I don't own Naruto
"Did you see the paper yesterday?"
"The one with Hokage-sama's son dressed in a little red dress?"
"Yes, that one!"
"How could I not? It was the talk of the entire village! I wonder why Sarutobi-san was wearing such a dress."
"Who cares! It was so funny! I can't wait for today's paper, maybe someone will write editorial on it!"
Kurenai couldn't help the smile that stretched across her face as she walked down the streets of Konoha. Everywhere she went Asuma was the talk of the town, and not in a good way. Serves the prick right.
After getting back from her mission the previous night, and after Naruto reminded her of the newspaper, she rushed to the nearest newspaper stand that she knew of and quickly bought a paper. Right on the front page was a picture of Asuma racing through the trees in a skimpy red dress, the title "Sarutobi Asuma, renowned shinobi or secret cross dressing fanatic?" It was perfect.
As Kurenai stopped reminiscing about the previous day she stepped into a dango shop that she and her friends frequently visited. Seeing two familiar purple haired kunoichi at a booth she made her way towards them.
One noticed them and her eyes lit up with delight as she smiled, "Hello Nai-chan!"
"Hello Anko. Sorry to interrupt, but I have a favor to ask. There's someone that has it out for my student and I think he needs to have a little visit with you." Kurenai calmly spoke.
"Oh does he now?" Anko rhetorically asked as a sadistic smile slowly spread across her face.
-Forest of Death-
Naruto had just woken up in the Forest of Death and decided it was about time to thank the jaguars he had summoned the previous day. So biting his thumb and swiping his thumb, he concentrated on summoning one handed, concentrating even harder to ensure that he summoned the right jaguars, and slammed his hand down on the ground.
In a puff of smoke the same four jaguars were now standing in the clearing.
"Hello Naruto." One spoke up as all four laid on the ground.
"Hello all, I'm going to be honest with you guys. I have no idea how to properly thank you." Naruto immediately said. He had thought about how to thank them last night, but how do you thank four twenty foot tall felines?
"Well getting us out of the summoning realm is a good start." The one that spoke earlier responded.
"Yea, don't get us wrong. We love our home in the summoning realm, but sometimes we need to get out." Another continued.
"Since we haven't had a summoner in so long we have all been in the summoning realm, hardly ever getting the chance to come to this realm, never get to fight, never get to explore. You ever heard the saying 'curiosity killed the cat?' A lot of us are at that point, we are bored to death in our realm and just want to stretch our legs." A third ranted.
"So you want to be able to fight and explore a new area? Well, I guess you could explore the Forest of Death. It's Konoha's most dangerous training ground, it's a circular training ground that is around fifty-five miles in diameter. It's got animals that are as big as you, so you may find a nice fight." Naruto stated as he learned the easiest to thank the felines.
"Oh really? Where would we find this training ground.?" The last jaguar asked.
"You're in it." Naruto smiled. "The closer to the center of the training ground, the tougher the animals become."
All four jaguars got predatory grins on their faces before they took off into the surrounding forest.
'They're going to enjoy themselves.' Kurama spoke up.
'Yea, I would love to see how things work out for them, but I'm more interested on getting my hand back.' Naruto thought as he started to make his way out of the forest.
'Restoring your fingers will probably be a painful experience.' Kurama stated, he didn't know for sure, but growing bone, muscle tissue, and nerve endings sounded like it would be painful.
'I expect it to be painful, but I hope it won't be.' Naruto replied as he reached the edge of the forest and hopped the fence as he made his way to the library. 'After all, who would want to be in pain?'
-Konoha Library-
When Naruto made it to the library he meandered into an alley where he transformed into a nondescript ninja. Exiting the alley he quietly made his way inside the library. He waved to the librarian as he passed by and was immediately stopped.
"Oh dear! What happened to you?" The librarian exclaimed as she saw the injury to his hand.
Naruto looked at his hand to see that the three fingers he was usually missing were also missing in his disguised form.
Schooling his features he looked towards the librarian, "Just an occupational hazard miss. Nothing to worry about." He calmed the woman as he continued into the library.
'Why am I still missing fingers? I thought I henge'd.' Naruto thought to himself.
'Kit, I told you when we first met that you don't do the traditional henge. Instead of casting an illusion over yourself you actually change your body. Think of it like the Akimichi Baika no Jutsu except on a much smaller scale, and you can shrink yourself to a degree.' Kurama explained.
'So if I henge'd into a kunai, I would actually become a kunai?' Naruto asked the biju as he made his way to the medical section of the library.
'No. You can't henge into a kunai. Using your henge you can only change into other humans, and maybe primates. You change your body, if you tried to change into a kunai nothing would happen, a kunai is metal and you're not. Now your clones could henge into whatever they want since they are simple chakra constructs, but they would obviously be less durable than a kunai.' Kurama further explained to the blonde so that he knew what he could and couldn't do with his henge.
'Okay, I got it.' Naruto replied as he made his way to the medical wing of the library. He slowly started to search through the books until he found one that showed the human body in detail, showing all the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and other structures that made up the body. He browsed through it looking for a detailed picture of the hand. Upon finding one, he brought out a piece of paper and started to sketch the picture.
'No need kit, I've got the picture committed to memory. Now go look at toes or something for just in case purposes.' Kurama spoke up.
Trusting that his partner probably had a photographic memory, it is a biju afterall, he started flipping through the book until he found a detailed picture of the foot. He continued to look at the picture until Kurama gave him the okay to continue.
Thinking that there were no other body parts that he would need to regenerate he closed the book and was about to get up before Kurama stopped him.
'Kit, turn to a detailed picture of a penis.'
Naruto was confused for a bit before he realized what his furry friend was alluding to.
'You actually think you can grow it back?' Naruto asked astonishedly.
'I can't say for sure, but I might be able to. It's worth a try.' Kurama honestly replied. No need to get Naruto's hopes up, but the possibility was still there.
Naruto quickly flipped through the book looking for a good picture of a penis for his friend to memorize.
After finishing everything he had come to the library to do, he swiftly left towards the forest, releasing his henge after getting to the fence of the training ground.
Arriving in the clearing near his home tree, Naruto he sat down and immediately started a conversation with his tenant.
'So how are we going to regrow my fingers?' Naruto quickly asked, his missing digits were giving him more problems than he originally presumed.
'What I am going to do is try and figure out how to control my healing ability in such a way to regrow bone, tendons, muscles, and other tissue in your hands so that you have a fully functioning hand again. All you have to do is sit and wait.' Kurama replied.
'And how long will this take?' Naruto fired off another question, obviously impatient to get fully functioning hands again.
'It would take less time if you would let me concentrate.' Kurama snapped back. Couldn't this buffoon see that he was busy trying to fix him?
'Sorry' Naruto apologized and sat in the clearing waiting as Kurama concentrated on figuring out a way to fix him.
But while Kurama was thinking of ways to regrow fingers, Naruto was not idle. He concentrated on his chakra and the way it flowed through his body, he would manipulate it in different ways, always paying attention to the flow of chakra, how fast the flow was, the volume of the flow of chakra. He figured if he learned how chakra flowed he would become more adept at not only area of effect genjutsu, which was his only weak point in genjutsu that he knew of, but also how to effectively use chakra alongside taijutsu.
'Alright kit, I think I know how to regrow your fingers, but it will probably be incredibly painful. You should probably find a way to gag yourself unless you want the entire forest to hear you.' Kurama informed.
Naruto followed the advice of his fox companion as he reached into his coat and unsealed a roll of black tape, cutting a strip off, and applying it over his mouth.
'Now hang on tight, we're starting now.'
Naruto hardly had anytime to brace before a horrendous pain flooded his arm. He collapsed to the ground screaming at the top of his lungs, but it was muffled by his taped mouth. He writhed in pain as it felt like a fire was going up his arm and the stubs of his fingers felt like they were being dipped in acid.
A good half hour later Naruto was still lying on the ground, though he was no longer writhing in pain, having lost the energy to do so. His face was covered in sweat and his eyes were half lidded with dilated pupils. His arm still felt like it was on fire, but his fingers no longer felt like they were being dipped in acid.
'Okay, all done.' Kurama relayed to his blonde container.
Naruto slowly lifted his hand up and looked at his new digits, they were much paler than the rest of his skin, probably due to the fact they had just been created and had not been exposed to the sun. He tested each one touching them to his thumb before making a fist. He brought his other hand up and ripped the tape off his mouth and took greedy gulps of air as he panted, still looking at his repaired hand.
Soon blackness started to encroach on his vision as unconsciousness slowly crept up on him. He laid his hands back down and welcomed the coming rest with a final thought.
'I'm never losing a limb ever again.'
-The next morning-
Naruto woke from his slumber to see the sun just clearing the trees of the Forest of Death.
'Odd, I could have sworn it was just midday, how is it morning?' Naruto thought as he recalled the previous day.
He quickly sat up and looked towards his right hand. He looked at all his digits, noticing how the newer ones weren't as tan. He had thought he was dreaming when he actually saw his working hand before he passed out, just his brain playing tricks on him after all the pain he endured.
"Never going through that again, but it's great to have my fingers back." Naruto said to himself as he looked around the clearing that was his home. He immediately saw a tiger lounging on the edge of the clearing, but what surprised him was his jaguar summons were also still around.
'Shouldn't they have gone back by now?' Naruto wondered.
One of the summons seemed to notice him as it picked up its head and looked at him, and it had a large gash going down the side of its face.
"Oh, seems they found their fight." Naruto said as he got up and made his way over to his summons.
"Naruto, it's good to see you up and awake. You've been out of it for quite some time." The jaguar nodded in his direction when Naruto was within earshot.
Naruto just looked at the sun that was still looming just over the trees, "Yea, I didn't think I would be out of it for so long. Though I'm curious as to why you are still here. I thought you would have gone back to the summoning realm by now." Naruto turned to the jaguar.
"We would have, but when we returned we saw you lying on the ground unconscious and decided to stay and keep you safe. With the animals that are in this forest and you incapacitated, you were in danger." The summon replied easily.
Naruto blinked at that tidbit. He hadn't really thought about what could have happened with him lying in the middle of the clearing, completely vulnerable. There was a good chance he would have been eaten.
"Wow, I was careless. Thank you for looking out for me." Naruto bowed to the larger feline and chastising himself for his lack of foresight. How could he forget he was in the most dangerous training ground in Konoha, possibly the most dangerous place in Konoha.
"Do not worry about it Naruto, you are our summoner and we plan to protect you." The jaguar responded as he disappeared, back to the summoning realm.
"Well, I guess I'll go see Ayame-chan. And this time I'll actually have money to pay for the ramen. I wonder how much money I have cost those two in the free ramen they have given me?" Naruto took off towards Konoha to his favorite restaurant. They started opening up early a few years ago just for him.
-Ichiraku Ramen-
Naruto arrived at the restaurant and wasn't surprised to see it open. He immediately entered and saw Ayame washing the counter and caught a glimpse of Teuchi in the back preparing the noodles.
"Good morning Naruto-kun, it's good to see you coming in for breakfast again. We missed your company." Ayame spoke up when she saw her favorite blonde sit at the counter. "What can I get you?"
"It's good to see you too Ayame-chan. I'll just have a miso ramen." Naruto looked back as someone entered the restaurant to see his sensei step into the establishment. "Good morning sensei."
"Good morning Naruto, I had a feeling I would find you here." Kurenai replied as she sat down next to her student.
"Good morning Kurenai-san, is there anything you want?" Ayame asked as she returned with Naruto's bowl.
"No thank you Ayame. I am just here to talk to my student." Kurenai replied courteously as she turned to her student. "Naruto, I am sorry about this but-" Kurenai paused mid sentence as she saw Naruto eating his ramen with all his fingers.
"What's wrong sensei? Did something happen? Did you tell the Hokage about my friend?" Naruto asked cautiously hearing Kurenai about to break some important news before she stopped talking. There were many possibilities flowing through his head, maybe something came up and she was called on to complete a mission that fit her skill set and she couldn't bring him. Possible, but she might also just be dropping him as her apprentice, which when he thought about it didn't make much sense. She was still interested in learning and training with him, or was she? And the final idea that popped into his head is that she had lied during the last mission and told the Hokage about his ability to talk with the fox and she was going to have to bring him in to have the seal altered.
"Naruto, how did you get your fingers back? Those things don't just grow back." Kurenai asked, completely ignoring everything Naruto had asked her.
"My friend grew them back for me, but what's wrong sensei?" Naruto reiterated, more than a little worried that he and his friend may be in trouble.
"Well, wow. That's impressive. I was going to let you know that I was going to take you off of the active shinobi roster seeing as you suffered such a devastating injury so early in your career, it would be career ending. But since you can apparently grow back appendages, I won't have to request you be taken off the active roster. Regeneration of that magnitude is amazing. We'll start taking missions again tomorrow, you have the rest of the day off to do whatever you wish." Kurenai ended, completely flabbergasted that the Kyuubi could regenerate missing limbs. There was not much on the information of jinchuuriki's and whether they could use any of their tenants abilities, but apparently regrowing body parts isn't out of the question.
Naruto breathed a sigh of relief seeing that he was not in any kind of danger or trouble, nor did his sensei betray his trust and tell the hokage about his relationship with Kurama.
Turning back towards the counter as Kurenai left the stand he ate his ramen and bid the Ichiraku's farewell was he left.
'Let's see, Gai and his team are still out on a mission. Kurenai-sensei is probably still trying to get used to me regrowing limbs. That's really the only people that I train with, so what to do?' Naruto thought as he walked through the village. 'Oh, the library. Maybe I can read up on some better training programs.' And with that thought, Naruto made a beeline for the library.
When he reached the library, he quickly henge'd before entering and made his way to the exercise and training wing. Finding a book title, "The Basics of Exercise," he picked it up and made his way to a table. He figured that the basics are always something perfect and he may not know all the basics when it comes to exercise.
'Let's see here, muscle growth and strength building exercises. That sounds promising. Page 21?' Flipping through the pages he quickly started reading through the section.
"What the fuck!" Naruto silently exclaimed. "I've been exercising wrong this entire time."
'There's a right way to exercise?' Kurama asked, he didn't know there were right and wrong ways to exercise.
'Yea, I didn't know this. Apparently if you wish to grow muscle you should be doing 3 sets of 15 of different exercises. If you are going for just strength building, then you should do 3 sets of 8. I've been doing shit wrong. Hell, Gai is doing stuff wrong also.'
'Are you sure Gai is exercising incorrectly? That human is quite the impressive taijutsu artist, I doubt he got there by doing stuff wrong.' Kurama asked.
'Well, the way that we are exercising isn't exactly hurting our performance, according to this book it is just slowing down our growth.' Naruto explained, 'Imagine if he was working out according to what these books are recommending. He would be crazy strong, and Lee would be even stronger than he is now.'
'How do you know you can trust this book? Maybe someone just decided to say that you are supposed to work out this way.' Kurama was skeptical about this information.
'Well according to this source it says that he is an accomplished scientist that has done extensive research on the subject and has found that this is the optimal way to build muscle and strength.' Naruto parroted what he read in the footnote.
'Okay then, you can't argue with a credible source.' Kurama relented.
Learning what he needed, Naruto put the book away before leaving the library and releasing his henge.
'Well, I guess the best thing to do now is to go exercise properly.' Naruto thought as he started to head back to the Forest of Death, but as he was heading back he ran into a kunoichi.
"Ah, whiskers! Just the person I was looking for! I need a spotter and Nai-chan looked out of it and Hana-chan is working." Anko dropped in behind Naruto and started to drag him away.
"Why couldn't you ask Yuugao, I'm sure that she would gladly help you out." Naruto asked as he wrestled his hand from Anko's grip and returned on his trek back to his forest.
'Kit, an opportunity throws itself in your face and you are going to ignore it?' Kyuubi made its thoughts known, though Naruto just ignored it.
"She's on some secret ANBU mission so you're all I have. Why? Do you have something against working out with me?" Anko pouted as she followed Naruto.
"No, I just don't have the money to be throwing at a gym membership, I can get by with other methods." Naruto responded. He had looked at a gym membership before he became a ninja and the cost of those things were outrageous.
"Why the hell would you pay for the membership? You're a shinobi of Konoha, there is a gym dedicated to shinobi. It wouldn't make any sense for Konoha's defense to pay to do their job." Anko asked, waving her hands around in an erratic manner, confused as to why Naruto would have to pay for a gym membership.
"What? There's a free gym for ninja of Konoha? Why did I not know about this?" Naruto asked, stopping and turning to Anko, suddenly interested in this gym.
"Well your sensei is supposed to tell you, but Nai-chan has never gone to the gym. She prefers to come up with genjutsu theory. And team 9 doesn't know about it because no one has ever told Gai about the place, or he would never leave." Anko answered while scratching her chin with a pensive look on her face. "So you interested?"
"Yea, that would be great. I can finally start working out correctly." Naruto said as he followed Anko as they leapt across rooftops to their destination.
-Gym-
Anko and Naruto landed just outside the gym, which was a large two story building with large windows that let in a lot of natural light. They both walked inside and made their way to the front desk which was manned by a non-descript jounin shinobi.
"Ah, Anko. I was wondering when you would show up, you're running late." The jounin commented.
"Yea, I had to go find a spotter. Yugao is on a mission and Hana is working. So I went out and found this pipsqueak." Anko grabbed Naruto around the neck and brought him in for a one armed hug. "Hopefully he can keep up."
The jounin turned towards Naruto. "Ah. Young Uzumaki. I see you have found the gym. Honestly I was expecting to see you here much earlier."
Naruto narrowed his eyes at the man, not understanding the man's attitude towards him.
"No need to be suspicious Uzumaki, I'm not the like most of the population of Konoha, I know you're a human." The jounin smiled.
"Oh, and why aren't you like the rest?" Naruto questioned, genuinely curious why some people thought of him as the Kyuubi while others saw him as any other shinobi, though there was still a hint of disbelief in his tone.
"Possibly because I didn't lose anyone in the attack. I was an orphan, so I didn't have any parents to lose, and before the attack the orphanages were so empty that I didn't really have any friends, so anyone that died in the attack I wasn't closely attached to." The jounin explained, giving Naruto a better understanding of why people, even semi-rational people, hated him.
"Wow, that's almost depressing. And you were expecting me to come here after I became a ninja?" Naruto asked.
"Ha! I like you. No pity, blunt as hell. You won't make it far in politics, but you'll be a hell of a shinobi. I did expect you to immediately come here when you heard of the place. You have the most potential out of all the shinobi in the village, I thought you would have come here to make that potential a reality. But you're here now, so you can start striving towards that now."
"What makes you think I have the most potential?" Naruto continued to barrage the jounin with questions.
"Please, anyone with an enormous chakra mass sealed inside them is always going to have incredible potential. If you can learn to fight on par with the kage without using that orange monstrosity, you would completely annihilate anyone with it's power. The only ones that could stand up to you are those with a near godlike kekkai genkai or other jinchuuriki that are S-rank shinobi without using their tenant."
"That does make sense. We're like giant weapons that the village can point at other villages. The sharper the weapon, the more deadly it will be in war." Naruto breathed out.
"We're all weapons kid, when you sign up to be a ninja that's all you'll ever be until you retire. But without us we wouldn't be enjoying life in the village, we'd go back before the days of Hidden Villages and just be warring clans." The jounin responded sagely.
"Hmm, I guess you're right. It was nice talking to you. I'll be seeing you more often now that I know of this place. I gotta go though, Anko is getting impatient." Naruto said as he was dragged towards the weight room by his shoulder.
"Kid, you can socialize later, right now I need get my workout in before I head over to T&I." Anko hissed as she made her way into the weight room.
"Not that I am complaining or anything, but why didn't you just make a clone to spot you?" Naruto asked as they arrived at a bench.
"Because I need someone else here to motivate me, if it's just myself I'm not going to be as motivated to do better. You always need someone who is there to push you to be better. That's going to be your job." Anko replied as she finished putting 100 kg on the bar. "Now spot me."
-A few hours later-
Naruto exited the gym alone, Anko already having left to torture some guy.
'Holy shit, my arms won't move.' Naruto thought as he walked through the village. Try as he might, he couldn't lift his arms higher than his waist.
'That tends to happen when you try to keep up weight-wise with an experienced kunoichi, while refusing to use chakra or release your resistance seals.' Kurama chided Naruto.
'Yea, so I have learned. But I don't plan on going easy on myself, I've got to get stronger if I want to have an enjoyable life.' Naruto responded.
'An enjoyable life on the run? Where's the fun in that?' Kurama questioned.
'You have no sense of adventure, it'll be fun having to evade teams of ANBU. I wonder who they would send after me.' Naruto thought as he reached the fence of the Forest of Death. 'Probably Yuugao, she actually has some connection to me. I wonder if they already have me down as a flight risk?'
'I wouldn't doubt it. The village isn't blind, they know how you are treated and anyone with half a brain would know that you aren't too fond of this place. I think every jinchuuriki must be labeled a flight risk.'
'All the more fun, can't have it be easy.' Naruto stopped when he reached the clearing that he had made his home.
"Hey guys how's it going?" Naruto asked the native wildlife that were gathered around the clearing.
All the animals just looked at him, some giving a small sound of acknowledgment.
"I know I can't understand you, and I believe my ability to understand you is beyond just simple learning, I'll try to find a solution soon though." Naruto promised the animals before he made his way towards his tree to get some sleep, he was exhausted after his workout and still recovering from regrowing his finger.
So I should just stop promising updates. It's been forever since I updated, and honestly I shouldn't have taken so long but life happens. I apologize for not updating, but I had some personal issues that I had to deal with. I'm not going to promise anything in regards to this story, besides that I will continue with it.
See ya later,
~Dyna