Disclaimer: See chapter one, from here on this will not be repeated.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
CH 2
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
The alarm clock rang out through the small one room apartment, getting louder as it was ignored. A hand emerged from the blanket roll on the small single bed, grabbed the offending item and flung it out of the window with such force that it severed an electrical line four buildings away. The line that fell almost shocked a passing ANBU guard. Luckily it missed them and the clock continued on its way to finally land in an abandoned bird's nest that had been formed on top of the chimney of a seemingly abandoned building, still ringing out its annoying tone.
Naruto rolled over trying to get comfortable, but he'd had that nagging feeling that something was wrong. So he got up and tripped over the towel he'd used the night before last. The smell was powerful, but he only kicked it away and it was then that he looked around to note where he was.
He blinked and said out loud, "What the hell?"
He paused to take in a deep breath and activated his eyes using an ancient forgotten ninja technique called "Gyo" to see the hidden underneath. There was nothing to see. This technique was one that he'd learnt much later in his old life. It had helped him in more ways than could be counted. Unfortunately with nothing to see, as this was his second apartment, he couldn't detect a trace of how he'd gotten there or if this was just an elaborate Genjutsu.
The place was the one that he'd moved to after the Sandaime found out about the rise in rent that he'd been subjected to in his previous building. This building was the property of a Jounin that didn't mind him living there, but refused to fork over the money for repairs that the apartment needed. The boy had been given blanket permission to fix up whatever he wanted, but the Jounin wasn't going to pay for it and that had been written in the boy's lease agreement which was a good thing too, cause he did a lot of things in there.
Naruto noted everything in the room, including the calendar, but somehow he knew that the red, circled day had already passed. He was infinitely aware of time and he knew that he missed his chance at taking his first Genin exam. At least he could still try again in six months.
He dressed quickly, raced to the graduated class and was yelled at for not being there the day before to take the exam with the other prospective Genins seated in the room. They stared at him.
"I'm sorry," he said, clapping his hands together and bowing in pretend terror. He even shook his small frame for good measure. "I was ill and couldn't take the tests. I didn't want to fail for not paying attention and no one would have thanked me, if I'd brought the flu to school."
"Are you better now?" The Sensei asked the small blond boy, not really concerned about his health, but she had to maintain an air of concern, plus this information had to be added to the boy's records anyway.
"Yes, ma'am," Naruto said. "Can I still attend classes?"
"You're going to be treated as though you failed," the woman told him. "You do have the option to go into a six month remedial class, instead of returning to your year mates."
"I'd prefer that," Naruto said. His year mates had never been helpful and had only scorned him. He didn't want to continue with them since he knew that he couldn't face anyone he'd known, not just yet. The six months timeline with a new group would allow him the chance to push for another chance at an early graduation test.
"Very well," the Chunin sensei replied. She handed him a note and told him, "Go to room three eighteen and give this to the Sensei there to get admitted."
"Thank you, sensei," he glanced at the note once he was completely out of the room with the door closed behind him. He snorted when he saw that it said, 'He's your problem now.' Still he ran up to the room, knocked on the door and entered when invited to do so.
The Chunin in this room was Mizuki-Sensei. Naruto's thoughts halted for a moment, but his features showed none of his concerns and only showed his earnestness at being in the class. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto," the young blond said. "I failed the Genin exam, but was told I could join your remedial class, instead of returning to those in my year."
He walked over and handed the note to the white-blond haired man. The traitor in league with Kirigakure looked at the boy as though to gauge his value within the class. Then the man shrugged, not caring about the boy or whether the kid would find it difficult in his class and said, "Go sit there."
Naruto was directed to the second to last row and made to sit next to one of the Hyuga Clan. That clan had people with very distinctive eyes that were either: white, lavender, pale purple or very light blue with no pupils.
'It's kind of creepy,' he thought. He did a minor double take when he realized that the person next to him was the pissed off Hyuga Neji, he'd fought a long time ago at his first Chunin exam. 'Well hell,' he thought. 'This is going to be interesting, I think.'
His seatmate ignored him and that was fine by the blond since he was only there to maintain his presence at the Academy in order to pass the next Genin exam and move up in the ranks of the Shinobi field. He calculated everything that he needed to do in order to build up his physical strength and stamina. 'At least classes are only half days and the afternoon contains options or independent studies in other fields,' he thought. 'Now what to do…'
"Everyone, we'll review all the theory behind the standard Jutsus in order to pass the Genin exams," Mizuki-sensei told them. "Naruto, how about you tell us when you'd use the Bushin jutsu."
"Any situation that I need to run from quickly," the blond said. "I'd want a decoy for the enemy to follow, as long as they can be fooled by the copy."
Mizuki hadn't expected that kind of answer, but it was correct. However no one ever praised the demonic container and he wasn't about to begin either. "Very well," the man said. "Sit down. Yukina when would you…"
Naruto tuned out the rest of the questions and answers. These students didn't make notes in class because they were expected to memorize most of what was discussed. It was the Shinobi way of information gathering, as not all information could be written. They were to create their notes at home and use them to study from in order to pass the written tests given.
"Class dismissed for extra studies," Mizuki-sensei said. "Be here at seven in the morning for the physical portion of classes, Naruto. You need to keep up with these students now."
"Yes sensei," the blond said and left as quickly as he could. He had a few errands to run and most of them were just staking out empty buildings in order to be able to scrounge up items that could improve his living conditions just a bit or claim them as a training ground. The most important things he needed now though were good ink, paper and blank scrolls.
He also needed to find that book again. It was a book that he'd found in the Hokage's tower, but it was in a concealed room gathering dust, even by the time he'd become the Hokage of Konoha. The book contained a strange Ninja Technique that he'd been close to mastering a part of it based on what it had been written about it. Most of the techniques in the book were chakra based, but the concepts or ideas in it had been mind-blowing to him at the time.
'I going need that book now,' he thought. 'It'll help with the absorption of the chakra and balance out my current knowledge. I might even be able to gain access to Hatsu this time around.'
(…What are you talking about Gaki?…) The fox said in his mind. (…What knowledge could you possibly have? Aren't you known at the Dead-Last of your class…)
(…My classes have changed, Kurama…) Naruto said, as he watched a familiar ninja wearing glasses leave and a seemingly abandoned building. 'Holy shit, that's Kabuto's hideout! We never found that in the past.'
(…Gaki!…) The fox yelled to get the attention of his host. (…Watch your emotions or else the townspeople will be after you again…)
(…Yeah, thanks…) Naruto said and the he stepped into a shadow and blinked. (…What the hell? Since when have we be conversing like this and why the hell would you care what the townspeople think?…)
(…We don't talk all the time…) The fox told him. (…It certainly doesn't mean that I care, but you once likened it to some weird Ningen term called Frienemies. We usually only talk when your emotions are too much, even for me to handle because the colour of my chakra becomes slightly visible and you get physically attacked…)
Naruto thought, 'Frienemies?' He shook his head and immediately understood the idea or concept of it. They were enemies that acted friendly like, but would never been real friends as they both understood the meaning of the word. (..Got it…) He relied. (…I can see that. So yeah, Frienemies it is then…)
(…So tell this Yako Fox what's got your panties in a bunch so that I can laugh at you…) Kurama said. (…i…)
(…Not today…) Naruto said. (…Later though, when we both need a laugh…)
The fox grumbled and then curled up to sleep, snoring in the boy's ear, knowing how to direct the sound to annoy the brat. The blond was surprised at that, but then he'd also learned long ago to redirect inconsequential sounds elsewhere. He could do it by placing a Fujin seal somewhere in order to annoy another person or he could redirect to some other part of his mind to just completely ignore.
Naruto snickered softly and then ran to a second hand shop of books that had always allowed him access to the ones they were shipping to a large store in a bigger town. If he wanted any of them, he was permitted to pay pittance for them, as most were ruined in some fashion or another.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
'Exercise in chakra control should be learnt at the Academy,' he thought as he tried to climb a tree while using every technique he could think of to remember the training he'd had in the past during his time as a Genin traveling to the Land of Waves with Team Seven. He was outside of the village in a park that was barely used at this time of day.
'Coming back in time was a good and bad idea,' his thoughts continued, as he slipped down the bark of the tree again. 'Everything that I had ever learnt needs to be relearned. Every exercise, everything that my body is used to knowing has to relearn it again before I can even think of accessing even the base Jutsus I need to pass the Genin exam. At least this time, I can plan ahead and I know how to do it.' He gave up on tree climbing for now.
Fifteen minutes later he huffed as he continued his run around the outside perimeter of the village. He'd gotten written permission from his sensei to do the run before coming to class and the gate guards noted his times for him so that he could track his improvement in it. He'd done the calculations and then with judicious use of chakra on his feet, he added a bounce to his running steps.
He noted that the first day that his time was two hours and forty-three minutes. He figured that learning to add chakra to his basic exercises would help to improve his needs and eventually the tree-climbing thing would come to him sooner than it had in the past.
He calculated that he needed to shave it down to an hour and forty-five minutes before he added any weights to build up the missing strength in his lower body. He did morning, afternoon and evening stretches with and without weights to improve the rotation of his limbs. He found that it did help, but he was looking forward to extracting that book from the Hokage's tower.
First though, get the strength and flexibility to climb the tower and bypass the traps he knew about. Then practice chakra control until he could walk on anything. Finally an intensive study of traps, regular hunting ones as well as all potential ninja ones from concealed seals, sutras or trip wires before even making a first attempt at getting into that old storage room.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
Naruto was sitting in an optional watercolour class that was offered for only two months, this had been after he'd taken a three months drawing class for fun.
He'd always wanted to learn how to paint, using the techniques that Yuuhi Kurenai was teaching it. The class wasn't a frequent one, but it did help him to calm his mind and his body to the point of meditating while painting. This was perhaps the only class that he ever received praise in and that was because of his instinctive use of the colours.
Kurenai-sensei had asked him if he'd be interested in a calligraphy class too, but the boy's answer surprised her. "Nah," he'd said. "I don't need that one. Why do you ask?"
"I just thought that perhaps some poems in calligraphy or brushed kanji would improve your paintings so that people would be interested in purchasing them," she'd said.
He snorted and replied, "They'd never buy them if they knew that I was the one that made them."
"I see," she noted his expression and wondered just how much he knew about the circumstances surrounding his birth.
"I can make one just for you though," Naruto said. "It'll be a present to you for the last day of this class…" He paused, looked down, shuffled his feet and asked. "That'd be okay, wouldn't it?"
"That'd be perfectly fine," she answered. "I'm going to look forward to it. The last class is at the end of this month."
"You got it," he answered brightly. When he left class after they were dismissed, he ran to the used bookstore to find a book on poems or maybe even one on how to write poems, just in case.
There were a couple of books with good poems and there was one explaining different types of poetry. He thought about it and then thought about the painting he wanted to make for the sensei.
'Haiku,' he'd read. 'A poem of five syllables in one line, seven syllables in the second line and five in the last. No comparisons allowed and usually reflects moods.'
He nodded at the book and paid cheaply for two that contained poetry and the one that contained the how-to, to write poems. 'This should help with keeping my writing neat,' he thought, as he remembered how his hands needed to be re-trained to write beautifully. 'I'm going to need to make more paper to practice on.'
That had been one of the old abilities from one of the Kages that he'd absorbed from his past life, during the final war he'd had to participate in. Papermaking was important for those with a knack for using the Fuuinjitsu techniques. Those that made their own paper could even infuse them with their chakra and level up the Fuda, Sutras, Sigals or Seals marked on them. The change in the activation level changed what could have been a small bang into a loud destructive explosion, again based on ability and chakra levels.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
Kurenai-sensei dismissed this class for the last time. The last student out of the classroom had left behind a wrapped parcel on her desk. "As promised," Naruto told her. "I'll be going now."
"Wait," she said. "I'll open it and let you know what I think." The blond looked at the door as though he wanted to escape. He took a deep breath and then returned to sit at the desk in front of his professor. He waited for her to open up the package.
She gasped and said, "This is beautiful. Where did you get this kind of paper?"
"It was around," Naruto said and he kind of shifted in seat, not wanting to let her that he'd made it.
"Borrowed?"
"No way," he replied and was about to run away.
"All right then, I won't ask you how you acquired it," she said, which calmed him down somewhat. "You pass with high praise and with this." She'd pre-prepared a note that had already been added to his Ninja file. What she handed him was a copy of it.
'It's in the opinion of this sensei that Uzumaki Naruto has the ability to create art in a manner that is natural. His concentration on subject matter would improve, if permitted to pursue training in this field. Strong recommendation of outside placement and training for this secondary skill set, which could be of use for undercover work.'
"Wow," he said out loud. He'd never taken a course like this the first time around and had never seen this kind of recommendation ever in his own files. He'd seen it for a few others, but never in his. "Thanks," he said.
"You're welcome," she told him. "Now you'd best get home, it looks like rain is coming tonight." She looked back at the watercolour painting. It was done in greens and yellows, only showing hints of leaf formations with the veins of darker colour. Along one side of it, were the following lines written in beautiful kanji script:
"Leaves shining up there,
Tasting the sun and the rain,
Grow to the sky, high."
'No wonder he didn't want to attend a calligraphy class,' she thought. The interesting thing about the painting is that she could picture the leaves actually growing and moving in a soft, trying to reach that patch of blue colour in the background.
"Thank you for everything Sensei," he said again. "If you want to see something interesting place a tiny bit of your personal chakra on the side of the painting at the mark you see."
Then he'd run away quickly to go rescue his laundry that had been drying on the roof of his building. He'd claimed the roof for a few purposes and had checked with the landlord about it too. Since no one ever went up there he was permitted to do what he wanted, as long as it didn't interfere with the tenets cable or any other wiring to the building.
She did as the boy had told her and was astounded when she heard the wind blowing through the leaves of the watercolour trees. The movement she'd sworn she'd seen was more visible now that the painting had received a boost of energy. The addition of the chakra ensured that the hidden Fujin seal would activate the painting's unique ability every time she walked by it.
"Amazing that kid," she said to no one. She packaged the painting and took it home. There was no signature on the front of it either, but that was something of a habit with the boy from what she'd noted about his other paintings. He did add his mark on the back of them, so she turned it around and noted his preferred mark was there, along with a small foxtail to end it.
"Does he know?" She wondered and then put that thought away quickly. 'It won't matter if he does or doesn't, the kid will have a harder time in this village because of what he holds inside him.'
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
Naruto had been lucky so far, to not run into anyone of his old or past classmates during his self-improved training. He'd made his new choices when he found himself back in the past in his ten year-old body. The classes he was in didn't include his 'old' gang because he'd chosen to find a way to gain the status of Genin before his second or third terrible failure.
'I wonder if Mizuki-sensei will find a way to approach me to get that scroll from the Hokage's office or not this time around,' he thought, after finishing another boring class. He looked around to see if there were any students in there that he could spar with, but instead left to go do some more self training outside of the village. 'It's the week-end, so...yeah...survival training it is!'
He returned to his apartment and packed up things that he considered essential inside three waterproof scrolls. He added a generic map in order to practice his mapping skills. There were specific paths and sections outside of Konoha that could be used for independent training and any Academy student could leave for a few days, if they had permission from their parents or guardians.
Naruto was an orphan, so his options were different. He could leave the Village as long as he stated the general area that he was going to and then he'd be handed a map of areas to avoid. These areas were usually booked for training by other people or sometimes the Chunin would point out the areas that he'd be permitted to visit and he could state the path that he'd take to go to all of them. That is if he wanted to go to all of them.
"This area," he pointed. It was a forested area with large trees, several streams, but was located on a plateau area on the mountain range behind the Kage Monument of the village.
The Chunin guards made notes and then asked, "How long will you be gone?"
"I expect to be back late morning or early afternoon of Sunday," Naruto told them. They added the timeframe, had him sign for confirmation of his plans and then waved him through the doors.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
Naruto ran to the location of his choice. At the rock face he prepared several kunai knives, tying them with rock climbing rope. He used them like the mountain climbers used anchor pitons. He used his familiar ninja knives and infused them with chakra to make them do the work like pitons do for regular climbers.
In the past he'd done this several times and he'd found that it helped him to use the common ninja tools and chakra, as it increased his skills in using those. Not only that, but finding different ways to use the tools improved his understanding of their limits and their strengths.
It wasn't every day that an enemy was confronted or taken down because the kunai that hit them had a rope attached with a chakra summon that force dragged them through the underbrush. If done correctly, the kunai could even have a Fujin Seal on it in order to prevent the enemy from performing any type of Henge that would allow him to escape from that situation.
Naruto giggled during his climb as he recalled a time when he'd dragged an enemy through a very rural field filled with cow dung. The enemy had even slammed up against roots and boulders that had been imbedded in the fields and were impossible for the average farmer to remove.
He reached the plateau and was pleased to note that he had everything he needed there in order to practice his Jutsus. He had notes on several forms of martial arts that he'd made over the time at night when it was quiet and he was supposed to making class notes to study from. It had taken him about three months to write down the styles that he'd used and the exercises needed to ensure smooth executions of those techniques.
All that writing had also improved his writing skills to form better characters. He'd practiced that with both hands because you never knew when one hand or arm would be out of commission for long periods of time.
This survival training for the next three days and two nights were to build up his strength and chakra control. He even planned to absorb another tail from the demon beast within him. That would have to wait until he was physically exhausted because this time the tail he was aiming for was the one that would help him incorporate his past physical knowledge into his present tiny form. Hopefully it would help him to transition faster into the fighter he used to be.
The fox was not going to be pleased.
Naruto - New, Yet So Old - Naruto - New, Yet So Old
TBC…
(…i…) Information on Yako foxes obtained from Wikipedia, a fun place for ideas.