Konoha: Four Years, Ten Months, Thirteen Days ago:
Naruto was excited, tomorrow was his first day at the academy and this morning Jiraiya had decided that Naruto was ready for the "secret" skill that would help Naruto train while he was at school. "Okay Naruto, let's try one more time before bed, you almost got it the last time." Unfortunately, it looked like he sucked at it.
"But I thought it was a cool jutsu! I suck at clones!"
"How much chakra are you putting into it?" Jiraiya had figured that Naruto's overabundance of Chakra would make learning this jutsu easy.
"As little as I can, just like with the normal Bunshin, why?"
"Because, if you were paying any attention, you'd have realized that I said this was a chakra intensive Jutsu. Go ahead and use as much chakra as you want." Jiraiya expected that Naruto could pull off three or four clones at a time so telling him to go all out wouldn't cause a problem. Boy was he wrong.
"KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"
Road to Konoha Present Day:
"Wait just a second Jiraiya! You taught a seven year old the Kage Bunshin! Are you insane?" The fact that Tsunade had latched onto thispoint, instead of say the fact that the kid leveled a quarter mile of terrain by clapping, amused Jiraiya to no end.
"I never even got to the good part, Hime. Anyways, the kid has a crap load of chakra-the jutsu was practically made for him! Besides if you'd have let me finish you'd have seen that I was right," Jiraiya mumbled to himself, "too right really."
"Jiraiya-sama, how can one be too right?" Shizune had heard Jiraiya murmur to himself.
"Well if you'd let me continue telling the story…"
Konoha: Four Years, Ten Months, Thirteen Days ago:
"KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"There was a cloud of smoke and when it cleared the training ground was filled with copies of Naruto, packed shoulder to shoulder. By Jiraiya's rough calculation there was almost a thousand copies of the young blond.
Blinking in surprise Jiraiya said, "Well kid, you certainly have a lot of potential…"
Road to Konoha Present Day:
"Surely you're exaggerating, Jiraiya, a thousand?" Tsunade interrupted. "I mean, to be able to make that many clones and not die he'd have to have twicemuch chakra as you, and that shouldn't even be possible! What do you feed him?"
"No, I'm not. Three times actually. Apparently it is. Ramen, lots and lots of ramen-seriously the kid can eat three times my body weight in one sitting! Now stop interrupting me! You were doing so well before, it's hard to tell a story when you keep getting interrupted."
Konoha: Four Years, Ten Months, Thirteen Days ago:
"How do you feel kid? You just did something that not even the Hokage can do. Hell I couldn't make half as many clones as you did."
"Really? Once you told me to pump my chakra into it, it was easy! I'm not even that tired! Training with my eye is more tiring than this!"
"Dispel all of the clones but one, and I'll show you the secrets of this technique." After Naruto did as he was told, Jiraiya took the clone a distance away and hid behind a tree with him. Placing his hand on the Naruto-clone's shoulder, he said, "Naruto, you have the most potential of any ninja I've ever met. Your father would be proud of how much you've grown in such a short time, I certainly am." Then he punched the clone in the face, dispelling it instantly. Walking back to Naruto he asked, "So did you notice anyth-oof!" Naruto had tackled Jiraiya and was currently sobbing into his stomach.
After a few moments Naruto calmed down, "Did you really mean it ero-sensei?" (Naruto had finally found out what his sensei did when 'researching' things for his books and refused to call him anything without attaching 'ero' to it). Blinking as the end of the conversation nudged the joy Naruto felt at his sensei's pride, Naruto started to scowl, "Did you really have to punch me so hard?"
"Well, Naruto what do those two things tell you about this jutsu?" Jiraiya questioned Naruto, hoping that the blond would be able to put two and two together by himself for once.
"Err…that it only takes one hit to dispel a clone?" Seeing Jiraiya's expectant face Naruto scrunches his own up in his thinking pose. "Um…um… that when a clone dispels I learn what it did?" Jiraiya decided to let that sink in on its own and watch the fireworks. Suddenly Naruto's eyes went wide, "THAT'S SO COOL! TRAINING WILL BE SO EASY NOW!" Naruto was hopping around in circles doing his 'victory' dance. Still shouting Naruto continued, "I'M GOING TO HAVE SO MUCH FUN WITH THIS! THANK YOU ERO-SENSEI!" Naruto had returned to hugging Jiraiya around the middle again.
"Before you go to school tomorrow make, oh I don't know, 400 clones. I'm going to split them into four groups and have each group do something different. Now Shadow Clones can only transfer mentalprogress, so that means you still have to exercise. You can't make clones do it for you. In fact, I'm upping your physical exercises to four hours of exercise and two hours of sparring against your clones every day-you need more practice fighting superior numbers. On the bright side, 'muscle memory' is technically mental so you can learn new styles of Taijutsu, but you'll still need to get your actual body used to fighting with them. So the way I'm dividing up your clones is 100 for Taijutsu practice, 100 for Ninjutsu practice, 100 for fuinjutsu practice, and 100 for your nature transformation practice. It is the first step in being able to truly master a jutsu; at the moment Kakashi will help you with lightning and water, but wind users are really rare here in Konoha-I'm not sure the one that I know of, who still lives here at least, is interested in teaching you, so you might have to figure it out on your own, sorry. Now go to bed, it's late and you have your first day at the academy tomorrow."
Road to Konoha Present Day:
"You taught him nature transformation at seven? How many Jonin level techniques does he know?" Tsunade decided that she shouldn't be surprised by what Naruto had learned, or how fast he learned it.
"Yeah, it's actually part of a new teaching method I was experimenting with. First I teach a single elemental jutsu of the element that they have an affinity for. Then I drill it into them until they have it down perfect so that they have an understanding of what the element they're trying to master feels like. Then, I teach them pure nature transformation, then a couple of more advanced Ninjutsu, with a more complicated shape transformation, and when they master those, I teach them pure shape transformation." Jiraiya continued walking, letting Tsunade reach the inevitable conclusion by herself.
"You mean….you taught him Rasengan? Has he mastered it? Has he perfected it yet?"
Smirking Jiraiya replied, "Well, you'll just have to wait and see."
"I hate you sometimes, Jiraiya."
Konoha: Four Years, Ten Months, Twelve Days ago
Naruto was so excited he barely slept; as soon as his alarm rang he leapt out of bed and pulled on his trademark orange jumper."Do you really, have to wear that much orange, Kit?"
Ignoring Kurama, Naruto packed his stuff, and ran to Jiraiya's room. "Ero-sensei! It's time to wake up! C'mon! Wake up!" Grumbling, Jiraiya got out of bed and began to get dressed.
"Quiet down, Brat. You'll wake the whole damn neighborhood!" Still half asleep, Jiraiya staggered out of his room. "Meet me at Training Ground Zero. Make your clones and wait for me, I'll be there in a few minutes."
Naruto got there in two minutes flat. He made his clones separated them into four groups and began pacing the training ground, waiting for his sensei to show up. After five minutes he was planning on shouting at Jiraiya, after ten minutes of waiting he wanted to kill him instead.
"Sorry I'm late brat, I couldn't find your present."
Naruto immediately forgot his plans of vengeance, "Present?" He seemed to teleport across the training ground, stopping directly in front of Jiraiya, eyes shining like the sea. "Did you say present?" Naruto held his hands out expectantly.
"Sometimes I forget you're not even eight yet, brat." Placing a smallish rectangular box in Naruto's hands, he said, "Open it up, I'm sure you'll love it, it's very useful." Naruto opened the box; inside was a dark blue headband holding a pair of silver framed goggles. "Very useful things, goggles; keeps things out of your eyes, like wind, water, and dust. Plus you can wear them like a hitai-ate which is good practice for when you become a real ninja. And look here, see that? Touch that seal and it activates the built in telescopic lenses, neat, huh?" Seeing tears in Naruto's eyes, Jiraiya thought Naruto didn't like the present. "Sorry, if you don't like them I can return them and get…" Naruto cut him off and gave him a large hug, strapping them on as soon as he was done.
"Thanks, Jiji, it's the best present anyone ever gave me."
Giving Naruto's hair a friendly ruffle, he pushed Naruto's shoulder, "Get going. I'll get your clones started. You don't want to be late for your first day, do you?"
Smiling widely Naruto ran off, waving over his shoulder, "Bye ero-sensei! I'll see you after class today!"
Naruto made it to the academy with plenty of time to spare. In fact, he was one of the first to make it to the academy-there was a quiet girl with black-blue hair in the back, who was watching Naruto without him realizing it, a boy in a fur lined coat in the middle, who was currently asleep, and in the front there was a boy, whose dark hair looked like a duck had landed on his head, who was clearly brooding. Sitting in the window seat next to him Naruto said, "Lighten up duck-hair, it's the first day in the academy! You should be happy!"
"Hn."
"Come on! Smile! Aren't you happy?"
"Hn."
"I don't know about you, but I've been looking forwards to this day since I was four!"
"Hn."
"You know it's amazing how many uses for 'hn' you have. You're a wonderful conversationalist!"
"Go away, you orange freak."
Naruto pretended to fall off of his chair, "Kami! Don't scare me like that! I thought you were a mute. My name's Naruto! Uzumaki Naruto! I'm going to be Hokage one day, believe it! What's your name duck-hair?"
"Uchiha Sasuke."
"Uchiha…Uchiha…aren't you from the clan with the spinning eye thing? I heard your eyes can see chakra and use it to predict people's moves! Is that true? That sounds so cool. I wish my eye did something like that-it just makes things blow up most of the time…"
"Ignoring you won't work will it?"
"Nope! Jiraiya-ero-sensei says I'm the most stubborn person he has ever met!" In the back, the quite girl giggled.
"Fine. Yes, my clan possesses the Sharingan, and yes, it can see other people's chakra, but I don't know from personal experience, now go away."
"Naruto! Is that you?" a voice Naruto hadn't heard in almost a year called from the front classroom door. Looking up Naruto saw his old friends Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Choji. Shikamaru strolled over to Naruto, at what those who knew the lazy Nara would call a dead sprint, "Where were you for the last ten months! I haven't seen you since before your birthday!"
"Um…stuff happened on my birthday, I'll tell you the story later. It's complicated and we don't have time right now." Turning to Choji, Naruto blinked at his friend's new headwear. "Um…Choji… why are you wearing your underwear on your head?"
"What? I'm not! It's a bandana!" But Naruto wasn't paying attention anymore; the prettiest girl he had ever seen had just walked into the room. She had long pink hair and large jade green eyes. She was wearing a knee length, short sleeved red dress, slit up to the waist on one side, over dark green leggings that ended just below her knees. Naruto was in front of her before anyone could blink. "You're pretty, what's your name?" The quiet girl frowned at this; she had hoped the blond would notice her.
"You think I'm pretty?" the pink haired girl looked mildly surprised at this, "What about my forehead? It's huge!"
"Um," Naruto said turning his head sideways, "I didn't notice it."
"My name's Haruno Sakura, nice to meet you." Smiling Sakura held out her hand for Naruto to shake, 'He's not half bad,' Sakura thought. 'He's no Sasuke-kun, but at least he thinks I'm pretty.'
"Alright class, listen up!" called a new voice, which belonged to the tallish man with black hair, done up in a spiky ponytail, wearing the standard dark blue shinobi uniform, with the sleeves rolled up to mid-forearm, and a green, Chunin flak jacket. "I SAID LISTEN UP!" The noise level in the class dropped immediately. "My name is Umino Iruka! I'll be your Sensei for the next four years! This guy," He pointed to a similarly dressed ninja with silver hair covered by a bandana, "is Mizuki; he's the secondary instructor for this class. Class begins now."
Naruto was never so bored in his life. Iruka-sensei seemed nice enough, but his lectures on ninja history were boring and he knew everything Iruka had to say about Chakra theory. There were a few times he wanted to correct Iruka's take on chakra theory, but Naruto had realized that Iruka was dumbing it down for the kids who had never heard about it before. Finally the bell for lunch rang and Naruto ran off to buy himself lunch.
Heading to the outdoor eating area, Naruto saw Shikamaru and Choji and headed to sit with them, "Hey guy's what's up?"
"Nothing," said Shikamaru.
"OM NOM NOM." Choji was eating and unable to speak.
"Oh! Hey Sakura-chan!" Naruto say the pink haired girl walking in their general direction, waving her over he said, "Do you want to sit with us?"
"Sure, thank you Naruto-san."
"Just Naruto is fine Sakura-chan!"
"Hey Naruto, mind telling us why you went missing for almost a year?" Shikamaru asked, "We were worried."
"Well, I tried to find you on my birthday but a mob attacked me…"
"No way? Really?" Choji looked at Naruto with shock, "Why would a mob attack you?"
'A mob attacked him?' Sakura thought, 'Oh, no! He seemed so nice! Don't tell me he's the reason…'
"It's complicated, and technically a secret," Naruto said in-between mouthfuls of food.
"Well, what happened? Choji and I were looking all over the place for you for months! You could have told us where you were!"
"Sorr-AGCK!" Naruto had thought his food tasted a little funny but now he couldn't breathe.
"Naruto! What's wrong?" Choji asked of the gasping blond
"Kami! Someone get a nurse he's turning green!" Sakura shouted. Naruto had started foaming at the mouth.
Shikamaru noticed the slightly green tinged foam, "I think he's been poisoned!"
A/N I know I said Naru/Hina, and trust me I still plan on it, but he did have a crush on Sakura first, so wait a little while to start flaming me please.
A/N 2.0 Beta'd By TheCookieMonster77