Wassup? JAYSEN here with the next chapter of HSD Naruto. Naruto's pretty much settled into his new home and will now begin his tort...training with the masters. His life was getting shittier and shittier until he nearly hit rock bottom in his own sensei abandoning him. Now, in the span of a couple of days, his life made a miraculous turn around with finding out that he had family, who took him in, his Godfather is none other than one of the Densetsu no Sannin himself, Jiraiya the Toad Sage, and learning that he has not one, but TWO very cute fiancees and that they already liked him.
Now...
READ THE F%$ING FIC!
THE NEXT MORNING, RYOZANPAKU COMPOUND
It was barely four in the morning when Naruto recieved a tap on his shoulder. "Mmmn...Miu-neechan, that you?" He asked sleepily as he faced the person to did the tapping, only to find the wiry moustache man from the night before was in his face.
"GET UP." Was Akisame's command, light seemingly coming from his eyes making him think it was a Genjutsu.
"AHHHHHH! WHAT THE HELL?" Naruto exclaimed, grabbing his clock to check the time as it was still dark.
"FOUR IN THE MORNING? WHAT'D YOU WAKE ME FOR?" He yelled.
"Because, it's morning." Was the moustached man's simple reply, pointing to his window.
Naruto looked outside of his window to see a crudely drawn picture of a sunrise with a few cows in the distance, held up by a pair of bandaged bronze hands. Naruto looked down at the holder of the picture who smiled back up at him. "Apachai-san?" The short blonde exclaimed.
"Apa! Ohayo, Naruto-chan! Now you can play with Apachai!" The Muay Thai master cheered merrily as he hopped down from his perch.
'What kind of nuthouse did I wind up in?' He thought incredulously as he was hurried through the process of getting ready for his first day of training. As he reached for his signature jumpsuit, Akisame's hand stopped him.
"No. You won't be wearing that eyesore anymore. Here. Put this on." The moustached man told him, handing him a dojo gi. The gi was a simple white and came with white pants that were tied off with a white belt. They were actually a much better fit for him than his jumpsuit, which was baggy on him and way too big for his slight frame. To be brutally honest, he never liked wearing it in the first place, but it was all he could afford.
The Jiujitsu master took in his new student's body type and build with a frown. There were tell tale signs of malnutrition and many near healed scars on his body that he believed Naruto wore the jumpsuit to cover up. It was a miracle that Naruto had such supple muscle mass for his thin frame.
'Hmm...The potential IS there. Let's test him out.' He reasoned as he brought Naruto down to the dojo. On the way down, he was instructed to make several Kage Bunshin and send them to the Hokage's office, where they would meet with Jiraiya for Ninjutsu and control training. The boy did as he was told, creating twenty clones.
"Alright. You guys heard the man! Get on over to the Old Man's office and see Kyoufu! And no stopping for ramen, either!" He ordered the clones, who all rogered up in unison before taking off in a mini-stampede.
Upon reaching the dojo, he saw the rest of the sensei sitting off to the side, with his granduncle with them and his cousin in a gi top and spandex shorts standing in the middle. "Eh? What's going on, nee-chan?" He asked them confused.
Shigure had a lot of trouble controlling herself from telling Naruto everything and snatching him up, but she kept herself in check. 'This will only help him and make him stronger. I WILL help you get stronger, Otouto-kun. This much I promise you.' She swore to herself.
Hayato cleared his throat to get things started. "Naruto, this is to determine where you stand as of right now and what we should teach you. Miu will be you opponent. Do not be afraid to attacking her, but be prepared to fight as if your life depended on it." The elder told him seriously as he signalled the beginning of the match.
"Uh, wha?" Was all he had time to say before Miu launched herself at him with blinding speed.
Naruto hastily dodged her opening blow, which was a roundhouse kick to his head but left himself open for her follow up. She caught him full in the face with a full knuckle punch and launched him back into the dojo wall. He recovered in mid-flight, stopping himself with the wall and using that to launch back into the fight. Naruto WAS quick and had decent raw power, no doubts about that, but he had no style at all, more like he was fighting on instinct alone. That was a fatal flaw that his sensei should have spotted and corrected, but either failed to do so, or completely ignored the problem.
However, since he had no set style or discipline, he was essentially a blank slate to work with. That would make teaching him anything new that much easier to do, along with his natural curiosity and tenacity. All that, added together with his jaw-dropping stamina and his borderline regenerative healing and recovery, he was the perfect student for their...extreme teaching style, meaning he'd have a good chance of actually surviving the training. The senseis were nearly drooling at that aspect and thinking maybe that dumb fox was actually useful for once in the boy's life.
Back to the fight, Naruto was getting smacked around quite soundly by the much faster and more skilled Miu. The blond girl didn't really give him much breathing room to set up many counters and the ones he did get off, were wild and ineffective. She got the same vibe as the sensei's about Naruto's training, or lack there of. 'It's like his training was completely neglected. The way he punches and kicks are all wrong. His balance is way off and he flounders for what to do next. However, his reflexes are lightning fast and his attacks pack a wallop when they are performed properly, not to mention the fact that he's naturally extremely agile and flexible, kind of like me. He has a lot of work ahead of him, but I have faith in him. He IS a member my family, after all.' She thought with a sigh.
The fight rolled on for another few minutes until Naruto dodged a punch and found an opening. Not wanting to waste it, he reached out to grapple with her, only to get a handful of her breasts in his hands. She stopped immeadiately, as did he. But before she could even move or think Naruto lept away to the opposite side of the dojo like he had been burned and began to sputter out apologies profusely.
"I-i-i-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I won't ever touch you again, I swear! Don't hit me Sakura-chan!" He cried out in habit. The usual course of action was that during the sparing sessions he was paired with Sakura, everytime he managed to get in a clean hit, she got really angry and beat him severely, calling him a filthy pervert for touching her. She did it so much that it became a conditioned reaction to accidentally touching almost any female.
Miu was at a total loss as to what happened. She wasn't going to hit him for that since this was a sparring session and contact was expected, even if what he did was a complete accident. From what she could gather, this was a conditioned reaction and from the name he blurted out, she knew who was responsible for doing such damage to his already fragile psyche. As she tried to get close to him and ask what was wrong, he scurried away from her in fear. Miu clenched her fists in rage and it was taking all of her self-control for going out an tracking the pink-haired bully down and making her pay dearly for nearly mentally and emotionally crippling one of the only two remaining members of her family that she had left. Swooping in quickly, she snatched the shorter blond into a tight embrace as she rocked him gently. Naruto tried to wriggle free and fight it, but Miu held firm.
"Shhh...It's okay, Naruto-kun. I'm not angry with you, so just try to settle down. It was only an accident." The young woman soothed the boy as he stopped struggleing and got himself back to normal. As he calmed himself, she gently let him go, Naruto standing up slowly.
"T-Thanks, Onee-chan. I needed that." He sniffled lightly as he thanked her.
"It was no problem, Naruto-kun. You're my family and a family always helps each other." Miu told him with a radiant smile.
'Family...I like this...Having a family...' He thought as he was brought out of his musings by the concerned gazes of the masters.
The sensei were all crowded around him, pondering what to do with him. Naruto instinctually averted his gaze from them, ashamed for how poorly he performed. He knew that Miu could have taken him down in only a few moves, but he knew that she was dragging it out. However, he thought that she was just toying with him, like Sasuke and Kakashi always did in their spars. Screwing his eyes shut, he braced himself for either the laughter at his expense or the long ass chewing session that sometimes followed his spars with his team, from all three teammates.
"Hmmm...I think I know how to fix this." One of the senseis, Kensei, spoke up. "Naruto-chan, please follow me." The short Kenpo master asked of him.
Stunned, Naruto got up to follow. Once outside, Kensei leaned in close to him. "So, how was it?" The short man asked his equally short new pupil.
"How was what?" Naruto asked, totally confused.
"Miu-chan's breasts! Were they soft?" The short man asked in a pervy giggle as he pulled out an agonizingly familiar orange book.
"Wha? Hey! That's the same pervy book Kakashi always reads! Besides, I don't see Miu-neechan that way, Ero-sensei!" Naruto declared, pointing his finger at the short man.
"I may be a pervert, Naruto-chan, but at least I got you back to your old self again." Kensei told the fuming boy with a grin. 'This kid's going to be a blast to tease...'
The boy was stunned, to say the least. This guy went out of his way to help him and was even willing to be branded as a pervert to do so. 'I think I'm gonna like it here after all...'
"Gee, um, thanks...I guess." Naruto mumbled quietly, kicking a pebble that was at his feet sheepishly.
"Don't worry, gaki. How you reacted ain't your fault. Those bastards out there in the village did some real messed up shit to you, but we're gonna help you undo it every step of the way. But..." Sakaki stated as he and the other sensei walked out from the house. Shigure was careful to control herself, but inside she was screaming for the blood of a certain pink haired girl.
Akisame finished for him. "They always say, "You have to suffer for the cure", Naruto-kun." He told Naruto, the rest of the sensei sporting grins that were borderline sadistic that were making Naruto gulp loudly. Miu knew what that look meant and sent up a small prayer for him.
MEANWHILE...
On the outskirts of the village, one will find a small waterfall that feeds a stream to the north of the village near Hokage Mountain. It is here that we find the small horde that Naruto conjured up earlier that morning working on a chakra control exercise with Jiraiya. "Come on, kid. I know you can do this. Just concentrait." The white haired Sannin coached. After around a few more minutes of trying, Naruto's clones were getting the hang of the exercise.
"Hey, Kyoufu! We're doing it it!" The clones whooped in glee as they danced on top of the water's surface.
Jiraiya looked on with a smirk. 'That kid's got some crazy stamina, making all these Shadow Clones along with doing all that physical training with those Ryozanpaku guys. He'll really be something when he's grown. Minato, Kushina, you've got one amazing kid.' The Sannin chuckled to himself as he called the clones over to himself.
"Hey kid! Come over here and I'll show you another cool trick!" He shouted out to the clones whose faces all lit up at the thought of learning soemthing new.
The clones nearly stampeded their way over to their Godfather. "Oh boy! What's next?" One clone exclaimed.
He had to hand it to the kid, he had a hell of a learning curve if shown properly and patiently, along with the fact that he took to everything he was taught with fascination and wonder, just his father and even himself when they were Naruto's age. "Okay, kiddo. Step back and watch this!" He announced as he began to concentrait and spin chakra in his right hand until it looked like a mini-cyclone. Once it was ready Jiraiya thrust the spinning orb of chakra into a large boulder the orb eating its way through the tough rock like Chouji at an all you can eat buffet.
"RASENGAN!"
The clones all went slack-jawed with awe. One clone found it's voice to voice their opinion of what they just bore witness to.
"The was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life!" He cheered, the rest of the clones following suit. The Sannin was glad that it drew such a reaction from his godson, hoping to impress him somehow.
"Alright kid. Calm down, now. That was the Rasengan, a jutsu created by the Fourth Hokage himself. All it is is chakra shaping and manipulation, no hand seals to use, so that Uchiha kid or Kakashi can't copy it. I know that Kakashi tried to use the same principle for his Raikiri, but he still needs handseals, makes too much noise and takes too long to generate." He told the clones as he started to pass out water balloons to them.
"Uh, what are these for?" One of them asked.
"That it for learning the first step of the Rasengan, rotation. You need to be able to spin the chakra in various directions, like a cyclone. do this and burst the balloon to complete the first exercise." He told the clones as he went to the shade of a tree to stretch out, leaving the clones to pick the exercise apart and figure it out on their own. Occasionally, he'd hear one or more of the clones curse loudly as they kept at it. Finally, after two hours, he heard the clones begin to make a ruckus.
"Hot damn! I did it!"
"Nuh uh! Show us how!"
"Come on! Show us!"
Jiraiya opened up a bleary eye to see that the clones had indeed cracked the first stage, shredding the balloons and spreading the water inside. With a groan, the 50-year old stood up to his full height and ambled over to the cheering clones. He looked up at the sky to see that they were losing daylight fast, deciding that it was time to call it a day. "Oi, kid! Come over here for a minute."
"Eh? What's up, Kyoufu?" A clone asked.
"It's time to call it quits for the day, kid. Go ahead and dispel yourselves a few at a time." He instructed as the clones nodded and obeyed, poofing away in groups of four at a time.
After the last of the clones disappeared, the Toad Sage allowed himself a smirk. "Damn, that kid burned right through the first stage of the Rasengan training in a few hours. He's already hot on Minato's heels, even if that idiot Hatake didn't train him right. The kid's a natural just like Minato, but he's got spirit like Kushina. It's almost like they're still here..." He mused to himself as he resigned himself to the nearest bar before he headed out to the hot springs for his 'research'.
"Heh, heh...Research, here I come." The great pervert giggled as he went on his merry way with an extra spring in his step.
BACK AT RYOUZANPAKU
Inside the dojo of the compound, Naruto lay in a crumpled heap. "Man...This is rough..." He wheezed as he shakily stodd back up to face his sensei at the moment, Kensei. As he did this, he contemplated the day he'd had so far.
FLASHBACK
After he had calmed down from his small episode earlier, the masters began to iron out a training schedule for their newest student the same way they settled all their disputes, by a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Through this method, they decided that Akisame would start him off for the first two hours. Akisame and Kensei were the only two who had limited time, due to the fact that Kensei ran an Acupuncture clinic and His endurance and pain threshhold were already tremendous, so he started Naruto out on strength exercises. First, his task was to strengthen Naruto's core body, meaning his abdominal strength. For this, he suspended Naruto upside down over a fire, having him swing back and forth to avoid getting burned while Akisame himself fanned the flames.
"How do you like my training, Naruto-kun? I call it the Dance of the Frying Squid." He told his young student serenely.
"AAAHHH! ARE YOU NUTS? THIS HURTS LIKE HELL!" Naruto exclaimed loudly.
"Actually Naruto-kun, I am quite sane. This exercise with build up your core strength, enabling you to put much more power behind you attacks and building up on your already impressive chakra and endureance. I assure you that there is a method to our madness, as it were." Akisame instructed as he set Naruto back to work on his exercise. Somehow, his words didn't really do much to assure the vertically challanged blond.
After his first tort...Ahem, training session was over, it was decided that it was Apachai's turn to train him...or play depending on your point of view. The bronze skinned giant took this opportunity to introduce his new and first student to the beginnings of Muay Thai, his native fighting style from a small island nation to the southeast of the continenent they were on. Apachai slipped into the the basic stance.
"Apa! Naruto-chan, this is the stance for Muay Thai, Tan Guard Muay." He instructed the boy as Naruto copied his stance. Since he was right-handed, not left like Apachai, his left leg and fist were in front with his right in back, both hands up in a basic defensive posture. Apachai made small correction here and there until he was satisfied.
"Now, do what Apachai do!" The tall man chirped as he went through the basic movements and attacks of the style, which seemed oddly natural to the boy. For today, he was introduced to the basic punches of the style, or Chok. From there, Naruto was put in front of a training post to practice for the rest of his time.
'Huh...This guy's not so bad and I'm really getting into this style!' Naruto thought as he continued to work.
Unfortunately, Apachai was prone to getting bored easily and walked up to the training post next to his new student.
"APA!" He shouted as he kicked straight up, sending his log into low orbit.
Naruto, who was at Ground Zero for the training implement's impromptu launch, stood rooted to his spot in both awe and sheer terror.
'WHAT THE HELL IS THIS GUY?' He shouted in his mind, his voice and basic motor functions taking a small break and possibly running for their lives at this point.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Fire Country, where our two Teme's are currently training...
"Sasuke, activate your Sharingan for what I'm about to show you..." Kakashi instructed Emo Pants the Great, a.k.a Sasuke.
"What for?" He asked with disdain.
Kakashi didn't get the chance to answer as a large object was screaming down upon them, landing directly on Kakashi. Sasuke sweatdropped for a moment.
"Was that what was supposed to happen?" He asked in a bored tone as he inspected the object, which turned out to be a training post, but it was charred from re-entering the earth's atmoshere.
"Where the hell did this come from? No matter. Hey, Kakashi, get up and give me more jutsu." He told the broken form of his teacher, lightly prodding him with his foot.
Back at Ryouzanpaku, Apachai's time was up and the next person took over. This one was was more reluctant to train with the boy, stating that he "Didn't train brats."
This naturally put a bee under Naruto's bonnet as he stomped into the living area to fetch his reluctant sensei. "OI! Sakaki-sensei! Let's go!" He told the massive and scarred man.
"GO AWAY KID! I DON'T TRAIN BRATS!" He yelled, nearly tossing Naruto back with just the wind from his shout, but the blond was, if anything, stubborn as a mule.
"No way, pal! I need you to train me and I ain't goin' nowhere until you do!" Naruto declared as he sat down on the couch in Sakaki's room, crossing his arms and jutting his chin in defiance in true Naruto style.
Even though he was testing Naruto's legendary stubboness, he was still impressed with the boy. The mountain of a man started to chuckle lightly. It kept getting a little louder over the next minute, until full blown laughter erupted form the man.
"Ha ha! You've got guts, gaki! I think you and I are gonna get along juuuust fine!" He chortled as he stood up, leaving a confused blond in his wake.
"Oi, you comin' or what , gaki?" He called out to his student with a grin. After that, the two got started on the basics of Sakaki's martial art, Karate. Starting where Apachai did with his instruction, he began with the basic katas of the style and had Naruto work on his form, punching and kicking away on the same training post as before.
"Now, Karate is a martial art that is meant to enable an unarmed person to fight an armed person on equal grounds. Most of your strength will be coming from your Core body and your hips." He
Sakaki said he had to go get something and had Naruto continue until he returned, but Naruto was so engrossed in what he was doing, that he zoned out. Sakaki came back with an iron girder and slammed it into the ground next to his student's dummy.
"Well, I might as well get in some light practice, eh gaki?" He joked with his student, who stopped punching to gawk at what was about to happen.
"CHESSU!" Sakaki roared as his fist slammed into the metal, METAL, construction item, warping the girder with his first hit and continuing to go to town with a series of blows so rapid, he couldn't even see them until he stopped, leaving the girder distorted beyond all recognition.
"That was one of the coolest things I've ever seen..." He muttered in awe as his time limit ran out.
Next on the list was Shigure. She was especially reluctant about training since her methods were rather rough, but remembered that Kushina trained her in a similar method and Naruto healed like nobody's business. Her first exercise was an accuracy drill with his thrown weapons, with her constantly taking pot shots at him to distracct him.
"Owww! Hey, watch it!" Naruto yelped after a kunai grazed his face.
"Naruto-kun. This...is for your own...good." She told him in her usual monotone voice as she flung more sharp and pointy objects at her pusedo little brother.
After a target practice seesion that left Naruto feeling like the target, she pulled out a wooden Bokken and threw it to him. "Ne...What's this for?" He asked, slightly afraid of what the answer might be.
His fears were unwarranted, this time, as she began to explain. "I wish...to teach you how to...use a sword. Engarde..." She told him as she lunged for him with her bokken at blinding speeds. Acting out of desperation, he slashed at her with the training blade, only to miss, letting her get behind him and swat him on his ass with her training sword, hard.
Naruto nearly jumped out of his skin while the pain in his scrawny ass subsided. "Let that...be a lesson to you...Naruto-kun." She told him as she began to tutor him about the basic parts of the sword and in the basic movements of the sword, such as the Six Cuts and the eight different critical hit spots on a person. The last hour was dedicated to these two things until we finally, we come to our last instuctor of the day, Kensei.
"Ne, Ero-sensei, what style do you use?" Naruto asked curiously.
To answer that question, Kensei led him over to a small creek that was near the bath house. A passerby, a painfully familiar passerby with blond hair that used to be long and a big mouth (*COUGH* INO!), just happened to be passing by.
"What's that idiot Naruto doing with that old guy?" She wondered as her curiosity got the better of her.
Kensei noticed her, but smirked to himself, turning his attention back to Naruto. "Well, Naruto-chan. I am known as a master of all forms of Kung Fu and Kenpo. Even the Hyuuga Jyuuken and the Goken that your friend Lee uses have their origins in my arts, so I can teach you how to fight a Hyuuga without getting shut down."
Naruto nearly had stars in his eyes. "Whoa...That's neat!" He exclaimed.
"If you will allow me, I will demonstrate a technique from one of the styles I shall be teaching you, Hakkyoukuken." He told the star-struck boy as he calmly walked over to the water's edge and placed a palm just over the water's surface.
He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "HAAA!" He grunted as the surface of the water seemed to explode around his palm thrust. The most amazing thing about it was that his palm never touched the water, it was the sheer force of the blow that caused the water to seemingly detonate like someone ignited an exploding tag.
'What the hell was that? That old man's training that doofus Naruto? I gotta ask forehead about this!' She thought as she comtinued to watch.
"What the hell was that, Ero-sensei? That was freakin' awesome!" Naruto cheered.
"That was just a basic palm thrust, but the purpose of this demonstration was to show you the aim of this art, to achieve maximum effect with minimal watsed movement. I think it will help you with your concentraition and patience, my boy." The short master told Naruto honestly and seriously.
"Cool! It doesn't even matter that Kakashi-teme abandoned me anymore! I'm learning way more from you guys in one day than he taught me in months!" Naruto cheered.
"I agree, Naruto-chan. Hatake was certainly a poor example of a teacher. Abandoning a student is one of the worse sins a sensei can commit against their student. Now come, we have much to cover within the two hours we've been alloted." He told his pupil, guiding him inside.
Ino, who was watching the whole thing, left quickly to tell Sakura the juicy gossip that she just found. Even if they were rivals, she still traded gossip with her ex-best friend.
FLASHBACK END
Naruto was snapped out of his reminising about his day when he heard Miu call out that dinner was ready. When the world came back into focus, he found the fist of his sensei millimeters from his face. At the mention of food, Kensei pulled a complete one-eighty from serious sensei to a chow hound in under a second. Just as Naruto was about to head inside to eat dinner, the clones he had sent with Jiraiya had dispersed, their memories hitting him like one of Sakura's punches. He staggered as the knowledge flowed into him, causing Miu to worry.
"Naru-chan, are you okay?" She asked in worry as she supported the staggering boy.
"Y-yeah...I'm okay, Miu-neechan." He told her as he steadied himself to enter the dining hall.
Dinner was in and of itself an adventure. He was seated inbetween the two most notorious food theives in the house, Kensei and Apachai. No sooner than the food was set before him the two swooped in on his rice bowl, but Naruto had been dealing with the likes of them his whole life, so he leaned back slightly to aviod them and nearly gulped down the rice in one fell swoop. Hayato and the rest saw this and were happy that he wasn't the type to let his guard down easily, but knew that the life that he'd lived thus far was responsible for this.
"Mmmm! That was good rice, Onee-chan!" Naruto called out merrily as he held out his bowl for seconds.
The other two sensei spared a grin for the foxy-eyed blond between them. It had been quite a while since their meal times had become fun and even longer since Shigure had actually joined them for supper. Now here she was, sitting amongst them with her pet mouse Touchumaru perched atop her shoulder, eating and actually smiling slightly. Hayato knew then and there that having Naruto live with them from now on was a wonderful idea. It was bringing everyone closer together and making them much happier. Miu was smiling much more now since she now had something of a little brother to care for and to dote on. Sakaki was a little happier with having the ballsy blond around, it was like having a nephew for him. Kensei saw much of himself in Naruto's carefree and jolly nature while Apachai was happy to have a playmate again since the nice man in the spandex became too busy to spar with him, having his own students to teach. Now, they were a family.
MEANWHILE, AT THE YAMANAKA FLOWER SHOP...
Ino had called Sakura over to her family's flower shop to dish out the dirt on what her idiotic teammate was up to this time.
"What is it, Ino-pig? I have better things I could be doing, like winning Sasuke-kun's heart." Sakura told her rival pointedly.
Ino scoffed. "Yeah right, just keep telling yourself that, forehead. Anyway, I saw something wierd today and it revovled around your teammate."
"What? Quit stalking Sasuke-kun, Pig!" Sakura screeched.
"Who said that I was talking about Sasuke-kun? I meant Naruto." Ino amended.
"Why should I care about that idiot?"
'Ouch...That was a little too harsh, forehead. I don't even treat my teammates like that.' Ino thought as she told Sakura everything she overheard.
After hearing everything, Sakura just scoffed. "So what? That little idiot will just lose to Neji, anyway. I'm not surprized that Kakashi-sensei kicked him to the curb since Sasuke-kun deserved the training more anyway. He'd be better off if Neji just beat him up so badly, that he gets kicked off of our team! We never wanted him there, anyway."
Ino couldn't believe that he ex-best friend was so heartless. 'Sakura, how could you be so cruel? Even if Naruto is a little annoying sometimes, he doesn't deserve that from you.' She thought.
"Sakura...I...I think you should leave now." Ino told her in an even, yet firm tone. Her father instilled into her the fact that every Konoha shinobi is her comerade and deserves that much respect, at least. Naruto had earned his place in the finals and Ino was beginning to see that the dead last wasn't as such anymore, especially with what she heard earlier that day form the strange old man and Naruto himself. Ino's thoughts carried her back to a conversation she had with her father upon the first time she met her fellow blond.
FLASHBACK
A six year old Ino came bounding into the shop that her family owned from the first day of her fourth year at the Academy. "Daddy! I'm home!" She yelled into the shop.
A tall man with a long, sandy blond ponytail stepped out. "Hello there, princess! How was your first day?" He asked her, his wife, Yuki, stepping up behind him.
"It was kinda boring. Iruka-sensei just talked all day long, but we have a new kid in our class!" She told them.
A new kid? Inoichi's ears perked up at this. "Oh really? What's his name?"
"It sounds kinda funny, Uzumaki Naruto." She answered.
Her parents both went rigid, then relaxed. "Are you sure, dear?" Her mother asked,
"Yeah, but the teachers were pretty mean to him. They always sent him out of the classroom and yelled at him, even when he didn't do anything wrong." She told her parents, who were having their own little discussion. She could pick out words like "Needless hate" and "Poor boy", but couldn't tell what they were talking about.
"Ino-chan, you should try to be his friend. He sounds like he needs one pretty badly." Yuki told her daughter.
"But...why is everyone so mean to him?" She asked innocently.
"I can't tell you that, but please, be nice to him. His life's been hard enough." Her father nearly pleaded. Ino had never seen her father like that before.
"O-okay." She agreed.
The next few days, she spend watching how he was treated, but got sucked into what the main crowd was thinking, like most children do and began to mistreat him, as well.
FLASHBACK END
Ino was shaken out of her thoughts by Sakura, who was trying to get her attention. "Hey pig! Why should I go home? Don't tell me you actually fell sorry for that loser?" The pinkette jeered.
"Just...leave." Ino told her firmly, pointing for the door.
"Fine then. I'll just tell Sasuke-kun that you aren't devoted to him anymore, pig!" She yelled from down the street.
Ino didn't even have the mind to argue back. 'Is this what I've become? Some shallow girl that would wish harm on a comrade just because they aren't Sasuke-kun?' She asked herself as she flipped the business sign to closed for the evening.
Sakura was stomping down the street in a huff over all that she learned. "That baka, Naruto! Who does he think he is, getting training from someone like that and not Sasuke-kun? I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind!" Pink-zilla ranted as she stomped down toward Ryouzanpaku, her blond target etched firmly in her crosshairs.
A/N: Third chapter done and over with. Tort...ahem...Training begins for Naruto as the masters start to teach our blond knucklehead their styles. Jiraiya has begun to teach Naruto the Rasengan for now due to the fact that the clones don't have blood to sign the Toad contract with. He has also been shown the Kage Bunshin training method in order to speed up the rate at which he'll learn, which was exceptional already. He has also gotten to know the masters a little better and learn their quirks.
Also, Ino and Sakura now know somewhat of what Naruto's been up to in the past few days and Sakura's not happy at all with the knowledge that this training might help Naruto upstage Sasuke in her mind, and she won't have that, will she? Ino, however, had an apiphany about how she's treated people in the past, particularly Naruto. She may just be a little more understanding toward him in the future with this new revelation, as well as her teammates.
What'll happen to the pinkette once she enters the den of lions that is Ryouzanpaku, especially since the two resident females there would love nothing but to skin her alive? What'll happen when Hinata and Raichi see her again? When will Orochi-pedo go straight and Sasuke stop being emo? Don't really know, but finding out will promise to be a hell of a good time!
Now...
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