[Countdown: 1 year before the Uchiha massacre.] Naruto wrote on a piece of paper.
"Hmm. The massacre is what caused Sasuke to fall into the darkness. And I know what really happened, thanks to Itachi. Question is, what do I do?" Naruto paced around the room, desperately thinking of anything that could stop the massacre.
"To stop the massacre, I'll need to stop the Uchiha from revolting. And to stop that I'll need- Argh! This is so frustrating goddamit!" The young blonde groaned as he paced on the ceiling.
"I'll just go practise my shurikenjutsu, maybe the idea will come to me." The blonde grumbled as he dropped from the ceiling. Walking out the door, he headed for the third training ground, near the forest.
Reaching his destination, Naruto began his training session.
Standing incredibly still, he regulated his breathing. One breath. Two breaths. Thats all it took for him to feel the rush of adrenaline and even more highly enhanced senses than normal. The scent of the morning dew on the leaves, the sound of the stream rushing past the rocks, the feeling of the autumn leaves in the breeze, allowing him to feel everything within his 'bubble'.
After five years of using the technique, the diameter of his 'bubble' had increased by leaps and bounds, allowing him to sense danger and anomalies in the Nature Chakra within that diameter. "What would happen when I combine this with sage mode?" He mused.
Beginning the training routine, Naruto lept into and though the forest that surrounded the training ground at speeds that one would already consider a shunshin. He bounced off branches and trunks, trying to increase his efficiency and speed, as well as optimising his Chakra flow.
"90 degree turn, then hit the targets that will fall from the higher branches." Kurama reminded him. Naruto changed the location of the targets all the time so that he would always be kept on his toes.
Turning his heel, Naruto jumped from the branch and increased his speed yet again.
"Huh?" One Uchiha Shisui turned his head to the trees beside him. "What was that?"
"Left, up, behind me." Naruto thought as his shuriken and Kunai went thunk into the countless targets that his clones put up all over the forest
"Shit I missed." He thought as some of the thrown projectiles missed their intended targets.
This continued for ten minutes before Naruto moved on to the second stage of his training. He burst through the trees and landed on the water, focusing his Chakra to the bottom of his feat perfectly without missing a beat. Grinning, he put his hands together in the cross sign for the Shadow clone jutsu.
Instantly, around 50 clones popped into existence around him, all wearing the same excited grin on their faces.
"This is where the fun begins." He laughed as all the clones charged at him.
This was the stage that Naruto had pushed himself to after being easily beaten by the Kumo Jonin and Hyuuga Hizashi, reaching the level of fighting multiple opponents while walking on water. This training also strengthened his shadow clones, so that they could takes hits and not dispel straight away.
Naruto had also taken the time in the past year to relearn the Academy kata and gain the muscle memory back. He was constantly using the academy taijutsu, hammering in the fundamental concepts so that the more complicated taijutsu he planned to learn in future could flow together easier. (For realism, Imagine the academy taijutsu is Shotokan-ryu karate.)
Naruto had spent hours with Iruka-sensei, correcting his bad habits that carried over from his previous and current life, and hammering in the basics.
Now, his taijutsu was already better than the wild brawling he had as a genin, and his thanks to his constant sparring with his clones, his already impressive fight IQ had increased even more. This exercise also slowly allowed him to increase the amount of sturdy clones that he could make, rather than pumping out hundreds of clones that dispelled with a single hit.
Another clone popped as he did a spinning back kick and landed it right on the clone's head. he then went low and swept another clone of his feet before being whacked in the head by another clone's roundhouse kick.
"You fail Naruto, the leaf on your forehead has dropped off."
Naruto looked down and indeed, the leaf there, was floating on the water. He sighed and dispelled the rest of his clones.
Another part to the exercise was fighting while keeping the leaf stuck to his forehead to increase the efficiency of his Chakra control. It was also training him to maintain his breathing technique in the heat of battle.
Turning his head, Naruto jumped as he saw a wide-eyed Uchiha standing at the water's edge, looking at him with his mouth agape.
"How did I not sense this guy? When did he get here?" The blonde panicked internally.
"He got here when your concentration broke, so your interrupted breathing technique couldn't sense him. I keep telling you that you cant break your concentration at the slightest distraction." Kurama sighed.
While Naruto was engaging in his mental conversation, he and the Uchiha stared at each other in silence for what seemed to be forever.
The Uchiha, surprisingly, was the first one to speak. And he did it with a smile on his face. "Nice to meet you! I'm Uchiha Shisui."
"Holy crap a smiling Uchiha! I didn't know their facial muscles could move like that! Wait…Shisui?…Ah! Itachi's friend! The one that Danzo tried to kill!"
"Nice to meet you Shisui-senpai, my name is Uzumaki Naruto." They extended their hands and shook.
"The kyuubi container." Shisui thought.
"Well Naruto-san, your training just now was very impressive. Your clones are very impressive, and you must be very proud." Shishi complimented him. 'But who taught you?' He questioned internally.
Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Its really nothing special, I just have very large Chakra reserves."
"You were walking on water while sparring kid, at your age thats amazing. How old are you anyway?"
"Uhhhh 8 years and 9 months."
Shisui went silent.
After what felt like an eternity off awkward silence later, Shisui finally spoke up again. "Would you like me to help you with your training?"
Naruto's eyes widened. "This is it! I can get closer to Shisui and Itachi if they train with me, and then I have a much higher chance of changing something."
Naruto nodded and grinned. "Let's go, Shisui-San!"
"He's not called Shisui of the body flicker for no reason," Thought Naruto. "I need to go faster!"
Another kick hit his chest as he attempted to counterattack. Skidding backwards, Naruto poured his Chakra into the bottom of his feet and accelerated, performing a perfect shunshin.
"Incredible. This boy is incredible. Not even I could perform a Shunshin at that age, and he's already so fast!" Shisui grinned in excitement.
"Excellent Naruto! Now I'm going to show you how to utilise such speed in battle!" And with a blur, Shisui suddenly appeared behind Naruto.
Naruto sensed him, and spun, trying to counter with a spinning elbow. But he was simply too slow in front of the Uchiha genius. Shiui swept his leg, and he went rolling, trying to reposition himself.
The moment he stood up however, there was a fist an centimetre away from his face. He fell back again, landing on his backside
"Good spar, Naruto-san." A smiling Shisui said, extending his hand.
Naruto sighed in disappointment and accepted it, standing back up. "Back to you Shisui-senpai."
Shisui kneeled down in front of the young blonde. "Don't feel too down Naruto-san. I am a Jonin, and have been training since before you were born. The fact that you're even able to perform a shunshin and your strong taijutsu fundamentals are already incredible achievements, its clear that you've worked very hard."
"You bet! I'm going to be Hokage! And to do that, I need to be strong so that I can protect everyone." Naruto exclaimed.
"Shisui, who's this?" Naruto jerked as he heard a very familiar voice.
'10 meters to my left.' He sensed.
He turned to see no other than Uchiha Itachi
"Uchiha Itachi." Naruto muttered without thinking, staring at the future missing-nin and Akatsuki member.
Itachi's eyes widened. "You know me?" He was surprised as he had not interacted with Naruto as Itachi, only weasel. 'How does he know who I am?'
Naruto was mentally panicking. "Crap. How do I explain myself this time?"
"Think Naruto, think!"
"Well uhhh… I've seen you.. uhhhh… in the bingo book before!" Naruto blurted out. 'Whew, I think that went pretty well eh, Kurama?'
"You suck at lying gaki." Kurama told him straight and simple.
"Yeah! The bingo book! Were you an A rank or B rank? Can't remember." Naruto pretended to think about it.
"Ehh? You recognised Itachi but not me? The Shunshin no Shisui? How can that be?" Shishi cried, crestfallen.
"That's to be expected Shisui, you're not very memorable after all." Itachi remarked with a deadpan.
"Shut up, baka-tachi."
"Anyway, what is Naruto-san doing here? Were you bullying him Shisui?"
"Yes"
"No"
"I see. I thought better of you Shisui. For you to stoop down to bullying a child…" Itachi shook his head.
"Oi. I really was just training the brat. Trust me, he might even be as good as you were back then." Shisui smirked, knowing that would that pique Itachi's interest.
Itachi raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Is that so. That is very impressive Naruto-san."
"Hehe. I've been training really hard to become Hokage!" 'And to save my precious people' He thought to himself.
"Interesting." Itachi moved a distance away from the two and got into the starting stance for the Uchiha Inceptor fist taijutsu. "Would you care to spar?"
"Do it Naruto. I have a feeling that you'll need to know his fighting style sooner or later." Kurama growled.
Naruto nodded and gave Itachi a thumbs up. "You're on!"
(For realism the Inceptor fist is the peekaboo boxing style)
"Prepare yourself Itachi-san!" Naruto shouted as he created his army of clones.
Itachi said nothing as he charged forward, the clones swarming towards him in waves. Slipping and rolling past Naruto's Taijutsu, Itachi began plowing through his clones one by one. However, the clones were sturdy, and lasted a few good hits before eventually dispelling.
He sped it up by occasionally throwing a fireball jutsu here and there.
"Crap. Its his blasted Sharingan!" Naruto gritted his teeth in frustration as his clones were cut down, slowly but surely.
Itachi's crimson eyes were spinning as he whirled around with hooks and uppercuts, avoiding attacks the best he could. He was still hit by the clones, but more often than naught, he responded with an even more devastating attack. Still, he was taking damage.
The real Naruto then charged forward in a shunshin, aiming a straight at the back of Itachi's head.
Itachi's sharingan whirled as he spun backwards, aiming the punch in it's tracks, only wince in pain as he felt the force behind it. Still, he stopped the attack. Or so he thought, until he lifted his head to see a grin on Naruto's face.
It was a feint.
Pain spread through Itachi's body like lightning as a clone landed a solid body kick right on Itachi's liver, causing him to go flying.
Crashing into the ground, Itachi slowly raised the white flag. The pain of a liver-shot was shutting his body down.
"Sorry Itachi-san, that was a cheap shot." Naruto apologised as he extended his hands to help Itachi up.
"No Naruto-san, it was a good spar. I was overconfident and underestimated you." Itachi admitted as he stood back up.
"But that won't happen again." Itachi promised with a gleam in his eye.
"Nah. I know how annoying fighting so many clones can be, and I know that you were taking it easy on me." He punched his open palm, "Next time, I'll make you go all out!" He declared.
"I look forward to that time Naruto-san." Itachi said with a small smile.
Itachi really went full power the next time they sparred, and Naruto barely managed to kick him in the head with a tornado kick. Safe to say, Naruto lost that round, Itachi's various fire jutsu burning his clones to nothing.
That forced Naruto to work on speed. And who better to instruct him then the Shunshin no Shisui? He pushed himself to his limits, changing angles and flipping at high speeds to avoid Itachi's attacks.
"Naruto, you're not closing the distance enough! Naruto, you need to go faster! Don't use more Chakra, just channel your Chakra more accurately!" Shisui shouted helpful tips and tricks from the side.
"Hey, for Uchiha, their training is pretty effective." Kurama mused. "These two aren't the worst I guess."
And so that was how Naruto's life was for the next few months. Personal training, attending the pre-academy, calligraphy practise, and training with the cool Uchiha duo, (not to be confused with the idiot Uchiha duo.)
but that all changed when the fire nation- when the Uchiha clan confirmed their decision to start a coup.
[5 months till the Uchiha massacre.]