AN: hi all, Merry Christmas! I hope you all had a wonderful time. My families gone camping (I don't do camping) so I have plenty of time, therefore … New chapter! WOOT!

I hope you all have a wonderful new year too. Enjoy (sensibly)!

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 8.

Naruto sighed in frustration as he slumped down in his chair staring at the groceries he had just unpacked onto his kitchen table.

"Well I guess whoever is in charge of my fortnightly supplies had finally realised who they were for. Damn it!" Naruto stood up and paced his floor in frustration while running his hands through his hair. He dragged his hands down over his face as he stopped and took a deep breath to calm himself down.

"At least the good food lasted for about nine month this time instead of just two. I've managed to correct most of the damage done by not eating right for so long, I've managed to get some muscle and I've started to heal faster," he said to himself as he moved back towards the table, "But argh! Dammit!"

For much of Naruto's previous childhood his inherited healing factor had been busy compensating for his severely malnourished state, stopping his organs from failing and supplementing his non-existent muscles. The rapid healing he was known for as a ninja didn't really come into play until a couple of months after he had become a Genin as Kakashi had supplied the team with nutritionally rich lunches thus giving Naruto's body the necessary fuel to function normally without needing constant healing.

Thanks to a more nutritious diet Naruto had noticed a change in his rate of healing much earlier in his development which gave him great hope for his future training if his understanding of how muscle developed, which he gained from Gai-sensei's book, was correct. That was if he could keep eating as nutritiously as he had been now that his supplies had been compromised.

Instead of the array of fresh vegetables, various meats, high quality ramen and cereals, dry goods and fresh milk he had come to expect in his deliveries, what Naruto now unpacked was of the lowest quality possible in comparison. Vegetables, what there were of them, were old, shrivelled and in some cases rotten. The meat was obviously off cuts, generally reserved for feeding dogs and cats. The milk was one day off expiration and perhaps most upsetting of all; the Ramen was of the cheapest variety and came in only two flavours.

"Argh!" cried Naruto, "What to do? What to do? I could eat out more at Ichiraku, I have a tab which Jiji pays for me, but that's not the healthiest. I'm still getting lunch from the Academy, so I only really need to worry about breakfast and dinner. But according to Baa-chan I have a very high metabolism and need to eat more than other people so lunch and dinner need to be large meals and that takes a lot of food. I could start foraging again and setting traps but that will take time away from my training."

Naruto thumped his fist on the table in frustration, squashing an overripe tomato with his fist causing seeds and pulp to spurt out the side. Sticking a finger into the mess, he began to idly draw random designs on the table with the juice as he mulled over the problem.

"I need a more constant source of food that I can control. Too bad I can't just produce it myself." Naruto paused as he stared at the squashed fruit on the table in front of him. "Huh, maybe I can."

Naruto gathered up the vegetables and examined them closely. "Ok, I can get seeds from these tomatoes and the potatoes are more eyes than anything else so they should grow well. The pumpkin is a little rotten but the seeds should still be good. I'll need something to plant them in, but I think I know where I can get some pots. Ino's parents often stored unused containers behind their nursery, that's where I got Ukki-san's (1) bed from, and I can get soil from the park. I even have a constant supply of fertiliser coming if all my future deliveries are going to be like this, I'll just need to get a bin from somewhere and then I can make a worm farm. There's plenty of room on my balcony for seedling pots and when they get bigger I can plant them out on the roof. There's plenty of room up there."

With this plan of action Naruto set to with a will that only he could produce. Over the next few weeks Naruto kicked into high gear as Operation Food Production took off. After securing the necessary materials from various locations around the village, usually from back alleyways, Naruto spent the next few weeks hauling dirt by the bucketful from the various training grounds and parks of the village before school and after. He then used an old rope to haul the soil up onto his roof after first scaling up using his modified wall climbing technique.

The roof of Naruto's apartment building had been designed as a lookout originally before the building of taller buildings around it had made this function largely redundant. Because of this the roof had a large, circular flat area in the centre surrounded by a waist high wall with a sloping roof leading down to the edge, perfect for sheltering young plants from the harsh wind and sun.

Using wooden boards scrounged from backstreets to section off the roof, Naruto created planting beds and placed his bin/worm farm in the centre. After filling the beds with soil and the bin with more soil mixed with the rotten offcuts of plant matter delivered to his home and a bucketful of worms he had collected from the park, Naruto planted out some of the beds with wild food plants he foraged whilst waiting for the seeds he planted in the pots on his balcony to grow.

Before long there was an edible garden on Naruto's roof and the daily climb to tend to the plants and turn over the worm farm had been added to Naruto's already packed daily training regime. As he could not subsist on vegetables alone, Naruto would spend the morning on weekends fishing and trapping to supplement his diet with fresh meat which he would store in his freezer for the week.

In the meantime, whilst waiting for his endeavours to bear fruit, as it were, Naruto racked up quite a bill at Ichiraku's as he reasoned that an overload of ramen couldn't cause much harm in the short term and he needed some reward for all the extra hard work.

I think that's the name of his pot plant form the manga, but I could be wrong.

Naruto had continued with his afternoon visits to the Hokage after starting Pre-Academy, after visiting the Library of course. Over the course of half a year he had enjoyed many interesting conversations with the Hokage, delighting in being able to pick The Professor's brain on subjects ranging from Jutsu theory to the most appropriate way to greet dignitaries. Though there was one conversation which caused him some discomfort that occurred some two weeks into Operation Food Production.

On this occasion, Naruto's customary greeting of "Ohayo Jiji" was met with a stern faced Hokage who invited the boy to take a seat on the chair in front of his desk.

"Naruto," began the Old Man calmly, "I would like you to explain a few things that people have been telling me lately, if that is ok?

Naruto was a little uncomfortable with the Hokage's manner and started to panic thinking that he had done something to give himself away, but replied in his usual bright manner, "Sure Jiji, Shoot."

"It has come to my attention that you have taken up gardening Naruto. Is this true?"

Relaxing somewhat Naruto replied, "Yeah I've taken up growing vegetables and stuff. I read about it in a book and it looked really easy. I got the seeds from the vegetables delivered to my house and I even managed to forage some wild growing greens and root vegetables. There's heaps of room on my roof and I have a balcony for all the seedlings."

"Very enterprising of you my boy but tell me how do you get up on that roof of yours?" asked the old man in an overly unemotional voice.

'Ah someone must of seen me and told the old man,' Naruto carefully kept an innocent look on his face as he replied, "Well I crawled up Jiji."

"And how did you 'crawl' up the side of a wall, Naruto." pressed the Old Man.

"With chakra of course," exclaimed Naruto in that voice that all children use that makes adults feel as though the child thinks they're an idiot.

The Hokage's face became very stern as he asked, "And where did you learn how to do that Naruto?" as he finished the sentence the Hokage's eyes lowered so that he was looking suspiciously at Naruto's stomach.

'Oh,' thought Naruto, 'that's what this is about. How to explain this without lying?' "Well Jiji, I've seen ninja walking up trees and walls around the village and from that book Chishiki-san gave me last month, you know the one about chakra control exercises we talked about, well in that book it talked about how ninja used chakra to stick to stuff like trees and poles and walls. And I thought to myself, Hey I'm really little and the world is really tall and if I could walk up walls I'd be able to reach more stuff and so I taught myself how to do it in my lounge room. But I'm not strong enough yet to walk up walls, I kept falling and hitting my head, so then I thought I would try how gecko-san does it and it worked!" exclaimed Naruto flinging his hands about as he explained.

The Hokage sat back in his chair with a look of surprised understanding mixed with a little relief. He took up his pipe, lit it and said, "Well, that's certainly a unique little skill you've developed their Naruto. I think you are perhaps the youngest person to use chakra in that way. Well done! But tell me why do you want to grow your own vegetables, wouldn't flowers be more fun?"

Naruto laughed as he replied, "You can't eat flowers Jiji. Nah, I'm growing them for food the last few deliveries haven't been the best and I can't afford to be out foraging everyday so I thought if I grew my own then I'll always have fresh food on hand."

"What do you mean that your deliveries haven't been the best?" asked the Hokage in concern.

"Oh you know, overripe and rotten vegetables, bargain brand staples, meat offcuts, that sort of thing." answered the Jinchiriki breezily, "nothing too serious. I can handle it."

"That's not right Naruto. The cost of those groceries is coming out of the village funds, even if you a 'fine' with it whoever is responsible needs to be dealt with. Don't worry I'll see to it that your deliveries are fixed up like how they were before." answered the Hokage clearly outraged at the injustice perpetrated on his favourite six year old.

"Thanks Jiji," said Naruto with genuine gratitude, not many had tried to correct the many petty injustices perpetrated upon him growing up, "Is it all right if I continue with my vegetable garden though, just in case? I do enjoy it and its nice having something productive to do other than training."

"Fine my boy, but only if you use some to make me something when you can. It's not often that I get anything homemade to eat, let alone home-grown." replied the Sandaime jovially.

Relaxed now that all concerns had been met, the Hokage and Naruto settled down for their usual daily visit. Naruto was glad that he was able to allay the old man's concerns but promised himself to always have an excuse ready from now on for any new training or skills he should take up. Books would come in handy for this, though learning Jutsu may cause some problems as he wanted to relearn the Transformation Jutsu and Clone Jutsu soon, the training scrolls for which would only be legitimately available to him when he entered the Ninja Academy in a year and a half's time. Perhaps he could get away with ostentatiously spying on the Academy student's and random genin's practice as an alibi for his inexplicable knowledge of the two Jutsu.

Naruto was pleased to find that his hypothesis about his newly awakened healing ability was proved true, as over the course of the last few weeks he had found it easier and easier to carry the heavy bucket filled with soil home from the training grounds and up onto his roof. Each day he could carry more and with less effort, as the damage caused to his muscles the day before was healed overnight leaving behind stronger and more resilient muscle mass.

Now that he no longer had to worry about damaging his developing body, Naruto started on the intensive training regime he had been developing for himself using Gai-sensei's books and some anatomy guides he had found in the library.

The main book Naruto used was called, "Confined Youth: keeping the flames of youth smouldering", it was all about retraining damaged muscles and maintaining muscle strength whilst being a captive and contained a lot of exercises that a shinobi could do in a small space. Naruto thought it would be perfect for him as it allowed him to grow strong whilst staying in his apartment and he adopted many of the techniques written within the book such as using chakra to hang from the wall while he performed sit ups and leg lifts, and using fist size rocks for bicep curls and other individual muscle building exercises.

Naruto theorised that if it was good enough for recovering shinobi in captivity to do, it was safe enough for him to attempt. Another of Gai-sensei's tips that Naruto had adopted was the step up approach to exercise reps. Gai recommended in his book to start out slow with as many reps as a person could handle and then one week later add another five, a week after that add another five and so on. So if Naruto could perform say thirty sit ups, the following week he would do thirty-five and the week after that forty.

The trick was to complete the reps in the same amount of time it took the person to complete the original number of reps, thus not only would the person increase the number of reps and thus the difficulty of their workout but they would also train their speed and pacing at the same time. Once the reps reached one hundred sets, the person would then reset, increasing the time limit by five minutes once a month. Before long there was an extensive tally sheet stuck on his lounge room floor keeping track of the multiple reps he had to complete each morning.

After his morning strength and flexibility exercises, Naruto took to running around the village a couple of times, instead of just around the training grounds, before heading off to school. After school let out and his daily visits to the library and to the Hokage, Naruto would eat dinner at Ichiraku's then head to the park near his house to use the play equipment to help further with his training.

On weekends he would climb the Hokage Monument to spend the morning with his dad, then race through the forests just behind the mountain as he would an obstacle course, jumping creeks, swinging from ropes he had previously tied to various trees and jumping from tree branch to tree branch. In this way did Naruto grow stronger and stronger day after day.

Eyes closed, breathing calm he swayed gently to the left as a rock came hurtling past his face. Pivoting on his right foot, he dodged the rock about to slam into his left shoulder then jumped up to miss the rock aimed squarely at his right knee. Naruto stretched out his left hand and tripped the wire within arm's reach, releasing the next set of projectiles, swaying and jumping with minimal effort he managed to dodge all of the missiles … only to be hit on the back of the head by the backswing of the original rock.

"Damn it!" cussed the boy heatedly as he opened his eyes and caught the rock in his fist as is swung back again on the rope it was suspended from. It was his fourth week training with his newly built avoidance rig and it was not going well. He was trying to train his senses to detect movement during a fight when visibility was low such as in mist or darkness, but he was finding it difficult as he kept being distracted by the noise of the village.

Naruto had built the rig in a disused section of the park near his home, using traps to release swinging rocks and spring loaded catapults, being careful to disable the traps and take the ropes with him every night so that no curious children could be harmed. He had scavenged the necessary ropes and ninja wires from the various training grounds around the village, retraining himself on how to tie knots and set various traps as he built his rig.

During the evenings the park was often deserted, as all the children returned home for dinner, and so Naruto had the run of the place. On the weekends Naruto would come to the park now and again to watch the other children play, smiling gently as he sat on a swing out of the way, but he found it difficult to approach them as he felt somewhat indulgent and big brotherly even to those children seemingly older than himself and so did not know how to treat them. It was difficult being mentally seventeen in a six year olds body.

He found the play equipment to be very useful for his physical training and would spend the evening quite happily in seeming play. Naruto would hang upside down for hours from the monkey bars training his body to use his chakra to keep his blood circulating so that it didn't pool in his head, a necessary skill for ninja as they spent a lot of time hanging from the ceiling. He would run along the balance beams, set at various heights, on his feet and on his hands both forwards and backwards, training his balance and speed, and he would jump from the swings training his body to fall correctly and how to land safely at speed.

Naruto would ostentatiously bring a few training guides along with him, including guides of trap building, which he would leave around with their titles face up to allay any suspicious concerns of his watchers. Naruto theorised that it was his ANBU guards who tattled and as such took measures to prevent any more uncomfortable talks with his Jiji.

He wasn't worried about the Hokage questioning his intelligence, after all the Hokage was used to dealing with genius children and no one from this time knew him as a knucklehead or idiot, rather he was concerned with the fact that he knew way more than he should and didn't want anyone to jump to erroneous conclusions about where he was getting this knowledge from. His one fear was to be seen as an enemy by those he cared for.

Sighing to himself, Naruto reset his traps and stood once again in the starting position. Closing his eyes, he steadied his breath and let the sounds of the village fill his head. Breathing in he identified each sound and then mentally put it aside, until he had gained an understanding of the normal sounds all around him, only then did he reach out him left foot and trip the first line.

SIDE CHAPTER

(Occurring sometime in the past year)

It was an unusually wet afternoon in Konoha and Naruto was at that moment curled up comfortably on the couch in the Hokage's office. His Jiji was busy at his desk working on some mission reports and Naruto was engrossed in his book on Jutsu theory and classifications, when he came across a paragraph in the book which puzzled him.

Looking up from his book Naruto called out, "Oi Jiji, Can I ask you something?"

The Hokage put down his pen and sat back in his chair, lighting his pipe as he looked over at the boy. "Sure Naruto, What would you like to know?"

"Well I was reading this book ," so saying he raised the book up to eye height to show the old man the title, "and it says here that a ninja is advanced to Jonin if he can show mastery of two jutsu."

"Yes that's correct, though they can also be promoted through exemplary work in the field." answered the old man indulgently.

"Well it says here that to master a Jutsu a ninja must be able to perform it soundlessly, smokelessly and with a minimum of hand signs and they must also show adaptability of the Jutsu. But I've never seen any of our ninja do that." continued Naruto puzzled.

"Well, that's mainly because not many of our ninja take the time to truly master Jutsu anymore. I'm afraid that most of the senior ninja that you will encounter are products of war time education when it was enough if the Jutsu worked consistently. Even after the war people didn't see the need to continue training with Jutsu that worked fine as they were as the saying goes, why fix it if it isn't broken." explained the old man.

"Why not? I mean it seems to me that being able to cast a Jutsu without sound or smoke would be really handy if you wanted to be sneaky and isn't being sneaky what being a ninja is all about? And what does it mean by showing adaptability in a Jutsu?" asked the boy with great interest.

"Well most ANBU learn to master Jutsu, it's part of their promotion requirement, even if the majority of Jonin do not. Showing adaptability of a Jutsu, is just as it sounds, being able to adapt a Jutsu to suit different needs by changing the chakra flow to produce different results. You see, a Jutsu training scroll, which shows the necessary hand signs and how much chakra to mould, shows the default setting of a Jutsu. If you did it that way every time, you would get the same result. However if you change the flow of chakra, hold it longer on one sign or flow it faster through another, you can change the strength of the Jutsu and even the direction. For example if I performed the earth style Jutsu Barrier Wall normally a wall of earth of head height would form in front of me. If I held the chakra in the first and third sign longer, the wall would form on my left side. If I held the chakra on the first sign and speed it through the last, the wall would form behind me and curve slightly over my head." explained the old man at length.

"Wow, I've never heard about that. That's so cool, why doesn't every ninja learn how to do that? We would be like the most powerful ninja's of all the great villages. Clients would flock to hire us!" exclaimed Naruto excitedly bouncing on the couch.

"Well it takes a lot of time and effort to master a Jutsu. You need to experiment with the chakra flow, learn how to reduce the chakra overflow. To reduce the necessary hand signs to the bare minimum, you need to practice the jutsu so often that the shape of the chakra is imbedded into your mind so that it is controlled through your will, which takes a lot of concentration before it becomes second nature, and you need to do that for any adaptations that your develop as well. You also need to learn how to subvocalize so you no longer need to call out the name of the Jutsu and that takes a lot of time and effort to learn. I can't see any of the ninja today being willing to go to all that effort." replied the Hokage.

"Well why not? We're at peace right now there's plenty of time and if you ask me that ninja around here could do with a bit more training time. Hardly any of the training grounds I visit are ever occupied by anyone over Genin in level." complained Naruto, knowing how unprepared most of the village had been during the invasion in his thirteenth year.

'If they start now they should be in peak strength by the time it comes around again. Come to think of it I have all the time in the world myself, perhaps I should look into mastering my own Jutsu. I can think of a number of fights where being able to perform a Jutsu silently would have given me the element of surprise and allowed me to win more quickly. I never saw the point of sneaking into a battle when the first Jutsu would alert everyone to your position. Much better to enter with a bang if they're only going to know where you are anyway.'

"You have a point my boy. Perhaps I'll suggest it to my Jonin at our next meeting," replied the Hokage thoughtfully as he returned to his papers.

"Sounds like a plan Jiji," exclaimed Naruto as he settled back on the couch with his book to read more on the details of mastering Jutsu, plans swirling through his brain as the rain beat against the window outside.