I don't own Naruto… this is just a story. Have fun.


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Chapter 3: To explore is to descover

Naruto continued to stay glued to his seat with the shock never leaving his face. 'How? How ca it be? How is the past so different?'. Questions crossed his mind over and over but still none could be answered right now.

The Hokage, on the other hand, was getting worried. Naruto was as white as bed sheets. "Naruto… are you alright? You look like you just saw a ghost…"

"It…it's nothing. Hehehe" He tried to calm himself but even that was hard at the moment. "I'm just worried that if I'm not careful, I could repeat academy year…"

The Hokage looked suspicious at Naruto. He suspected that something was up, but he decided to just shrug it off 'I don't think that anything bad has happened… his reaction certainly is shock.' "Hm… yes indeed. It would be embarrassing to repeat the academy, but it's not as bad as you think. You're only in first year, so you shouldn't worry for a while."

"Huh!!" This information seamed to have awoken something in Naruto. 'First year? If that is true then right now, in this timeline, I should be 8 years old. I still have a lot of time to prevent the future from happening.' Naruto returned with a smile quickly. "Oh! What a relief. I thought I was in trouble for a while." He smile relieved.

The Sandaime caught Naruto's reaction and for a while looked very suspicious but was relieved when the blond bounced back to his old self. He smiled warmly at Naruto, but then raised a eyebrow and a smirk "well don't let that get to your head, academy is very hard after all, so don't take this laying down, ok?"

"Hai!!" Naruto bounced back up to his seat and gave a salute to the Hokage.

"Okay, now I have work to do. So go outside and play or something and remember Monday is Academy. That is the day after tomorrow." The Hokage returned moving a finger back and forth to show his seriousness.

"Got it. Bye bye ji-san" Naruto left the Hokage office with a smile.

Hiruzen watched as the boy left and returned to the paperwork. 'Why do I have this feeling that things are about to change? It must be my old age catching up to me.'

-------with Naruto------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Naruto was walking down the street in deep thought. 'Okay, let's see I have been transported in the past but it's not the past I know. An event happened a long time ago that could have changed everything. I can't contact the Kyuubi because the seal is holding strong, I can't contact Jiraiya or Kakashi because I shouldn't know them yet. I am in the body of an 8 year old kid, it's the start of the first year of the academy, Akatsuki has not yet started to operate and I have four years to refine my powers before I start the real ninja life. Have I forgotten that most of the ninja in this world are women?' Naruto said with a blush thinking about how everyone he knew could be girls.

"AAAggghhh!! What the heck am I doing thinking such things!!?" Naruto scream in the street.

Everyone else turned to him with shocked expressions.

Naruto just looked at them and scratched the back of his head. "Ehehe. Sorry, I was just thinking about this problem I really had. Gomenosay!!!" He screamed as he ran a few blocks leaving a confused crowd looking his way.

Naruto caught his breath. 'Okay, the first thing I have to do is buy some ninja gear. I like orange and all but I need some real gear to train.'

For the next couple of hours he explored Konoha for a weapons shop. He found plenty but when he entered they either told him that they couldn't sell them to children or that they were closed, which was an obvious lie. 'Oh yeah... I should have seen this coming… the people right now still have a grudge on me… this is going to be harder then I thought.'

Finally he found a weapons store that let him buy some weapons. He was lucky that the person at the reception was a young woman. "Hello there, and welcome to the Takata weapons store."

"Hello, nee-san. I would like to buy some weapons, please."

The woman looked at Naruto with a raised eyebrow. "Oh? Are you sure you have the money? You know weapons are expensive…"

"Don't worry, I have that part covered."

"Well if you say so, go on." She said gesturing for the supplies.

For next two hours Naruto looked at the weapons and clothing and tried to size up what he really needed. He bought lots of kunai, shuuriken, a ninja pouch, explosive tags, ninja wire, ninja sandals, half a dozen t-shirts and 3 pairs of baggy ninja pants. "I think this is all for now."

The receptionist began to check in his gear when someone interrupted her. "Oi, oka-san, need some help."

Naruto turned his head at the voice and his eyes caught site of a brown haired girl with brown eyes, dressed in dark green ninja pants and a white shirt, she looked like he was his age.

"Sure, Tenten. Help me with the bags, this young man is buying quite a large cache here."

"Hai… ohayo, my name is Tenten, please to meet you!" she expressed with a smile.

"…o-ohayo, I'm Uzumaki Naruto." He returned nervously 'this is Tenten!? This is the weapon mistress of Konoha!? U don't know if whether to laugh or hug her. She looks so cute as a kid.'

"Are you in the academy?" the little girl asked.

"Yeah, I'm in my first year."

"Great! I'm in my second year; maybe we'll see each other!"

"Yeah maybe we will." The blond was a little nervous around her.

Finally the gear was set and Naruto was ready to leave. "Arigato. I'll see you around."

"Bye, have a safe journey and come again." The woman returned.

----------The next day, in a training field--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Naruto was dressed in a blue shirt and had short ninja pants. He brought his gear with him in a ninja pouch.

"Okay time to see how dull my body has become." He started doing normal exercises starting with runs to push ups, and swats, followed by some acrobatic maneuvers to release his muscles and flexibility.

"My body is not that bad, it will only take some time to get it in shape."

He started doing more complex maneuvers and taijutsu moves.

What he didn't know was that someone was following him from the forest in the trees.

After an hour of training he finished his body exercises and got out three targets and put them on three trees close to each other.

'Better start with the kunai' Naruto started throwing kunai at the target. At first it was a real disaster because the kunai would either miss the target completely or the kunai would hit the ground before it even reached the three. 'Dammit, I'm not familiarized with this body yet so I can't hit the target very well.'

After a succession of trials and errors, he finally caught the size of his power and knew how to throw the kunai. 'That's it! I finally have it.' Hit after hit the kunai got accurate and with a very small margin of error.

'That's it for kunai. It's time to get to the shuriken.' He pulled out a lot of shuriken and started throwing them one at the time. This time, however, he succeeded faster. One shuriken he could through and hit the target but when it came to three at once, it became much harder.

It was already past noon and he was still having problems. Finally the frustration almost broke him. "Damn it! What am I doing wrong?!!"

Naruto signed in defeat when a pleasant female voice caught his attention. "You need to hold the shuriken in your hand in such a way that they are in a horizontal position, then when you throw them, your full hand needs to be open…" Naruto turned to the voice that was coming from the targets.

Behind the trees a teenage girl stepped out and pulled the shuriken out of the three as she approached the blond. She had black hair and black eyes, she had two bangs of hair on either side of her face and her hair hanged freely to her mid back. She had small C-cup breasts and was taller then Naruto by two and a half feet.

Naruto was shocked by her sudden appearance. 'I didn't even sense her. My skills really have gotten rusty.' "Where did you come from and what do you mean!?"

"I train here, when I heard movements here and came to check it out. I've been watching you and I only wanted to give you some pointers." The girl returned with a kind smile.

"Oh yeah? If you're so smart, then you do it…" the blond challenged, annoyed that someone would just come out of the blue and give him the solution. 'What makes you so high and mighty?'

"Huh, don't mind if I do. HIIAAA!!" she threw the shuriken in her fingers at the target and all had stricken the dead center. "How was that?"

"Wow! That was great! Hey, hey show me how to do that!!" Naruto asked enthusiastically and pulled out his shuriken and placed them between his fingers.

"Ahaha!" She laughed at his funny change of tone. "Okay. The best way to hold them is like this…" She got behind him and bent down to his head and handled the shuriken in his hand.

Naruto, for his part, was nervous. This girl was pretty and she was helping him out. 'And her breasts are so close to my head...' He got red instantly. 'No, no, bad Naruto, bad Naruto. BAKA! What the hell are you thinking at a time like this!!?'

"Huh… what's wrong? You got very red all of a sudden."

"Oh it's nothing; it's just that it's really hot today." The blond tried to sink his nervousness and his blush.

The girl placed her right hand on his head and her left hand on hers. "Huh, you are a little hot. Maybe we should stop."

"NO, no. I mean, I'm alright. Please continue."

"…yosh. Now how I was saying, you hold them like this…" she showed his the proper order to hold the shuriken "… and then, when you throw them, you let go and separate your fingers as much as you can but horizontally. Got it?" She asked raising herself up.

"Hai." He pulled his right arm to his left shoulder and threw them as he was told. The shuriken cut the air and two hit the target but not the center while the other only cut the bark of the tree. "It worked. Not as well as you but a lot better then my last try."

"Well, with a little practice, you'll have it down. Then…" she said as she bent down and got another three shuriken between her fingers. "… you can improve it. HIahh!" she threw the shuriken and they hit all three targets.

"Wow, you're great, nee-chan. Maybe you could teach me to do that sometimes… miss…uh… I don't even know your name." he returned curiously.

"Oh, I am Itana Uchiha, nice to meet you." She smiled kindly and pushed her hand forward to shake hands.

"Naruto Uzumaki, nice to meet you too." He returned with a wide smile. 'Hum… Itana Uchiha… why does that sound familiar?'

"ONEee-san!" Their conversation was cut short when a girl Naruto's age that had the same black eyes, the same black hair but shorter, dressed in short white pants, with a dark blue shirt came running at Itana. "Where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you."

"I'm right here, talking to someone." Returned Itana looking at the little girl.

"You said, you'd teach me how to throw shuriken properly today. You always put me on hold." The little girl punted at her older sister, which to Naruto was funny.

"You know that I'm busy most of the time. Now come here, I want to introduce you to someone." She said making a sign for her to come closer.

The little girl did and Naruto got a better look at her. She was very cute and was as tall as him. Itana decided to make the introduction. "Naruto Uzumaki, this is my little sister, Sasuki. Sasuki, this is Naruto Uzumaki."

"Nice to meet you, Naruto-san." Sasuki said while shaking his hand.

"Nice to meet you too." The blond returned.

"Oh yeah! Dad said he wanted to talk to you, onee-chan." Sasuki returned to her older sister.

"Oh, really? We'll I'm almost done with my training. So we'll stay a little more and the leave back."

Sasuki signed exasperated. "Onee-chaan! You said you'd show me how to do the shuriken throw today."

Itana looked sadly at Sasuki then at Naruto and an idea popped into her head. "Oh, I got it. Why don't you ask Naruto. I saw him today training and I gave him some pointers. He'll show you want I saw him."

Sasuki looked sadly at her sister but then decided to cut her looses. "Fine."

Itana saw her sad eyes. "Cheer up, Naruto is almost your age. It's much more fun to train with someone your age."

Sasuki smiled at her sister and nodded.

Itana turned and left for a part of the woods and left Sasuki with Naruto.

The blond looked at her nervously, while Sasuki looked at him with wondering face, it made him question whether she really was paying attention. "Okay, let's see how you hold your shuriken." The girl pulled out her own shuriken and showed him.

"Okay, now throw it."

So she did and it hit the lower to the target hitting the bark.

"Well?" she asked.

"You were holding it too firmly, and when you let go, you have to let it glide in the direction that you want." He put his hand on hers and showed her how to do it.

"That's it?" she questioned.

"That's it. The shuriken and the air will do the rest." He finished with a smile.

Sasuke tried it and it did hit the target but not the center. She hummed sadly.

"It takes a little practice." He said seeing her performance.

"You do it." She ordered with a raised eyebrow.

"Sure." He took out a shuriken and threw it at the target, hitting it dead center.

"Wow, you're great!"

"It's nothing really." The boy smiled nervously.

"OKAY! I'll do my best. Huaahh!" She threw the shuriken with a lot of force but missed the target.

"Sasuki! It's time to…ohh" Itana chose her time to appear and dodged the shurken that hit the tree behind her just missing her head. "… you… seam… to have gotten better."

"Onee-chan! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Sasuki started to bow apologies at her sister.

"It's alright. You did a lot better then me when I tried my first shuriken." Itana returned trying to calm her sister.

"Eh? What happened nee-chan?" Sasuki asked now, more interested.

"I… I threw it… and it bounced off… hitting the academy window and breaking a few things…"

Naruto and Sasuki started laughing until it was finally over.

"Okay, okay, it's time to leave. Bye Naruto." Itana said.

"Yeah, bye Naruto, see you at the academy!" Sasuki waved her hand leaving.

"Bye bye."

Naruto stayed and tried to practice some basic ninjutsu like the substitution and the henge but it didn't get them right. 'I guess I need to learn how to control chakra all over again.'

He left, calling it a day and heading home.

---------Naruto's apartment---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After getting home, he took a shower and ate his dinner and went to bed.

His thoughts were on his day. 'Those girls were really nice. Itana and Sasuki.'

"Wait! Did she say Uchiha? I thought they were all dead."

"Slap" He palmed his face. "Of course not, idiot. It didn't happen it, it won't happen for another year or so. So those girls…" he face turned shock.

---------Flashback----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"That's right Naruto. It means that at this very moment kunoichi dominate the ninja world in numbers." He remembered Sarutobi saying those words.

---------End Flashback-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It suddenly started to come together, all the clues were right there, he just didn't see them. "It..It couldn't be… Itana is actually Itachi and Sasuki is actually Sasuke…" He started getting a shiver up his spine.

"And the main course is tomorrow… Tomorrow I get to see everyone else." He passed out in his pillow.

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TBC

That's it for this chapter. I hope you liked it, leave a review on your way out.