Disclaimer: All HP characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies and all Naruto characters are the property of Masashi Kishimoto. This is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.
Warnings: AU for parts of both worlds (i.e. kiss canon goodbye), mild character bashing, mild to moderate violence (there are shinobi involved after all), and a few others that will be announced as they crop up.
AN: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.
Chapter 3: Whirlwind Educations
Sunday, January 31, 1999, Morning
Elemental District, Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan
After breakfast on his third day in the Elemental District, Naruto found himself seated once more in Naoki's office while he waited for the man to go over the results of all the tests he'd taken over the past two days. Naruto was more than a little anxious as he had no idea what would happen if he'd failed any of the tests and the last thing he'd wanted was to be sent back to the Elemental Countries before he'd found out what had become of his uncle.
"Relax, Uzumaki-kun, you have nothing to worry about," Naoki assured him as he pulled out several thick folders and set them on the desk. "Which would you like to discuss first; the results of your tests or the information I was able to retrieve about Namikaze Kichiro?"
"You found Kichiro-oji, dattebayo?" Naruto asked excitedly as he jumped out of the chair. "Is he still alive? Do you know where he is now? When can I see him?"
"Calm down, Uzumaki-kun," Naoki instructed with a trace of fond exasperation; the man had quickly figured out that Naruto was a fairly hyper and excitable kid. "Yes, I found information on Namikaze-san; he arrived in Asahikawa-shi on March second, nineteen-fifty-one and stayed for almost two years before he left Japan. According to his file, Namikaze-san underwent several surgeries in an attempt to repair his damaged chakra coils and spent roughly eighteen months in therapy and training before he changed his name to Evans Gregory and left. My father's notes said that Kichiro had been extremely disappointed that his coils could not be fully repaired and chose not to return to the Elemental Countries because he did not wish to be pitied by his friends and family on the other side."
"Is he still alive? Do you know where he ended up?"
"I do not know whether or not he is still alive or not; we lost track of him shortly after he left Japan. We do, however, have more than enough information in addition to a couple of pictures of your uncle that we can use to track him down for you; it will just take time since it has been over forty years since he passed through the Elemental District and records from that time period are sometimes difficult to come by."
"What happens to me though?"
"Ah, that question leads right into our next topic of discussion; the results of your assessment tests. Physically and medically, you are in perfect health right now even though you are a bit underweight at the moment and there was some evidence of malnutrition for an extended period of time but the damage is already being corrected according the tests that were run. So long as you eat a well balance diet from this point forward, you shouldn't have any problems later in life though you will most likely still end up being shorter than average as far as your height goes. Your chakra coils are perfectly healthy and your reserves are abnormally large for someone your age which explains the sheer amount of energy you have."
Naruto chuckled weakly and rubbed at the back of his head as the man glanced up to look at him briefly with knowing eyes before he too laughed.
"Mentally and emotionally, you are mostly well adjusted though there were some concerns by the doctors over some of the results. Tell me, Uzumaki-kun, why did you leave your village in the middle of winter to find an uncle that had potentially died many years ago instead of waiting until you were older and a little better prepared to handle the journey? Why didn't anyone come with you? Surely, there must have been someone who looked after you these past eight years after your parents died."
"All I ever wanted was to have a family. I didn't care if they were all dead or not; just knowing I had a family at some point just like everyone else would have been enough," Naruto whispered as he wove his fingers together and clenched his hands tightly; his eyes on the floor and his voice hoarse as he fought to keep his emotions under control. "Jijii… the Sandaime Hokage, he lied to me for years; each time I asked him about my parents, he would look me right in the eye and tell me that he didn't know who they were and that I was found abandoned and alone in the wreckage after the Kyuubi's attack on the village. He let me believe that my parents didn't want me."
"He also told me that there was nothing he could do to stop everyone from hating me and calling me names. He said they were just angry about the pranks I played and the trouble I caused each time I acted out but he lied about that too; they hated me long before I started pranking them. He had the AnBu watching me all of the time so that I couldn't leave the village but they never stopped the people that chased and attacked me all the time nor did they stop the drunks from ruining all my things the night they learned where I lived. Jijii promised to protect me until I could protect myself but he lied again.
Naruto glanced up at Naoki with turbulent sapphire eyes as he finished, "And if he could lie about those things, then what else was he lying to me about all this time? I couldn't stay after I learned the truth."
"We will do all we can to help you find your family on this side of the portal," Naoki promised sincerely as he leaned heavily on the desk. "Are you going to be alright or would you like to take a break for a bit?"
"I'll be fine, dattebayo!" Naruto declared as he automatically slipped on the happy mask he always wore to avoid letting anyone see just how much he was hurting.
"Okay, if you're certain, we'll finish going over your test results so I can introduce you to a few people. Academically, you're test results were rather low but they were no where near as low as we feared they would be based upon what the academic records you had brought with you claimed. Part of that, I am certain, is due to how short of an attention span you seem to have and the rest I'm guessing is directly related to the difficulties we've noted in your reading and writing skills. You're physical fitness, on the other hand, is right where it should be for your age group."
"Earlier, you asked what happened to you while we were trying to hunt down information on your uncle and the answer to that is; that we will be tutoring you in order to bring your grades up to the current standards for your age group in addition to teaching you everything you will need to know to survive in this world. We'll also set up your identity and apply for an orphan's stipend to make certain you'll have spending money to purchase clothes and anything else you might need or want. You won't have to worry about food, rent, or utility bills though since we'll set you up here in the Elemental District to see that your basic needs are taken care of."
"I have to go to school? But that could take years!" Naruto practically whined as he crossed his arms and pouted.
"Well, you are still a child, Uzumaki-kun," Naoki pointed out with a small grin. "You won't actually be attending a regular school though; you'll be tutored by a number of individuals within the district. And you do realize that it might take years to track down your uncle, ne?"
"Does that mean I can use my Kage Bunshin to help me learn things faster?"
"Kage Bunshin? Is that what kind of clones you were using to search the village before we met? How exactly could they help you learn faster?"
"I get all of a Kage Bunshin's memories when it dies or dispels; so, I learn what it learns."
"So all of the clones you had out running about the city…?"
"They were mapping the city for me so I could find my way around and they were looking for information on my uncle."
"How many days did it take you to make the hundreds of clones you sent into the city?"
"About five or ten minutes."
"Nani?"
"I can make five hundred clones all at once; I just have to make certain that they all don't die or dispel at the same time because I don't want my brain to explode from too much information."
"If using that many clones at once is so dangerous; then why were you taught how to make them? I'd like to think that that would be the type of technique that they kept locked up for older shinobi in order to prevent accidents."
"I taught myself after I copied down the instructions."
"Do you still have the book or scroll you learned it from?" Naoki inquired and Naruto dug into his backpack (which he always carried with him every where he went because it held all of his things and his money), pulled out the storage scroll that held the jutsu that he'd copied from the Hokage's vault, released the seal that held the scroll filled with the tracings he'd made of several different clone techniques onto (including the Bunshin Bakuha), and passed it over to Naoki. The man took a couple of minutes to skim through the flimsy papers for the information on the Kage Bunshin and the Tajuu Kage Bunshin before he let out a whistle, returned the scroll and tracings to Naruto, and stated, "I think your clones will be useful so long as you are very careful; I would not wish for you to be hurt."
"Cool, dattebayo!" Naruto retorted with a huge grin before he got a puzzled look on his face as he changed the subject a second later. "Say, Naoki-jijii, you mentioned something about money earlier; can you tell me how much one ryō is worth in yen? Before you caught my clone and asked me to meet you, I was thinking about buying some ramen but I didn't know if they'd take ryō and I'd never heard of yen before."
"Yen is the form of currency that replaced the ryō back at the end of the nineteenth century," Naoki explained once he caught up with Naruto's train of thought. "The current exchange rate is roughly ten yen for every ryō – though you can sometimes get as much as thirty yen for one ryō, if the coin is in fairly good condition as there are collectors out there that will buy them to add to their collection. If you'd like, I can help you exchange some of your ryō for yen or you can just save the ryō you brought with you for if you ever decide to return to the Elemental Countries. It will only take about a week or two at most for your application to be approved for the orphan's stipend though, so you really don't have to exchange any of it if you don't want to."
"Is it just the coins that I can trade you for or can I trade the paper ryō too?"
"We can exchange the paper bills for you at a flat rate of ten yen for every ryō; we like to keep a ready stash of ryō available here in the Elemental District in order to provide those people, few though they are, that travel from this side of the portal into the Elemental Countries with the proper currency."
"Oh, okay. I think I'll just wait for now."
"That's fine; did you have any other questions?"
"Ano… What type of stuff am I going to have to learn?
"We'll start by helping you improve your reading and writing skills, teach you world history, geography, and higher levels of math, and start you on English lessons since there is a high probability that your uncle settled down in one of the English speaking countries based upon the name he chose for himself and the fact that English was one of the subjects he studied while he was here. We'll also teach you about the different world currencies, some of the universal laws which you will need to follow (such as not carrying your weapons in public and not using your shinobi skills in front of anyone outside of the Elemental District), and how to use all of the technology that you are unfamiliar with."
"Will I still have time to train?"
"Yes, we even have a few instructors living in the District that can help you improve your taijutsu if you wish. Our goal is to make certain you have the skills necessary to fit in the world outside of our walls and to make certain that you can protect yourself if you need to; without resorting to using flashy jutsu or weapons. Do you have any other questions? No? Then let's go introduce you to your tutors."
Monday, Feb 01, 1999 ~ Monday, May 24, 1999
Elemental District, Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan
After being introduced to the six adults and one teen that would be teaching him everything he would need to know to in order to survive in the Outer Countries, Naruto was taken aside by Okimoto Daisuke (the teen) and given a crash course in fashion and slang so that he wouldn't stand out too much and could keep up with other children his age (or older in some cases). Daisuke would also be the one to teach Naruto everything he needed to know about the current technology and how to use those items a kid his age would be expected to use (this would include computers, pagers, handheld video games, CD players, DVD players, and VCRs). He'd spend at least two hours a day with the teen each week night and in the afternoons on the weekends.
Okimoto Hideyoshi, Daisuke's father, would tutor Naruto in math for an hour on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and for an hour in basic sciences on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Teshigahara Aika would then teach him Japanese and world history for an hour a day Monday through Friday while Umeji Masao would help him improve his reading and writing for an hour each morning all five days as well. Umeji Catherine, Masao's wife, would teach him how to speak, read, and write English for two hours each afternoon on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (Catherine being an American who had spent most of her childhood in England before moving to Japan to marry Masao after they'd fallen in love while he was visiting England on holiday).
Yamaguchi Rokuro would have Naruto for two hours on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday for physical education (to teach him about the various sports played in the Outer Countries as well as to make certain he got plenty of exercise). Rokuro would also lend a hand each morning when Mimori Yoshinori helped Naruto with his taijutsu training and practice. Any free time Naruto had, would be used to either complete his various self-study assignments or used to practice his other shinobi skills so that he didn't grow rusty.
It was a rather busy schedule but because most of the lesson periods didn't last for more than an hour (bar his English and physical education lessons), Naruto's attention didn't really have a chance to wander. All six of his adult teachers quickly learned that Naruto was more of a hands-on learner and made it a point to avoid lecturing him since a bored and frustrated Naruto was a troublesome Naruto; something that was especially true when it came to his clones as they seemed to have an even shorter attention span than the original Naruto did at times.
And it was important to keep his clones just as busy as the originals because Naruto's clones played a huge part in his education once his teachers had worked out a schedule that would allow him to use the benefits of the Kage Bunshin without needing to worry about the consequences of over using them. After breakfast every weekday morning, he'd create exactly eighty-five clones that would be assigned various tasks for the day. On the weekends, that number would drop to twenty (in order to allow Naruto's brain two days of near rest).
Fifteen of the clones would work on chakra control exercises for five hours; five to work on Ha no Noudo, another five to work on Kinobori no Waza, and the last five to work on Suimen Hokou no Waza. That was an equivalent of seventy-five hours of chakra control training per day; something that was very important for Naruto due to how large his chakra reserves were. He needed to have excellent control to help him blend in least he draw attention to himself by unleashing a ton of chakra every time he used a technique outside of the Elemental District or when he was overly emotional.
Thirty clones would follow Naruto each morning to his reading and writing lessons with Masao where they would be split into three groups of ten with one group sitting in on Naruto's lesson for the day, the second group sitting off to one side where they would each read a different book, and the final group practicing their penmanship (five working on kanji and the other five working on romaji). Once the first half of Naruto's hour long lesson was over, the thirty clones would work for another half an hour on their assigned tasks with the group that had sat in on Naruto's lesson practicing whatever it was he learned that day before all three groups of clones dispelled.
Another five clones would practice taijutsu for two hours every morning, the first hour after breakfast while Naruto was attending his reading and writing lessons and the second hour alongside the original Naruto when he met with Yoshinori before they dispelled. During the hour they worked alone, each clone would focus on a specific kata or group of katas while during the second hour, they would work on whatever Yoshinori had Naruto working on in order to reinforce his lessons. Those five clones would then wait an hour before dispelling (so as not to disrupt Naruto's math and science lessons since they would transfer their exhaustion to him the moment they dispelled).
The ten clones assigned to work on his math and science (five for each subject) would focus on memorization during the two hours that Naruto was attending his reading and writing lesson and his morning taijutsu practice, the two groups dispelling just before he was due to attend his math or science lessons each day. Hideyoshi would then spend the first ten minutes of each lesson testing Naruto's memory retention before he either started teaching Naruto new material or had him continue working on the same thing his clones had been studying if he was still struggling with that topic.
The next group of twenty five clones Naruto created in the mornings would spend four hours studying current events; five watching the local news, five reading about world news (on the internet; a task that also doubled as a computer lesson), five reading various local and international newspapers and magazines, five watching an assortment of talk shows, and the last five listening to the older residents of the Elemental District gossip while they taught the clones to play Shogi, Go, and a number of other strategy games. At the end of those four hours and after Naruto had eaten lunch; all twenty-five of those clones would join Naruto for his daily history lesson.
Those twenty five clones and the fifteen clones working on chakra control would dispel in groups of five over the first ten minutes of the hour following Naruto's history lessons (which happened to be an hour of free time for Naruto so he could recover from any exhaustion that was passed to him from his clones).
At the end of his short break, Naruto would create twenty-five new clones that would attend his English lessons with him three days a week. All twenty-five of those clones would cover exactly what Naruto covered during those lessons in order to reinforce each lesson to make it easier for Naruto to retain everything he learned during each class. Once he had the basics of the new language down (which would be shortly after his first month of lessons), his clones would be split into five groups of five and each group would work on a different assignment that was relevant to the day's lesson while the original Naruto focused on the day's lesson.
The number of clones that Naruto would be required to make for his physical education lessons would vary from lesson to lesson as Rokuro only had him make enough clones to form enough players to make two full teams for those team sports that the man was teaching Naruto to play. Having Naruto play with and against teams made up entirely of his own clones allowed him to get a feel for each of the different positions in the various sports. It also taught him how to form a cohesive unit with his clones; an ability that would prove invaluable should he ever return to the Elemental Countries.
On the weekends, the twenty clones that Naruto was allowed to make each morning would be split into two groups; fifteen of them to work on five hours of chakra control exercises and the other five to spend two hours alongside of Naruto in taijutsu training. His Saturday physical education lessons would focus on individual activities and physical conditioning exercises in order to negate the need for clones to play additional players. Occasionally, Rokuro would recruit some of the other children living in the Elemental District to participate in group activities on Saturdays in order to allow Naruto to socialize and play with other children.
All of the clones that Naruto had made throughout the day would be finished with their assigned tasks for the day by four in the afternoon when Naruto was released from his English lessons on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays or from his Physical Education lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays (the last of his morning clones being dispersed two hours earlier). At that point, Naruto had been asked not to create any additional clones for the rest of the day in order to allow his brain time to rest and to absorb everything he'd learned over the course of the day.
This was important because he was adding between two hundred and two hundred fifty hours of training and lessons per day through the use of the clones or roughly between thirteen hundred and fifteen hundred hours per week.
Over the course of his first four months of tutoring and training, Naruto flourished under the positive attention and encouragement he received from everyone living within the Elemental District. His grades improved quickly as his tutors took the time to explain things to him instead of yelling at him, calling him a loser, or kicking him out of class and it soon became apparent that Naruto was a very intelligent child with a very active imagination. His physical health and condition also improved due to a combination of a healthy, balanced diet and regular exercise which saw him gaining another two inches in height (meaning he was no longer quite as far below average for his age group).
More importantly, Naruto grew mentally, emotionally, and socially during those months as the years of verbal, mental, and emotional abuse he'd suffered were gradually buried; the shadows in his eyes fading as he was allowed to be a child for the first time in his life. A small part of the blond still remained wary (his subconscious never completely forgetting the abuse he'd suffered for most of his life) and he couldn't quite trust anyone enough to share the truth about the Kyuubi with them but that didn't stop him from being truly happy during those months.
Outside of his lessons and training, Naruto grew closer to the Sasaki family; becoming something of an older brother to little Kenichi and a nephew of sorts to Izumi and Naoki. He also continued to live with the small family during those four months of training; though it had taken him a couple of weeks to get used to living with others – the eight year old long used to living on his own for the past two years. He soon learned to love living with the family though, the sounds of the others stirring first thing in the morning or of Izumi's softly singing Kenichi to sleep each night a constant reminder that he was not alone.
At the end of those first four months, Naruto would receive an update on the ongoing search for his uncle.
Monday, May 24, 1999, Mid-morning
Hogwarts Castle, Hogsmeade Village, Scotland
Eighteen year old Harry Potter, sat up and stretched out his back as he took a brief break from the rather grueling revision schedule that Hermione had put together for the two of them in preparation for taking their N.E.W.T.s in just a couple of weeks. The entire school year had been a rather demanding one as he'd needed to learn everything that he'd skipped over or missed out on due to his frequent misadventures during his first six years on top of covering the seventh year material. It was what he had wanted though; to go back to Hogwarts and earn his N.E.W.T.s properly instead of taking the automatic pass that Kingsley Shacklebolt (the newly elected Minster of Magic) had offered to him.
Going back to Hogwarts in order to take his seventh year (which he'd originally missed due to the recent war) had also allowed the decorated war hero to avoid a large percentage of his 'adoring' fans. It had gotten to the point that the young wizard couldn't even show his face in public without being mobbed by people wanting to touch him, beg him for his autograph, thank him (or curse him) for the part he'd played in ending the war, or tell him exactly why he needed to date or marry them or one of their children. At least at Hogwarts, the blind adoration or open disdain had faded after the first couple of months as all of the students got caught up in their studies (many of them required to repeat a year due to the war).
Hermione had, of course, returned to Hogwarts with Harry to take her final year while Ron had opted to accept the automatic passes for his N.E.W.T.s in order to get out of an extra year of classes. The redhead had then turned around and joined the Auror Academy (taking the full three year course of training) and helped his brother George run the joke shop on his off hours. Harry was slated to join the Auror Academy's fast track program after he finished Hogwarts; meaning that he'd finish his auror training the same time as Ron. Shacklebolt had actually offered to bring Harry into the Auror Department as a junior auror right out of Hogwarts but Harry had declined and requested (more like demanded) to go through the training like any other recruit would.
Harry was pulled out of his musings by a playful nudge on the shoulder by Ginny Weasley. The green eyed teen looked up and smiled at his girlfriend; the two of them had gotten back together about a week before Harry's eighteenth birthday. Their relationship had been rather rocky over the course of the past nine months though; the two of them fought at least twice a month over stupid little things. And while Harry still deeply cared for the redheaded firecracker, he was fully aware that he no longer loved her the way he had once thought he had.
He had seen and experienced far too much pain and depravity during the long months that he'd been on the run during what should have been his seventh year and it had changed him.
Just as Ginny's harrowing experiences at the school during her sixth year (under the terrible tutelage of Death Eaters that had partially taken over Hogwarts after the Ministry of Magic had fallen to Voldemort) had changed her.
As the war had changed them all.
The young wizard returned to his studies a moment later, completely unaware that the winds of change were stirring and that his carefully planned out future (which had mostly been planned out by others) was about to be rearranged without any warning.
Translations: Japanese to English
Aika – Japanese girl's name meaning love song
Ano – um/uh
Daisuki – Japanese boy's name meaning great help
Hideyoshi – Japanese boy's name meaning excellent or good
Jijii – grandfather or old man; in this instance, Naruto is calling Naoki old man and not grandfather since he tends to call all older men he interacts with as old man (even the Hokage but in Sarutobi's case I see it more of him calling Sarutobi grandfather rather than old man despite the fact that all the subtitled ones having him call the Hokage old man).
Masao – Japanese boy's name meaning righteous man
Nani – what
Ojisan/Oji – uncle
Rokuro – Japanese boy's name meaning sixth son
Yoshinori – Japanese boy's name meaning excellent model
Techniques/Skills:
Bunshin Bakuha – Shadow Clone Explosion
Ha no Noudo – Leaf Concentration
Kinobori no Waza – Tree climbing
Suimen Hokou no Waza – Water walking
Notes:
Exchange rates – I am using Naruto canon exchange rate of 1 ryō is equal to 10 yen (this is information that can be found on the Narutopedia Website). I believe this information is also found in the Naruto fan book Hyō no Sho but don't quote me on that because I don't have the book to check for myself.
Here are a few other conversion rates I will use throughout the story (all values are loosely based upon recent google searches and rounded either up or down in order to make calculations and conversions simpler for me):
¥140 is equal to £1
¥95 is equal to $1.00 USD
£1 is equal to $1.50 USD
G1 is equal to £5 (I believe this galleon to pound exchange rate is canon but I was too lazy to look it up on the Lexicon).
G1 is equal to $7.50 USD
G1 is equal to ¥700
Technology – DVD players were first available in Japan as early as November 1996, handheld game systems have technically been around since 1979 (by Microvision with the Nintendo Gameboy coming out a decade later), computers and the internet were readily available (if expensive) by the 90's, and while handheld cell phones (with semi-decent service) were just starting to become widely available to the private sector during the 90's, pagers were still far more common at that time; which was why I didn't bother including a cell phone in the tech list.
10-24-15: Minor edits made to chapter to fix spelling/grammar mistakes and removed unnecessary author's notes.