None of me owns Naruto, why do you ask?
Beated
Living two lives was... interesting. The young him didn't do much, he just kept a low profile back at the orphanage. It could have been worse.
But the first one was very busy. He had about ten bunshins running around at all times. Any more would have been too suspicious.
But he was still driven towards amassing knowledge. And he was now doing something about this thirst.
One thing was given, he needed to get a clone out of the village. And without it being noticed, too. Staying unnoticed was already hard enough, seeing as he was at the moment disguised as somebody who didn't even exist and all his clones were doing the same. Using the identity of Naruto was a no-go, since he would not start going to the ninja academy for several years yet and should know absolutely nothing about ninjutsu, ergo he couldn't use any jutsu at the moment. This proved to be quite hard as he subconsciously wanted to do kage bunshin every time he came across something he wanted to know about, but didn't have the time to do it.
Soon another permanent clone was made and getting out of town was surprisingly easy. Disguise yourself as a travelling merchant, get up early, mingle in the crowd of travellers before the gates open, one rudimentary check up for documents that should not leave the walls and you were gone. Planned and executed in one day. It was kind of strange, as one would assume that the village would be more weary of enemy shinobi. If he'd had some intel in his head, nobody would have known.
Travelling with a large group turned out to be a boon and a curse at the same time. The large group made living on the streets much easier and helped to keep up his anonymity, but the longer they spent together the more they got acquainted with each other.
It wasn't so bad for the first few days, but after some of the travellers had left the group, because they had different destinations, it became apparent that he could not stay with the first group until they reached the next big city.
If the group stayed the same size for several days, the people started talking to each other and got acquainted with each other. Which was very unfortunate for the clone, as he had no past. When he thought about it, he realized that this would be a major problem for them.
As he started to stand out for not telling others about him, not even giving them a name, he realised that he had to leave the protection the group supplied, because they started to give him strange looks again. Everyone of him hated strange looks.
They had always given him strange looks, no matter what he remembered, and even though he knew that he had only started to exploring the village about two months ago, the memories felt several years old.
He really didn't want to receive any more strange looks.
They reminded him of the kyuubi.
Oh, right.
The kyuubi.
His bijuu.
Somewhere in Konoha, an unassuming looking girl nearly shrieked out loud with surprise.
Quickly regaining her bearings, she whispered,
"The kyuubi! I had-? I had... forgotten?"
"Hey."
Little Naruto wasn't moving.
"Oi!"
He wasn't answering.
"I'm talking to you!"
Wasn't reacting. At all.
"Idiot!"
A slow nod.
"Wha-?"
"Finally! I though you were dead for a moment."
A brown-haired girl was standing before him with her hands on her hips. She was maybe a year older than him.
"What do you want?" He inquired.
"I just wanted to tell you that your soup is getting cold and that everyone else is nearly done. No need to be so angry!" She huffed and walked away.
After looking around and realising that, yes, everyone else in the orphanage was nearly done eating, he decided to leave as well. He had already lost his appetite.
He really hated this place.
The Traveller panted as he was resting in a small clearing in the woods of Hi no Kuni.
After he realised that little fact about himself, he had panicked and more or less run away from the others. Some of him hoped that nobody would notice it, search for him or tell anyone in the next village about him.
That would not be good.
When he had found this little clearing, he made a quick bunshin to tell everyhim about his discovery.
Sitting down on the grass and resting his back against a tree, he tried to calm down and understand things. That is, until the city him decided to wait till the evening, so that they could think together via kage bunshins. Sounded reasonable. Of course it was reasonable... It was himself who had thought of it, after all.
"Right, it's me after all, not another person. Just another myself. I'm sure he wouldn't do anything unreasonable."
Of course he couldn't. After all, he was nothing more than a clone with a purpose. A replaceable clone, for his knowledge would be transferred to the others upon his death, so not even his demise would be a problem.
He knew that, but it wasn't a problem. He was only created to get them outside of Konoha, somewhere without so many shinobi crawling around.
Something he might as well do, before they decided about what to do with the kyuubi. But to accomplish this, he needed to get to another city. And he was deep in the woods at the moment, without any orientation, after running in mild panic for about one and a half hours.
Meaning he had no clue where to next city was.
"Well damn."
Luckily, a chakra construct did not need to eat or drink, and did not get exhausted in the normal meaning of the word. And while he was not a mere chakra construct, shadow clones were exactly that.
Which led to the fact the he had found a road with the help of one of his scout clones and was currently travelling along it. And it only took him three hours to find this one with the help of twenty bunshins. Meaning it had only been roughly eight hours since his last meal, and while he was not comfortable with that it did not pose any danger to him.
While he was walking along the road, hopefully away from Konoha and not towards it, the clone noticed that the sun was already quite low, meaning he should search for a place to endure the night. He had some basic camping equipment on him, but nothing like a tent or something similar.
What the clone, or the clones in general did not know was the fact that they shared the same luck as their original. And this luck manifested itself after another two hours in form of some lights at the horizon, which prompted the travelling clone to not stop and search for a spot to sleep, but to continue walking in hope of getting to the city before nightfall.
When he received an influx of memory about a mile before entering the city, the clone was surprised quite a bit, since it wasn't totally dark yet for him, but the memory showed him the black sky over Konoha. It seemed that he had travelled farther then he had anticipated as his was definitely not some small town in the vicinity of Konoha.
The shared information calmed his mind though, since apparently things were a lot less complex than he imagined.
First, only the Naruto original had a seal on his stomach when channelling chakra. After checking himself, the clone confirmed this and was glad of it. Accidentally splitting the fox chakra into several portions and bodies would not be a good thing. While maybe not apocalyptic it would have made things much more annoying. And since they all had the feeling that possessing the kyuubi was somehow a danger for the person in question, they decided that it should remain in the most secure environment, which would be the orphanage of Konoha.
Secondly, knowledge over his tenant explained a lot of things the city clone had heard from the civilians, and provided a reason for the distaste the guardians at the orphanage had for him.
They panicked a bit when they remembered some civilians ranting about the demon having taken him over, but they decided that they did not feel possessed, and before more evidence showed itself about the fox taking over, he would disregard it as some mad raving of a drunken man.
While strolling through the gates of the city, the clone decided that is was pretty meaningless for him, the kyuubi would be the problem of the other hims.
His problem was getting a place to stay. It should not provide that much of a problem, as he had some money for food and stuff for several days, but a place to spend that money was still required.
Once again, his luck led him to an inn in the city core.
After getting a room for the night, he decided to get some food at the bar on the first floor. This proved to be a far better decision than could have imagined, as he overheard a very interesting conversation between two merchants.
"Have you heard? The iron imports are going to be more expensive, since those samurai want to hinder the growth of the shinobi forces. But the thing is, that was apparently decided weeks ago. I only heard about it from a caravan this morning."
"Again? Man what a pain, I gave out a large order for steel just yesterday, and now the prices need to be adjusted all over! I would pay for faster information."
"What about the messenger birds?"
"Do you know how much they cost? And how many I would need to get all the info I need? I ship goods all over the elemental nations, for god's sake, I would need one bird for every major decision with an impact on trading from all those countries! And even then some news would take a few days to arrive. And the fucking paperwork is not helping at all. Do you know how annoying it is to receive news from your caravans that some daimyo or another suddenly decided to double the fines for passing the border?"
The other merchant gave his friend an understanding look.
"Yeah, I know. We traders all know. It's annoying as hell. But what can we do about it?", he sighed. "Let's just get another drink, and hope it still costs as much as the first ones."
They were right, they couldn't do anything about it. But a certain unassuming individual just got a great idea.
Information trading. He could totally do that. He just needed to get a clone or two in every major city, then he would be able to get news and rumours around in an instant. And then he could charge the people for it.
And of course, it provided the perfect opportunity for him to gain more knowledge. If he did it right, some clones might even become apprentices in the right places to get insider knowledge.
This night, three apparently totally unrelated people were unable to sleep because they were far too excited.
They did not know it, but this night the Bristling Leaves were born.
A few months later:
Hearing the sound of his door opening, the businessman looked up from a scroll.
"Hello, what can I do for you?" He asked automatically, showing that he had said this sentence far too often already, since he finished speaking even before his guest even stepped into view.
It looked like a traveller, since this otherwise uninteresting guy wore some really good boots which looked like they were used a lot.
"You are buying rice from Kusa, aren't you?" The traveller asked.
"Yes I do, why do you ask? You don't really look like a buyer to me." Correction, he didn't look like someone who was worth his time.
"Actually, I want to sell you something."
"And what would that be?" The businessmen was getting annoyed. What a waste of time.
"Hmm, say, have you heard news from Kusa lately?"
"You mean those local uproars? That's old news. Now what do you want?"
"No, no, no. I have more recent news, news that could cost you a lot of money."
"And I guess you want money for telling me? How do I know you're not making whatever news you have up?
"Do I really look so untrustworthy? But anyways, I don't even want much money for this. But you understand that I need to be paid before telling you, don't you?"
"Of course... Okay, I want those news. How much?"
He raised an eyebrow after hearing the amount.
"Well that really isn't that much. I think I actually have the right amount on me right now." He searched his pockets for a moment before paying.
"Now tell, time is money and stuffs, you know."
"Thanks. So... Well, it's good you know about those local uproars already, that makes things easier. Because those uproars got out of hand, the government decided to do something about it and sent some shinobi to settle things. And they settled it brutally. But the important thing is this. Apparently, those rebels managed to get the help of some missing nin, and before anyone knew it, those guys started throwing those explosive notes or whatever around! Took the shinobi three days to get all those guys, and now a huge chunk of the rice fields in the east of the country are more or less craters. The farmers say two thirds of the harvest is ruined."
The businessman paled. That was the region he normally bought his rice from. That was a disaster.
"When did that happen? Such news travel fast in the trading community"
The man grinned.
"Last night."
"What! How could you know this? Do you know how long news from Kusa need till they arrive here in Kaminari no Kuni (Land of Lightning)? This is ridiculous! Where did you hear this?"
"That. Is my problem. But let me assure you that this information is valid." The man turned around and walked towards the door.
"I hope it helps you."
"Wait! If this is really genuine... If this actually happened just last night, then it would be a huge favour for me if nobody else knows of this yet. Let's say I give you thrice the original sum, would you keep quiet about this?"
To his surprise, the man started to laugh.
"Hahahahaha, do you really think I work alone?"
The businessman winced. Of course! This man had to be a member of some part of group to know something like this so fast and that meant that this group wanted to sell this information to many different merchants, and therefore would lose quite a bit of cash if they didn't sell this to anyone else.
"Two days."
The man from Kaminari looked up in surprise.
"If you give me thrice the original amount, we won't give this information to anyone else for today, tomorrow and the day after that. But you better get the best alternative deals till then, because after that this information is once again available for everyone with enough cash."
"Okay! That's better than nothing, I should be able to get some good deals before that."
The messenger turned around again.
"One more thing please!"
"Yes?"
"How can I contact your group?"
"You know that pub with the blue walls? Go there around 9:45 pm and buy some of the local sake. Someone will recognize you."
"How do I know its one of your group?"
"He will give you a piece of paper with a number on it. The number will be the same as what you paid me before it got tripled. Got it?"
"Yes, thank you. You gave me a good opportunity."
The man vanished through the door.
And was never seen again. Well, at least not in that form.
Final-fucking-ly!
Damn this took longer than I thought it would... some of this chapter has been laying around for over a month.
So anyways... Next chapter should be the last before we get to events of the canon, and it will be told from many different perspectives. And if I am lucky, I might get to introduce the horror that SHOULD be part of this sooner or later. Whatever.