Authors note: still looking for beta guys, mm not much to say this time since I don't want to give too much away, thanks for the kind reviews so far. apologies for slow update I'm just lazy like that :P btw it should be like 2 more chapters before the story really kicks off and hopefully these chapters will be slightly longer...
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
laying up against a small cherry blossom in near the stream in the uzumaki compound we find Naruto contently asleep he had been asleep for about 20 minute now and had recently slipped into a deep sleep, not intentionally of course but it happened none the less. Big mistake especially when your mother can be more of child then you at times. happy in dream land Naruto didn't notice his kaa-chan stood over him with a devious grin as she quickly blurred through some hand signs and calling out her jutsu name "Suiton: Teppōdama"(water release gunshot)kneading less than the usual chakra she spat out a bullet of water with next to no force hitting the sleeping child causing him to wake in a fit
"gahh … cold-cold, its cold" shivering and looking around he saw his childish mother looking down at him with the devious grin still plastered on her face. "what was that for ! I was napping" honestly it was meant to be him playing jokes and pranks on her not her doing it to him.
" oh you know pay back for making me do the dishes and all ,dattebane! "she lied
With a twitch mark above his eyebrows and hair shadowing his eyes he responded "NANI! You soaked me just for that! I'm gunna get you back for this just you wait"
"haha look at you face" she stuck up her hand in victory sign and watched his reaction before continuing" nope I woke you up because itashi-chan is here"
"Finally, she hasn't been around in ages dattebayo" he complained as he got up and dusted off his bum of dirt
"well she did graduate from the academy 3 months ago she's probably busy with gennin duty's" chastised the only redhead as she watched Naruto walk towards the house as he grunted in response ,before he walked through the door she suddenly appeared in front of him
"ehh kaa-chan why you blocking the door "he started" you said itashi chans here"
Standing there with her arms crossed she told him" yes she is but your all dirty from the spar and smell funny, you need to clean up"
"NANI its just itashi-chan she won't mind "he looked at himself" besides she's a ninja now it's not like its anything new to her"
Kushina sighed ,'urgh maybe Naruto but she's still a girl' with I sweet smile that promised pain if he answered wrong she said "Naruto that's no excuse ,so I suggest you climb through your window and wash up before coming back down"
"b-b-but kaa-chan you never taught me how to jump with chakra "replied Naruto with his shoulders slumped and head hung low
"ohh yeah, heheh I forget about that. Dattebane" retorted kushina while sheepishly rubbing the back of her head" well then no choice" she began going through hand signs again
Surprised Naruto asked" kaa-chan what are you-"he was cut off by his mother's shout
"Suiton: Teppōdama! "once again she fired a water bullet at her son, this time larger and a tad stronger ,just enough to knock him back a few feet" hmm there all clean" saying that she turned on her heel to go inside ignoring Narutos complaints and moaning about being soaked.
Getting over being soaked. Again, Naruto shook himself like a dog getting rid of some of the water before following after his kaa-chan. going into the house he walked through the halls and headed towards the living room where itashi usually waited for him when she came over. sliding open the door he walked in and was greeted almost instantly by itashi
"hello Naruto-kun, it's been a while eh?" she asked with calm voice that held a warmth and happiness to it that few got to hear, Naruto studied her and noticed she had changed since her last saw her, she stood at 4"9 with long black hair going past hair shoulders with 2 bangs framing her face, with 2 onyx black eyes ,a Pettit feminine nose, she had skin coloured lips, all in all her face was very natural and similar to a lot of Uchiha females. She was wearing a shot sleeve t shirt with high colour and black ninja pants tucked into bandages with black shinobi sandals, on each leg she had her ninja holsters and she had 2 pouches on her belt
"yeah ,it's no fair since you're a gennin we don't see each other anymore" he said while playfully pouting, he did miss her a lot but he understood that being a shinobi is hard work and very time consuming especially when you're a 6 year old prodigy.
"I guess so but that's only because you didn't become a ninja too , you're as strong as me so you could have become a ninja and been placed on a team with me" she told him as they moved to sit on one of the sofa's in the area ,she carefully picked those words as she was curious as to why he didn't become a shinobi as he was as much of a prodigy is she was.
"spose so but I don't want to be a shinobi of the leaf, I want to fight for people precious to me" sounding a little distraught he continued" and the people of this village hate me ,I don't want to fight for them". itashi nodded in understanding after all her father had tried countless times to stop her being friends with Naruto by telling her all about the demon he contains, it never really bothered her as she knew Naruto want a monster no matter what he contained, she often wondered if Naruto knew about it or not but she figured if he didn't it wasn't her place to tell him, something this big would need to be told by someone like his mother
"I guess that's a good enough reason then, but on the bright side you get all that extra time to train" she pointed out
Cheering up again and nodding he replied"yep kaa-chan keeps me training taijutsu she's even going to teach me kenjutsu now dattebayo! But she says I can't learn anything chakra based yet, something about it will just get messed up from our bloodline later or something"
Itashi wondered what Naruto meant by bloodline since as far as she knew Naruto didn't have a Kekkei genkai; she figured it must be to do with his large chakra reserves though as her mother had often told her that the uzumaki had incredible chakra reserves
"don't sweat it Naruto-kun at least this was you will be proficient in each form before moving on ,I don't know any ninjustu either apart from the fireball technique "she started "tou-san says that there's no point in teaching me jutsu since the sharingan can copy them when its awoken"
"wow that's so cool! I wish I could do that too" Naruto tilted his head to the side after saying that as he started daydreaming about copying awesome kickass jutsu.
Itashi giggled a bit at Narutos antics before cursing herself at letting her emotionless façade slip so much "Naruto!" no response" hey Naruto!" she tried again, having no look she walked over to him and sat next to him before lifting her finger and middle finger up and poking him in the head causing him to fall back into the chair.
"Hey itashi-chan what was that for!?"Grumbled Naruto while rubbing his forehead
Crossing her arms at the boy she said"you was daydreaming and wasn't listening"
At this point Mikoto and kushina walked into the room and saw the two kids bickering about Naruto being poked in the head. Silencing the kids the two mothers asked them if they had any plans for the day since itashi had all day off due to her jonnin sensei being on an important A rank mission delivering a message to a small outpost in hi no kuni. Naruto of course said they should spar since he wanted to see what itashi had learnt since their last meeting the adults laughed at this as all Naruto ever seemed to want to do is train and spar, itashi wasn't in the mood for sparring though which is what lead to her telling him she would show him a new training exercise she found that would help his dodging however it could only be done at a special building on the other side of Konoha near behind the Hokage monument. kushina wasn't all to happy that it was so far away and wasn't sure if letting Naruto go that far with itashi was a good idea especially since she was always with Naruto when he went outside the compound but none the less she agreed as she doubted anyone would do anything funny with an Uchiha there as the village practical worshiped the Uchiha so after telling them to be extra careful she let them go.
Leaving the compound the two walked across the grounds to the gates to enter into the village proper whilst talking about what's being going on since they last saw each other. entering the streets they took a left down an empty road, as the uzumaki compound was in the clans district so not many people was around as the shinobi were in there compounds and civilians didn't really have business around this area so they didn't enter which was a blessing for Naruto as he never got the dirty looks in the clan district, but no one acknowledged him either after a quick walk through they arrived to the main portions of Konoha such as the market, shopping and civilian districts .for 30 minutes the two bobbed and weaved through streets happily enjoying each other's company as they made their way towards the monument. Being one of the top 5 shinobi villages Konoha was very big and even at the speeds the two was moving in took a while to get from one side to the other. whilst making their way there itashi noticed the looks that the villagers was giving Naruto and she realised just how much they hated him and al for something out of his control.
Now standing at the base of the mountain Naruto turns to itashi" alright let's do this!. Wait where's the building again?" he deadpanned, itashi sweat dropped.
"up there" she pointed to the top of the monument "we just have to climb up there" she said in a matter of fact tone. Naruto couldn't believe what he was hearing, climb. That.. Monstrosity, the Hokage monument was a rather large mountain towering over the village by a couple of hundred feet and featured the faces of the 4 Hokage carved into it, while easy enough to see, climbing it would be a whole other story.
"heheh umm itashi-chan am I going to climb that.. in case your forgot I can't use chakra to run up it!" he exclaimed to her only to notice she wasn't there, looking around he saw her right at the base with a hand on the monument
She turned around and looked at him "jeez stop being such a pansy and climb it like a normal person, use your hands" with that she started to climb. Naruto stood flabbergasted 'grr how does she expect me to climb that, I may be strong but there's a limit, oh well no pain no gain..i just hope I live' deciding to go through with it and beat itashi to the top Naruto began to walk towards the monument and as he got closer he noticed just how rough the monument was it had small cracks and bumps in it looking as though it was made to be climbed, putting his hands onto the stone he got a good grip before pulling himself up and putting his feet to the wall as he began to slowly climb .he kept his gaze upwards fearing to look down least he seize up even though he was no more the 10 feet of the ground, looking towards itashi he saw just how comfortable she was, acting like this was nothing more than a stroll through the park 'crazy women, honestly why am I surrounded by crazy people, first kaa-chan with her mood swings and childishness now itashi with her cool and relaxed insanity' Naruto got lost in his thoughts not realizing he had made it a quarter of the way up by now and was almost ahead of itashi. His thinking continued 'hmm I wonder if kaa-chan will make me go mental like her, probably better not ask her, although that weird hair thing she does is cool' Naruto was brought out of his musings as he heard someone shouting.
"YOSH HOW YOUTHFULL IT IS,TWO CHILDREN BURNING WITH THE FLAMES OF YOUTH TESTING THERE PHSICAL PROWESS HEAR OF ALL PLACES,I MUST FAN THESE FLAMES INTO A BURNING INFERNO YOSH!" the two children had varied reactions at this Naruto was curious as to what the hell was meant by that, and just how else was mad enough to be climbing the monument, whilst itashi was sweating bullets, her emotionless façade destroyed upon hearing that voice, noticing Naruto was about to look down towards the voice she quickly applied chakra to her and hands and feet and jumped near Naruto landed next to him blocking him from looking down
"don't look down it will scar you for life just keep going and pretend you didn't hear it!" she quickly yelled, surprising Naruto with her sense of urgency in her voice ,nodding dumbly still in shock that she had actually yelled he continued climbing, not that it worked
"AHA FOCUSED ON THE TASK AT HAND!HOW YOUTHFULL IT IS AND AT SUCH A YOUNG AGE!ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF,I AM THE MAGNIFICENT GREEN BEAST OF KONHA THE MOST YOUTHFULL MAITO GAI!" shouted the voice once more, except now it stood on the rock face 10 feet in front of the two striking what would be known as the nice guy pose ,Naruto looked on at the man and realised itashi was true, he would be visually scarred looking at the man he had black hair with a bowl cut ,giant eyebrows that looked almost alive and a large grin with sparkling teeth ,he also was wearing a green spandex one piece with a standard Konha flak jacket and orange leg warmers with a pair of blue ninja sandals , he also had his Hitai-ate around his waist as a belt. Making a mental note to thank itashi for her warning earlier he stammered out the only thing he could think of saying
"Umm what do you mean?" saying that he was slightly frightened as most people he met around the village hated him and h would be absolutely defenceless up here if this man tried to attack him.
"AHH MY YOUNG FRIEND DO NOT FRET,IT WARMS MY HEART SEEING TWO YOUTHS WORKING HARD LIKE THIS AND AS SUCH I MUST HELP FAN YOUR FLAMES OF YOUTH" he told the red hear with his usual eccentric voice. Naruto looked to itashi for clarification.
"Itashi-chan?"
"he is a bit eccentric Naruto-kun, when he sees people working hard and training he gets all hyper like this and decides that he too will train and help" she explained her cool emotionless façade back in place, although the warmth of voice was still there as she addressed Naruto.
Naruto was shocked at this. Help him? but no one wanted to help him, his heart jumped at this maybe just maybe he had found someone else he could call a friend so with a voice full of hope he questioned
"You want to help? really dattebayo?" itashi couldn't believe what she was hearing Naruto was actually happy about this 'uh oh please for the love of kami-sama let Naruto live' she thought and as she was about to exact a daring plan to save Naruto she found she was too late.
"YOSH! OF COURSE MY YOUNG FRIEND HOWEVER IM AFRAID I MUST FINISH MY OWN MORNING EXERCISERS FIRST SO I WILL LEAVE YOU WITH A GIFT AND WE CAN TRAIN TOGETHER SOME OTHER TIME!" he once again got into his nice guy pose with the thumbs up and sparkling teeth as he looked down at the blond
The young uzumaki was giddy with excitement now as someone was actually helping him and being nice, he wasn't even bothered by the hyper the man was spewing as long as he had another friend" YATTA dattebayo ! "He exclaimed pumping one fist in the air totally forgetting he was on a mountain, luckily his other hand and two feet still had a firm grip
Calming down if only slightly and entering teacher mode he lectured the boy" now tell me have you heard of training weights? by wearing them you can increase your speed and strength and when removed you will explode with the power of youth!?"Naruto nodded and responded
"uh huh ,my kaa-chan told me all about them but they don't suit me so instead I use gravity and resistance seals, there a lot more affective for me she said" responded Naruto with his arm firmly on the mountainside again
"ahha most youthful indeed, not everyone's bodies can handle the strain of those seals! Well then my friend allow me to bestow upon you a different most youthful gift guaranteed to improve your skills and allow for supreme youthfulness !yosh" gai said whilst reaching into his back pouch and pulling out what seemed to be a spandex one piece complete with orange leg warmers" this my friend is the greatest aid I've ever had! Its lightweight and breezy and allows for free movement almost as though you was naked! And one size fits all !it's a must need for someone as youthful as yourself!" exclaimed the man as he walked forward and laid the spandex and leg warmers over Narutos shoulders allowing him to carry them whilst climbing
Itashi was shocked as she realised where tis had gone and how she had been too late to sop it 'kushina-onee-sama is going to kill me 'she thought to herself cursing how she let it happen
"soo cool! Thanks mister dattebayo! "Cheered Naruto as he wasn't used to gifts except from his kaa-chan so he didn't know what else to say.
"YOSH HOW YOUTHFULL INDEED,DO NOT WORRY ABOUT IT IS MY DUTY TO GUIDE THOSE FULL OF YOUTH,NOW IIF YOU WILL EXUSE ME I MUST START AGAIN AS PUNISHMENT FOR STOPPING THIS TIME "gai shouted back to his loud and cheerful self before jumping straight off the mountain to the ground below. seeing the man jump straight of the mountain Naruto was shocked to say the least , really who would jump off a mountainside he suppose it was just one the many awesome things ninja could do but he still felt compelled to look down and make sure the man was safe ,he started turning his head but was stopped by a hand
"you don't want to do that Naruto-kun ,a lot of ninja cant adapt to the height straight away you should work your way up from trees" itashi said with a shake of the head. Naruto just nodded at the raven haired Uchiha and continued climbing, still shocked at what happened, he soon snapped back to reality though when he saw the gift on his shoulder and began grinning madly ,he admitted to himself that the spandex was kind of ugly but he would give it a try at least under his clothing as gai did say it was very useful, now the orange leg warmers was a different story he absolutely loved them and planned to wear them proudly on his legs when he had time to put them on looking closely at them he saw that whilst the ends was made to hug the legs the length was made slack like it was meant to keep something inside, his mind wondered at this as he thought of possibility's for what he could keep in there .itashi after seeing him continue climbing went back to hoping Naruto didn't plan on wearing that spandex suit and followed him up the cliff face.
The two was now just under three quarters of the way to the top and were about to climb over the great stone faces as they continued on their path, now some may think if you already climbed most of the monument then the faces would be no problem. Wrong. This pat was the most difficult as the faces jutted outside of the cliff and caused some hard angles to climb at the chin noses eyes and hair as these points had near horizontally edges to climb.
The young uzumaki gulped and sweat nervously and gave a small chuckle whilst looking over to his companion, she barely looked phased and had a calm almost lazy expression about her as she returned the look.
"Remind me why I agreed to this?"
"for training with me "she replied gauging his reaction
Naruto just slapped his head against the rock face "oh yea.. Stupid me"
"..shut up and climb Naruto-kun" she continued climbing not even waiting for him knowing he would be fine, chakra or not Naruto could easily keep up with her she wouldn't need to worry, not like she would show it since that would break her emotionless mask that she already let slip near Naruto.
"easy for you to say, you've done this before, dattebayo!" never the less he continued climbing and put his hand to the bottom of the stone face of the shodaime , he had come to this face as he wanted to stay as far from his father's visages possible.' alright i will do this believe it !'giving himself the quick mental encouragement he put his other hand on the same rock as the first this being the rock representing the shodaimes neck and he started to slowly pull himself up with a firm grip easing himself as he would soon be near vertical as he rounded the chin.
After a challenging rocky climb the pair had managed to scale the faces and was almost at the top, Naruto looked on seeing the great trees at the top and was silently thanking kami-sama for the shade covering over the cliff face and the melodic chirping of birds he could hear, it wasn't exactly an odd occurrence hearing birds in a village surrounded by trees but down in the village people was always rushing round and talking making it difficult to hear the birds unless you was in a secluded spot, and up here was probably the most secluded spot in the village due too only shinobi being able to get up here and the few buildings actually up here, he figured this was as much as an escape for them as it was for itashi to train.
Now at the top Naruto grinned in triumph proud of his accomplishment and looked to see the gennin Uchiha climb over the edge herself.
"heh piece of cake dattebayo even beat you up here "cheekily taunted Naruto although he doubted he had the energy to reply if she said something smartass back like she was prone too
"hn its only just started. Get ready"..
Done guy s. .umm okay apparently writing in more the one sitting for a chapter ruins the flow, sorry umm I will be uploading I think 2 updates a week from now on hopefully, and I have a week off from crap in like 2 weeks so I should get some writing in then and kick this off ground, got a new idea for story in mind, I was going to wait to write it but I can't help myself so it looks like ill have 2 story's soon and they will be significantly different although similar aspects