still, he was worried, and so he asked them, "How would you two like to see Hana and her mother?"
The vixens barked happily at this. Mirai and Aiko seemed to like the two and they often snuck out to see them. While Naruto didn't mind this too much, he did try to stop them, knowing that the villagers didn't like the two kitsunes and would be more than happy to see an accident happen to them, or to Hana or Tsume should they learn how close they were to him and the vixens.
Standing up, Naruto tidied himself up before leaving the facility and heading to Inuzuka's Veterinary.
As he got into the store, Naruto saw that there were only five people there, waiting to see the vet on duty. One of them was talking to the vet. It wasn't surprising, seeing that it was evening, and most people would be home with their family and having dinner. Anyway, Naruto was thankful to see that it was Hana who was working that day, so he waited to be seen. But he did notice that he was getting a lot of dark looks as he waited.
Once it was his turn to see Hana, she pulled him into the back so he didn't have to deal with the other villagers. "Hey Naruto, been awhile." she said, a little bit irritated.
"Yeah I know I'm sorry, I have been busy training that's all." Naruto half-lied, he didn't want to tell her the full truth.
"If you say so," Hana gave him a knowing smile, having seen through him. "So what can I do for you today?" she asked, all business.
Here Naruto told her what happened to his two kitsunes and by the end his story, Hana was looking at Mirai and Aiko in shock and awe. "I'm amazed," Hana admitted, "by the sounds of it they just awakened their powers. This doesn't normally happen until they are a few years old, for them to gain this power so soon is nothing but amazing."
Naruto couldn't believe it, his friends had awakened their powers early, so in wonder, he asked, "Is there anything I can do to help them in training their new powers?"
"Sadly no," Hana informed the young boy, "they normally learn from their parents or on their own, their powers are different from ours."
"Oh." Naruto said, upset that he couldn't help his friends train like they were helping him.
"You don't have to worry," Hana told him, hoping to cheer him up, "seeing how they awakened their powers so early, I wouldn't be surprised if they mastered their powers just as fast."
"You might be right, I'm sure they'll learn what they have to soon enough." admitted the young blonde. "Listen, Hana, is your mother home? I need to ask for some help from here." he said, remembering his weighted gear problem.
"Oh?" Hana asked in shock, knowing how the young boy in front of her rarely asked anyone for help, "What do you need help with?"
"You see I got a training outfit two years ago for my birthday from an anonymous person," Naruto informed the Inuzuka's Heiress, "and it had weight seals on it to make it heavier than a normal outfit so that I would have to become stronger to use it properly. It would alter every so often when I'd able to move in it easily so that it became heavier again."
"Wow, I heard of these outfits, but I've never heard someone having one." Hana said in shock. "It takes too much time and energy to train in them, many ninja these days don't see the point in them when you have jutsu to do most of the work."
"I can see how people would think that, but I want to be the strongest Hokage there ever was. So if these seals can help me, I'm willing to use them." Naruto informed her earnestly. "But the thing is, I think that the seals are failing, they don't seem to be getting heavier lately."
Hana smiled at this, happy to see that Naruto was still pursuing his dream to become Hokage. But she was worried about how he got the training outfit, sure it didn't seem to hurt him physically, but that didn't mean the outfit didn't hurt him in other ways. "Do you mind if I have a look at your training outfit please?"
"I'm wearing it right now, so that's not really an option." Naruto informed her. "In fact, the only time that I take it off is when I have to wash it."
Hana nodded thoughtfully at this, those who use Weight Seals would often keep them on them at all times to get the full benefit, so she wasn't too surprised that he was wearing them now. "Do you mind removing your top so I can see the outfit?" she asked.
"Sure, I don't see a problem with that." Naruto told her with a shrug. Removing his bright orange jacket, Naruto revealed the top half of his training outfit. He got the bright orange outfit, along with a second set, for his ninth birthday, it was a gift from another anonymous person. Other than a note with his name on it, there was no clue about the sender. He loved orange, so he wore it, and he wanted to show whoever sent it that he was thankful and he liked it.
Hana begun to look at and touch the outfit. The first thing that she noticed was that it was an inch or so too small for Naruto. "You do know that this outfit is slightly too small for you, right?" she asked.
Naruto looked at the sleeves and for the first time really took them in, realizing that he had grown a bit over the last two years. So much that his outfit had gotten too small for him. "I have to admit, until you mentioned it, I never realized that it was so small. I normally just train and put my clothes back on, I never checked if it still fits me or not."
Hana just laughed, this wasn't the first time she heard something like this. In fact, she did the very same thing during her time at the Academy, when she had her own training outfit. She used it often, but until someone pointed it out to her, she never realized it was too small for her, because once she finished training, she would get changed back into her clothes. Never checked her outfit until someone mentioned it. But still, two years not noticing? Possible, but she found it hard to believe. How can one not notice when clothing doesn't fit more than an inch?
Either way, as she checked it out, she saw that the seals were stitched into the outfit itself. Whilst she was no expert in fuinjutsu, she was interested in the basics and had some of her Clan members show her a few things. One thing she recognised was the basic seals for the weight increase. Then there was another basic seal that feeds off the person's chakra to power the rest of the seals.
Hana knew that for some seals to work a long time, they would have to have a power source, and for the seals that would need these, that normally came from the user. She would have to ask people with more experience to make sure, but these seem to look right. There were a few others on the outfit, but she suspected one was the seal that adjusted the weight so it would become heavier when needed. All in all, whoever gave this to Naruto gave him a great gift, something that would help the young boy to become a great ninja one day.
But as for the outfit, Hana knew what the problem was. "I think I know what's wrong with your outfit, its too small for you now." she said, somewhat amused.
"What do you mean?" asked Naruto.
Before Hana could answer that, her mother and a teenage girl walked into the back store. Upon seeing Naruto, Tsume smiled. "Naruto, how are you? Is everything alright?" she asked.
"Yeah, what are you doing here Loser?" said the teen. Like Tsume, she had long, spiky, untamed brown hair, vertical slit-like pupils, elongated canines and nails. She also had the Inuzuka's fang markings on her cheeks as well as over her eyes. She was wearing a white top and black jeans, and she head the Village Ninja Headband.
"Kawa," hissed Hana, as Mirai and Aiko growled at the girl, "you have no right to talk to him like that."
"What?" asked Kawa, as if she has done nothing wrong, "Not only is he the Dead Last of his year, but people are calling him a demon worshipper, a pervert incarnate and…"
"Kawa, stop right now," Tsume said, "he is our guest, I thought I raised you better. And need I remind you that you were almost your year's Dead Last if it wasn't for me and Hana? Now go to the pounds and start cleaning the place up and think about your attitude towards about our guests." she said with a frown on her face.
"Buuuut mum…" whined Kawa. Naruto was shocked to learn that she was directly related to Tsume and Hana.
"No buts Kawa, now clean out the pounds and take care of the animals." Tsume ordered.
"Yes, mother." Kawa said in a huff, not happy about it. Giving Naruto the stink eye, she huffed again and turned around and left.
"Please forgive my daughter," Tsume apologized to Naruto as Kawa left the room, "I don't know where she gets it from, I thought I taught her better than that. I can understand people not liking each other for one reason or another, but I taught her not so say anything if she didn't have anything nice to say. Or at least not in front of the person she was talking about. And her acting up is getting her brother, Kiba, to do the same… I swear I don't know what to do with them."
"Don't worry about it, I heard worse." Naruto waved it off, as he petted Mirai and Aiko to make calm them down, which made the whine in happiness. " I have no idea why they say most of it, but I can understand why they think I'm a pervert."
"Oh, why is that?" Hana asked with interest. Out of all the people she knew, Naruto would be the last one she thought of as a pervert.
"You see, I've been able to create a Transformation Jutsu that helps me to escape from most men who chase me when I get caught doing a prank." explained Naruto with a smirk.
"What kind of jutsu would make people think you're a pervert?" asked Tsume as she rubbed the kitsune's heads, making them purr happily, although she had a decent guess.
"I transform into a naked blonde," Naruto informed the mother and daughter, shocking one and making the other snort, "but to create it I had to read a few of the porn mags that I found to make the body perfect. So far it would seem to work well, they either get distracted for a few moments or they get a nose bleed and become unconscious."
Hana and Tsume shook their heads in disbelief that anyone would create such a jutsu just to escape if he got caught in doing a prank. Not only that, but that the men of the village would fall for such a jutsu. Then again, it just proved that Naruto wasn't as dumb as many made him out to be. Sure it was out of self-interest, but creating a new jutsu wasn't an easy thing to do. It took time and research to do so and not just anyone could do it, most would just go with the ones that already existed.
Thinking it best not to ask more about this, or ask him to demonstrate, Tsume got to business. "So why are you here today?" At that, Naruto repeated his reason for the visit. As he did, Tsume checked the kitsunes and his outfit.
"I see. Hana is right, it would seem that Mirai and Aiko awakened their power." Tsume confirmed Hana's thoughts after Naruto finished, awed at Mirai and Aiko and somewhat concerned about the outfit. Like her daughter, she too was worried about what kind of Seals were on it, she would have one of her Clan's Seal Experts look at them to make sure they weren't harming Naruto in any way. Or at the very least that the harm wouldn't be permanent.
"As for your outfit, I'll have to see if one of my Clan's Seal Experts can copy those seals for you," Tsume informed him the young boy, "although we'll have to give you a new outfit seeing that this one is too small for you."
"That's fine." acknowledged Naruto, then a thought came to him, "I know that this might cost you, so I'm willing to work for you to pay back anything lose for this."
"No, you don't have to do that, let's just say that this is an investment in the future." Tsume informed Naruto. Part of it was true, because if Naruto did become Hokage one day, or a high-rank ninja, it would be good to have him indebted to them. But that wasn't the only reason. She hated how people were treating him and how the Hokage was doing little to make things better for the boy. She couldn't tell him the truth, but at the very least she could help Naruto whenever possible.
"If you are sure, I don't want to create problems for you and your Clan with the rest of the villagers." Naruto said, somewhat apprehensive.
"You don't have to worry about them," Tsume told the young blonde, "while we're not as important as the Uchihas and the Hyūgas, our Clan is still important to this village. So you don't have to worry about them doing anything too bad to us." What she didn't tell Naruto was that most of her Clan were Hunter Nin, and thus they were often the ones tasked to track down any rogue ninja, either to capture or kill them. The Inuzuka Clan were mainly Hunter Nin because of their abilities and jutsu, making able to track people better than any other Hunter Nin. Thus, it would have been foolish to upset the Clan too badly.
"If you're sure, thank you Lady Inuzuka." Naruto thanked Tsume respectfully.
"Please, it's Tsume, none of this Lady staff, it just makes me feel old," Tsume laughed, "the only time I have people call me Lady is in official meetings, or for the people that piss me off or I don't like."
"Thank you Tsume, I thought I should thank you properly because you're doing a lot for me." Naruto said, smiling softly.
"No worries kid." Tsume said with a smile. "Now, if you could get out of your training outfit and give it to me so I can hand it over to my people."
"Sure, I'll do it now, is there somewhere I can change?" asked Naruto.
"Hana can show you to our changing rooms." Tsume informed Naruto.
"Changing rooms?" asked Naruto, "Why do you have changing rooms?"
"I don't know what you might have heard about what a vet is like, but I can tell you that it's not as calm as you think." explained Tsume. "It can be very messy and sometimes we have to take a shower at least once a day, if not more. Animals or no, this is still a hospital."
"I can vouch for that," Hana piped in, "a few times I had to clean the kennels more than once a day if the animals were ill, and each time I had to take a shower. Having a changing room helps a lot."
"I see," Naruto said, not sure what else he could say. "in that case please show me where to go and I'll give you my training outfit. The sooner that I can get a new set, the sooner I can continue my training."
And with that, Hana took Naruto to one of the male's changing rooms, where Naruto removed his training outfit. But as he turned to leave, he grabbed the doorknob, and pulled it right off. After she stopped laughing at his confused face, Hana explained that he was now using his full strength, since the outfit wasn't restricting it anymore. Naruto was shocked, he never really realized how strong he was.
Hana informed him that the outfit was doing it's best to keep his strength as low as possible, and because he'd never taken it off in his day to day life, he was unused to the (apparently massive) difference. So until he got his new training outfit, he should learn to control himself, lest he hurt someone on accident. Something that he really wanted to keep from happening. To be honest, he felt a bit stupid that he didn't think about it before now, but he would add it to his training.
Either way, once he left the outfit with Tsume, Naruto returned home to get changed and get some money to eat dinner at the Ramen Ichiraku. Since he started his training, he started to eat more healthy, eating ramen only on the weekends. During the week he would try and eat healthy foods, stealing money from people or breaking into homes to get food or money.
This helped with his pickpocketing and lockpicking skills, but the problem was that he could get unlucky and get caught and so he would have to run. When that happened, he would go to Ramen Ichiraku to get dinner, seeing that they were the only place that didn't overcharge for his food. But today was his birthday, so he would go there for dinner, a treat to himself.
When he got home though, he found that someone had stuffed a toad-shaped wallet under his door with a note saying happy birthday. By the looks of it, it was the same handwriting as the one that came with his orange outfit last year. To be honest, Naruto was thankful, he had been looking at the same wallet a while back, because he really needed one, but couldn't afford it. Either way though, he placed his money in his new wallet and went to Ramen Ichiraku for dinner.
To be Continued!
Author's Note:Here's the end of part one of Childhood's End, I hope that you enjoyed the chapter and you keep on reading.
Now I would like your help with something, I'm planning to have Naruto work on Tags, to expand on them so that they can do more. So with this, I would like your help, what ideas can you come up with to what Tags could do. I have got a few like paint like tags where it changed a person's clothings, sink like tags to make a person smell, sticking people down to their chairs, a tag that had the surface slippery. Now I have a story where I can get some ideas from: Naruto: Curse of the Ryugan by Thayerblue1 - which the writer is okay with me using them. But I want some other ideas too, so he'll have more tags to use in a fight. I hope you can help me here.