Naruto had forgotten how much easier it was to think at this age. Most of his chakra was tied up with the still recovering fox and with countering the effects of malnutrition on his body, and so the hyperactive thought processes of his latter life were yet to develop. The first time around Naruto was too busy feeling miserable to notice but his senses were truly amazing. He could hear the Matron down in the kitchen, two floors below; he could clearly see the treetops outside the village wall over five kilometres away and could literally smell the emotions of those around him.

Naruto had always had great senses; either because of his large chakra reserves or because of the fox's presence, but over time had unconsciously blocked them out. Much like a person living beside a train track would over time not even hear the train, Naruto's senses were greatly reduced through disuse and lack of training. Only through constant training, like that received by the Inuzukas, would such senses be usable later in life, training that Naruto never received. On their three year training trip, Jiraiya had attempted to retrain Naruto to use his enhanced senses to some degree. 'I had no idea how much I had lost,' thought Naruto as he stared out at the village from the top of the Hokage monument, revelling in his ability to see so far and hear so much.

With his knowledge of the future, Naruto wasn't really all that worried about being thrown out from the orphanage. Naruto remembered this time as a mixture of overwhelming fear and hunger. Having never stepped foot outside of the orphanage walls before, Konoha proved to be a confusing and dangerous place for the relatively sheltered six year old.

Days spent darting from alleyway to alleyway in search of food was bad enough, but the nights without adequate shelter left him particularly vulnerable. Secure sleeping areas were hard to find and if he found himself in the wrong neighbourhood after dark, he often found himself dodging stray dogs and drunken men intent on causing harm.

However, this time around, the young ninja had a plan. Years ago, when he was in the academy, he had found that there was an area in the forest at the base of the mountain that was basically untouched since the time of Konoha's founding.

It was on the other side of the village from the public training grounds, close to the far end of the Nara clan estate. So it was safe enough from surprise visits from other shinobi in search of training space.

So Naruto set out to build his makeshift home and live in the forest until he was able to make his situation known to the Hokage.

Kurama nodded in agreement. "Like the old man used to say, detachment from the physical is attachment to the spiritual. Or something like that, maybe it was the other way around. Who knows?" He mused. "Well, our new living conditions should provide you with new training opportunities, at the very least."

Naruto planned to build a sort of cabin (for realism imagine an anglo-saxon cabin). "Well first things first," Thought Naruto, "I need tools to build my temporary home." That was easily fixed. Even the previous time around, he had started exploring the training grounds around Konoha from an early age. He knew how common it was to find stray Kunai and shuriken that ninja didn't bother to collect. And so young Naruto set out to find his tools.

He had found an adequate number of Kunai that could be used within the hour, which allowed him to return to the orphanage and gather his supplies.

'Perfect' he thought to himself as he stealthily gathered his supplies from the hole he had dug at the base of a tree at the orphanage's back gate. Over the last two weeks Naruto had managed to gather a thin blanket from the laundry as well as a kitchen knife, flint for making fire, a small pot from the kitchen, and even an axe that he stole from the drunk villager that tried to attack him with it.

'I can gather food from the forest this time at least instead of eating out of trash cans. Thanks to the survival training we received at the academy I know what's safe to eat and what to avoid.' Naruto thought contentedly, 'I can make a fire with my flint and steel and I have a blanket. All in all it shouldn't be too bad and I can even train at the training grounds.' He thought as he continued to work, chopping down trees that had a higher risk of falling, mainly those with mushrooms growing around it, and those that had dropped multiple branches.

A long and tiring day later, along with many splinters, Naruto was still not done with his hut.

"Kurama."

"No Gaki. You cannot use your shadow clones, besides, this is good training."

"Dattebayo" Naruto muttered as he sat up and looked at his half-done cabin. He had made good progress for the day, with only half the roof and one wall still missing. Naruto was exhausted however, his arms aching from the constant chopping, cutting, and lifting.

"It's almost night time Naruto, I suggest you finish your little cabin if you don't want to become tiger chow."

Naruto then remembered that the forests surrounding Konoha were inhabited by tigers. Now alert, he swivelled his head around and concentrated, trying to use his enhanced senses to identify any dangers in his vicinity before slowly calming himself down.

"Calm down. We're still close to the Nara estate. The tigers never venture so close to Konoha." Naruto assured himself as he got back to building his cabin.

A low growl was then heard and Naruto's hairs stood on end as he got into a taijutsu stance with his Kunai in hand. He turned slowly, trying to identify the direction of which the growl came from. He could hear Kurama…..snickering?

He then heard the growl again, and he realised it was coming from him. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly as he realised that it was just his stomach growling. After all, he had not eaten for an entire day.

Hungry, tired and embarrassed, Naruto finished his hut as quickly as he could. When he was finally done however, the moon and the stars were already illuminating the night sky.

And so began Naruto's detachment from the physical and his intensive forest training. He still had to do his daily exercise of

1. 100 pushups

2. 80 sit-ups

3. 30 split squats on each leg

4. 50 jump squats

5. 30 diamond pushups

6. Calf raises till failure x2

7. Wall-sit till failure x2

8. Horse stance till failure x2

9. Plank till failure x2

10. 10 pull-ups

11. L-sit until failure

12. Hopping in different directions one leg

But now he was forced to include chasing after small animals for food 3 times a day if he wanted to eat. This replaced chasing Tora for agility training and while they were not as fast, he was forced to train his senses to locate them and not lose them in the foliage. The different environment and uneven terrain also provided him with new challenges.

"What I would give for some Ichiraku Ramen." Naruto groaned as he made roasted hare for the 3rd day in a row.

His diet also included wild berries, mushrooms, and birds that he caught with Shuriken he collected from the training grounds, forcing him to practise his aim and improve his shurikenjutsu.

His tree climbing had significantly improved as he had to constantly climb up trees to find bird nests, collecting eggs for his meals. He had also improved his overall strength significantly, it seemed that even his own strength was hindered by poor nutrition in his previous life. With his improved diet and Kurama's help, he was able to realise his unusual strength.

It was abnormal he realised. No 4 year old, no matter how much muscle, should have been able to lift such heavy logs. Yes it strained his muscles and he was lucky he didn't have disc herniation from pressure on his intervertebral discs, (Granny Tsunade had to treat him after improper training before) but it still should've been impossible.

The only explanation he could come up with was enhanced strength as a result from the combined effects of the wind breathing, accelerated Chakra development, Kurama's influence, and his Uzumaki heritage. He tested his theory out and punched a tree, causing the bark to go flying everywhere as an indentation of his fist was left in the trunk. Satisfied with the result, Naruto began to step up his strength training to fit his developing super strength.

Thanks to the wind Chakra breathing technique, his Chakra control had finally reached the level where he could tree-walk. It was still shaky and inconsistent, but it was a start. Besides, there wasn't all that much to do in the forest besides train.

Excited by the development, Naruto continued to polish up his tree-walking.

Kurama had explained his problem in the previous timeline. "You were doing things backwards before, that's why your chakra control sucked. You have gigantic reserves of Chakra, much more than your peers. That's why their method of learning control was backwards to you. You need to start with the Chakra intensive exercises, preferably tree-walking, before moving down to the finer techniques, such as leaf sticking."

With this knowledge, Naruto diligently trained his Chakra control correctly this time, and before long, he could tree-walk no problem. Soon he was running up and down trees, and moved on to jumping from branch to branch, which was like second nature to him.

His 5th birthday had passed without his knowledge and Naruto was so focused on his training that he completely forgot about talking to the Sandaime jiji.

Meanwhile, said Hokage was freaking out after finding out that the young boy was missing.