AN: hi all, Sorry I'm afraid Christmas is kicking my butt this year.

Have you ever read heaps of really great fanfiction and lost faith in your own story, and then read some really bad fanfiction and thought, "I could totally do better than that." Yeah, me neither.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto; I just think he's awesome.

Warning: May contain spoilers and/or clichés, if you are bothered or offended by either; why are you reading fanfiction?

'thinking'

"speaking"

jutsu

demon speak

Chapter 6.

Naruto awoke gasping for breath with his heart racing. He had dreamt of all that had gone wrong in the previous timeline starting from his graduation, the wave mission, the Chunin exams, his Jiji's death, Sasuke leaving, the Akatsuki, Gaara dying, Asuma dying, Jiraiya dying, the Pein attack, the war. For the past year Naruto had managed to push aside the realisation of the enormity of the task he had set for himself as he had focussed on the more immediate concerns of food, shelter and personal security. But now that these problems had been somewhat addressed, his mind had time to turn to the problem of how to save the future, a problem which was overwhelming his recently awoken mind causing a state of panic.

Before when faced with insurmountable odds or tasked with a vital mission, Naruto had never panicked as he was a part of a team. Plans were made for him or with his input, but never before was anything left up to him, and now the future of his friends was in his hands. If anything went wrong it would be up to him to solve it and if the future he created through his actions ended up even worse, it would be his entire fault.

"Think Naruto. What would Kakashi-sensei do? What would Pervy Sage say?"

Both senseis had stressed the importance of planning ahead, the first step of which, he remembered, was knowledge. Once you knew all the relative information a plan often wrote itself according to Jiraiya.

Naruto's heart rate slowed and his breathing evened out, "Right, I need to set everything out first, and then I'll know what to do."

Getting up at last Naruto then washed, dressed himself and ate his breakfast all whilst being careful to keep his mind blank.

When he had finished he took some blank pieces of paper and a couple of pencils from the stationery supplies on his bookshelf and sat down at his kitchen table. First he listed down all the missions he could remember off the top of his head in a rough order and circled all those that had a direct impact on Konoha. He then took another piece of paper and listed down the names of all his friends grouping them by team and wrote beside each name anything that happened to them that he wanted to prevent such as Gaara's abduction, Asuma's death, the Uchiha massacre and so on.

Next on yet another piece of paper he wrote out a list of his fellow Jinchiriki's and their tenants, and beside each he wrote when they had been taken and by whom, all of which he had gleaned from information given by Jiraiya and from when he had met them personally in the biju mindscape during the war.

He even wrote out a list of all his personal jutsu, Taijustu styles, Senjutsu techniques and his meagre Fuuinjustu knowledge. Once he was done, Naruto looked through the piles of paper circling those incidents he felt he had a chance of changing. He decided to focus on the Uchiha Massacre, his Genin exam, the Wave mission, The Chunin Exam, Tsunade's retrieval, Sasuke's leaving, Gaara's abduction, Asuma's death and the war.

For each incident he wrote the name at the top of the page then wrote a brief description of what had happened for each.

Taking the first incident, Naruto stared at the title he had given the page, the Uchiha Massacre, steading his breathing as he focussed on the words. He closed his eyes and fell into a mediative state, diving deep down into his subconscious in search of any memories pertaining to those words. This was a technique Jiraiya had taught him to use when writing reports, as the conscious mind would often overlook details in the heat of battle, details that the subconscious would retain.

Piecing together what would occur from half-forgotten personal memories, clues given by Itachi during their infrequent meetings, information found out by Jiraiya and Kakashi and that told to him by Tobi himself, Naruto wrote out the Uchiha incident as he would any report.

Naruto's personal memories of the incident were somewhat sketchy as he had not really paid much attention to Sasuke until after the event. All he could remember was that it had occurred during the first week of the Ninja Academy, some two years from his present time. In his quest to get Sasuke back, Naruto had researched the incident to try and understand his friend's motivation but it wasn't until the visit from Tobi before the war broke out that a clear picture of what had occurred had been obtained.

According to Itachi's plan only those involved in the planning of the coup should have been killed. On the day of the massacre, the civilian women and the elderly would be meeting at the far end of the estate for a family picnic with the younger generation. All the Genin and Chunin level Uchiha were on duty at the village police station and Sasuke, the only Uchiha of school age would be at the academy. All Jonin level Uchiha, the Clan Elders and Clan Head would be meeting at the main house to plan the coup and only they were scheduled to die.

Unbeknownst to Itachi, whilst he was slaying the masterminds of the coup, Danzo had sent his ROOT operatives into the police headquarters to kill all the Genin and Chunin officers, who knew nothing of the plans, and to harvest any active sharingans they could find for transplanting into himself and a few select ROOT operatives.

Itachi knew nothing of this until he had fled after being unexpectedly confronted by Sasuke who had been let home early due to a Council directive that all clan children be allowed home that day for clan training. Still in shock from just killing his own parents Itachi had responded to Sasuke's unplanned presence by attacking him with his newly awakened Mangekyo Sharingan, which he had gained by killing his best friend only days earlier. By attacking Sasuke with the Tsukuyomi, Itachi hoped that Sasuke would grow strong in his hate and kill him thus freeing him from his agony of guilt.

Whilst Itachi was busy torturing his little brother, Tobi in his guise as Madara had entered the other side of the estate and had slain all the remaining Uchiha consisting of the civilian women, children and the elderly of the clan as they played in the estates large communal green space. When the ANBU finally arrived the only remaining Uchiha to be found was a comatose Sasuke lying in the middle of a bloodbath.

Naruto sighed as he lay down his pencil. The whole thing would be a complete mess and as he was he knew that there wasn't much he could do about it. Even if he trained hard for the next two years he would barely be above genin strength by the time everything would occur.

Reading over it again the only thing he felt he could personally achieve would be to keep Sasuke well out of the picture as he had originally intended to have been. Perhaps he could send an anonymous warning of Danzo and Tobi's intentions to the Hokage using the spy codes Jiraiya had taught him, but he couldn't see what else he would be capable of achieving.

Putting aside the Uchiha problem, Naruto took up the next piece of paper and prepared to delve into his memories once again.

For each of the future incidents he had highlighted, Naruto carefully set out what would happen, who did what and what events would lead up to the event. When he had finished the last page, Naruto decided to take a break and eat some lunch to clear his head before he attempted to plan what he should do for each.

Tiding the papers into a pile, Naruto got up and dragged a chair over to his kitchen counter. Climbing up he got a couple of cups of instant ramen down and set them on the work space. Getting down again he walked to his fridge and got out a handful of vegetables and some ground chicken to make a simple stirfry to go with his ramen.

Climbing on to his step stool from under the sink after getting a bowl and a knife from the lower cabinet, he proceeded to chop up the vegetables and place them in the bowl and then prepared the noodles by opening the packets and tipping the sachets of flavour over the dried noodles. Hoping down he took the kettle and frypan from the lower cabinet and placed them on the stove.

Naruto moved the step stool over to the sink so he could fill the kettle and then moved it to the stove so that he could cook his meal. After everything was cooked, Naruto turned everything off and hopped down so he could carry his meal to the kitchen table. He grabbed some chopsticks from the draw and sat down to eat.

As he ate Naruto contemplated his small hands and skinny wrists. "I'm still skin and bones even after eating pretty well for a month," he said to himself, "I won't be able to do any real strength training until I bulk up a little. Though according to that nutrition book Chishiki-san gave to me yesterday as I left the library, if I exercise whilst eating well that should encourage muscle growth instead of fat deposits leading to sinewy muscle and lean body shape perfect for speed techniques. That's probably why I was so fast originally; my body never had enough food to form flab or overly bulky muscles."

Finishing up his lunch Naruto returned to the piles of paper. "Well I really only need to plan ahead for the first four, The Uchiha Massacre, my Genin Exam, the Wave Mission and the Chunin Exams. If I can change what happens there it may affect the future enough that the other incidents don't occur and if they do I'll have the three years of the training trip to plan out what to do."

"I'll focus on the Uchiha Massacre for now and plan for the rest closer to the events. But I'll need to hide these papers in case my apartment gets searched for whatever reason."

Taking more blank paper, Naruto coded all the information he had written out using the code he had learnt from Jiraiya though instead of using an Icha Icha as the key he decided to use Jiraiya's first book, which he had borrowed from the library the day before as he always liked to have a copy on him. Folding the coded information up he wrote coded labels on the front of each and bundled them up with some string.

He took the package into his room and shoved his bed away from the wall. Naruto then lifted the loose floorboard that had been resting under the foot of the bed and placed the package into the space revealed before replacing the board and shoving the bed back into place.

Walking back into the kitchen Naruto took the original pages and placed them into the bucket he took out from under the kitchen sink and set fire to the lot. After the small fire had died down he mixed some water into the ashes and flushed the whole lot down the toilet.

Satisfied that the evidence had been erased, Naruto again sat down at the table with a blank piece of paper and wrote out the plan for the foreseeable future. It read: Eat, Read and Train.

Thus Naruto's daily schedule for the next two months was set.

Waking early he would run through the resistance exercises suggested in Gai's book, he would then meditate to exercise his chakra. After a breakfast of cereal and some of the dried berries he had collected earlier before winter set in, he would then dress and make his way to the training grounds to run laps out of sight of the villagers and to collect any fruit or nuts still on the bushes. Naruto would then return to his apartment to either study the books he had gathered from the library the day before or to practice his hand signs.

Gathering the books he no longer needed he would then make his way to the library after which he would either make his way home for lunch or go to Ichiraku's. After lunch he would make his way to the Hokage tower to spend quality time with his Jiji.

On his very first visit, three days after receiving his apartment, Naruto had snuck by the receptionist as he remembered that the woman never liked him and asked the two ANBU stationed at the door very politely if the Hokage was in and alone. At their affirmative nod, Naruto then proceeded to kick open the door whilst shouting, "Ohayo Jiji," in his most cheerful voice.

The Hokage had looked up and smiled at the blonde scamp and had waved the ANBU away, glad for the distraction from the endless paperwork.

"Hello Naruto," said the Hokage, "I am glad to see you but please knock next time. How are you?"

"Great Jiji," sang Naruto, "I'm getting really strong. Strong enough to be Hokage soon." He boasted as he puffed out his skinny chest,

"Really now?" asked the Hokage chuckling as he relaxed back in his chair, "How so?"

"I've been doing all these exercises I found in this book by this guy called Gai. You use rubber band and stretch a lot," exclaimed Naruto.

"I see. Could you show me some of these exercises?" asked the Hokage indulgently, 'They should be fine if he got them from a book but I should check to be sure, especially if the book was written by Gai.'

"Ok," cried Naruto as he jumped up and ran through some of the exercises for the Hokage, glad to have someone check his form, which he had missed from his previous training.

"Very good. Those exercises will make you very strong indeed," said the Sandaime, "Now then anything else happening?"

The two then settled in for a little chat, before long the Hokage looked up at the clock on his wall. "I'm sorry Naruto but I need to get back to this paperwork before it starts to pileup." said the Hokage apologetically.

"Can't I stay a little longer?" pleaded Naruto his little lip quivering, "It's so boring in my apartment."

The Hokage translated this as his apartment being lonely, but the paperwork needed to be done. Just as he hardened his heart to say no, Naruto unleashed the Puppy Dog Eyes Jutsu.

"Oh all right," the Hokage gave in, "But you must be quiet while I work. Can you do that?"

"Of Course," cried Naruto happily, "I even brought a book." And from his pocket he produced a small green book.

The Hokage's eyes widened as he noticed the title, The Tale of the Gutsy Shinobi. 'I wonder how he got a copy of that.'

"Is it good?"

"I found it in the library, it's my favourite," answered Naruto, "It's about a ninja who never gives up and he has the same name as me!"

Naruto made his way over to the couch against the side wall of the office and made himself comfortable. The Hokage went back to his paperwork as Naruto opened his book and the office was enveloped in silence, but for the occasional turning page.

After a few hours of this Naruto's rambunctious presence rather strangely began to fade from existence in the minds of not only the Hokage but also from the minds of the hidden ANBU as Naruto engaged his stealth techniques learnt from years of pranking.

An hour later there came a knock at the door.

"Enter," called the Hokage.

A ninja, obviously Jonin, came in and handed the Hokage a scroll before standing at attention before his desk. "Jonin Jaki reporting completion of A-rank mission."

"Continue," commanded the Hokage calmly.

"Target identified at 0800 and neutralised as to mission parameters." reported the Jonin.

"Very well," solemnly stated the Hokage as he puffed on his pipe, "You may collect your mission pay downstairs. Dismissed."

The Hokage then went back to his paperwork as the Jonin left the room, closing the door behind him. This routine repeated itself four more times with various different Jonin before the Hokage remembered his young guest. He looked over at the couch only to find Naruto asleep with a small smile on his face.

However rather than sleeping, Naruto was in fact congratulating himself on finding a way to insinuate himself into the Hokage's office without arousing suspicion. This way he would be able to gather Intel and in much more comfort than on previous stakeout missions.

Thus his daily visits to the Hokage became routine, with only the title of his book changing day to day. In such a way he gained a real insight into the inner workings of the village as well as re-establishing a close relationship with his surrogate grandfather. A relationship he had sorely missed in the years following the old man's death.

After visiting the Hokage, which would last for many hours, Naruto would return home to cook a simple meal from his fortnightly delivery of supplies, before buckling down to study that day's library borrowing. He would then run through his resistance exercise, practice his version of the wall climbing exercise, and then meditate by which time he had expelled enough energy so that he could sleep.

This routine changed, of course, with his enrolment in Pre-Academy.