Welcome to another chapter. Once again, I own nothing but the plot. Things are about to start getting interesting, and more of Naruto's abilities are starting to manifest in small ways. Try to keep your eyes open for those hints at what is to come. This chapter also introduces an OC I created as well as something that I have only seen once in a Naruto fanfic, and that was in a Naruto/Harry Potter crossover ages ago.
At the point, this story has 215 followers, 133 favorites, and 25 reviews. Thank you all for your support. Hope you all like it.
Naruto couldn't get the grin off his face as he walked onto the ground of the Academy. It was the first day of his ninja career and he was practically bouncing with excitement. He was dressed in black pants and a white t-shirt with a black spiral on it, and he was wearing ninja sandals. As he entered the Academy, he saw a very familiar girl wearing a purple dress over with two other boys. He quickly made his way over to them.
"Hey Ino. Shika, Choji, long time no see," the eight-year-old nearly shouted.
Ino face palmed as she turned to face Naruto. "No need to shout, you baka," she shouted back at him.
Shikamaru and Choji both shared an amused look at Ino's hypocrisy before turning to look at Naruto. They had all met before through being friends with Ino. "Hey, Naruto," Choji said as he munched on some chips. Shikamaru just muttered 'Troublesome blonde' under his breath.
"Which one?" Naruto asked with a grin, which caused Ino to stop and glare at Shikamaru.
"Both?" Shikamaru said with a shrug before heading inside as the bell announcing classes starting soon rang.
Naruto and Ino shared a look of their own with eye rolls before following him, Choji bringing up the rear as he finished his chips. They all headed into their class and sat in the middle of the room, Ino paired with Naruto, and Choji paired up with Shikamaru. There were only a few other kids in the class already, but none that they recognized, which meant that they were probably from civilian families hoping that they would make it as ninja.
As the classroom filled up, Naruto waved to the few kids that he had met through knowing the Yamanaka family. When he heard a gasp from Ino, he looked at her in surprise. "You ok, Ino-chan?" he asked innocently, knowing that she wasn't a fan of that nickname.
Ino barely heard him and disregarded the nickname absently as she stared at the boy that just entered the room as he walked towards an empty seat near the back.
"Do you see him? He's gorgeous," she said breathlessly.
Naruto followed her gaze and saw that she was staring at Sasuke, one of Shisui's cousins. He had met the other kid once or twice but didn't know too much about him. "Huh? Sasuke? What are you talking about?" Naruto said in a bewildered tone.
Ino turned and glared at him briefly before turning back to gaze at Sasuke. "He's so dreamy. Look at how mysterious he looks."
Naruto gave her an odd look, but his next comment was cut off by the teacher coming into the room. The chatter from the students died down as the teacher called for silence.
"Welcome to the first day of your lives as ninja. I am Sensei Yanshi. At the start of every class I will call out attendance and then we will start the lessons for the day," the middle-aged ninja said tonelessly, as if he had said it a thousand times. As he called out his list of names, the students raised their hands as he called on them. When he finally stopped calling out names, he turned to the blackboard and started writing, ignoring Naruto, who had his hand raised.
When Yanshi turned around to start his lesson, he scanned the room, smirking slightly as he saw Naruto with his hand still up. "What?" he said harshly, surprising the students with the venom in his voice.
"Uh, Sensei, you didn't call out my name," Naruto said hesitantly, his empathy picking up dark emotions directed at him.
"Then you aren't supposed to be here," Yanshi said with a smirk. "Get out of my class before I call for the ANBU."
"But I am supposed to be here," Naruto protested in alarm. "The Hokage himself told me he signed me up."
"You dare argue with me?" Yanshi growled as he stormed over to Naruto, who shrank back in his seat at the overwhelming emotions directed at him.
Naruto winced and gulped before staring back at his new teacher. "Yeah, I guess I do." He had been warned that some of the teachers might not be nice, but this was beyond anything he had prepared for. Naruto let out a yelp of pain as Yanshi grabbed his arm and pulled him from his seat.
"Get out of my class, demon brat!" Yanshi growled as he started pulling him towards the door.
Naruto tried to resist, his emotions spiking out of control. As his control slipped, he caught a stray thought from his psycho teacher. "You're lying! You know I'm supposed to be here, but you are trying to get me kicked out. If I don't show up for the first day of class, then I can't attend for a full year!" he shouted as he tried to tug his arm free.
Yanshi paled slightly, not expecting the demon container to know that little rule. However, he simply snarled and opened the door to his class and literally threw the boy out of the classroom. Naruto bounced off the opposite wall and collapsed to the ground in a daze. He vaguely heard the door to the classroom close with a snap and looked up with a look of shock and betrayal. His young mind struggled to understand what was going on.
Naruto sat against the wall for a few minutes in shock before another teacher came across him. It was a newer teacher, judging by his young age, maybe only twenty or so years old. He had a scar across his nose that was very distinctive, and his hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
"Hey there, what are you doing out of class?" the older man said. His eyes widened as he recognized who the boy he was talking to was. The teacher's name was Umino Iruka and his parents had been killed during the attack by the Kyuubi, which left him with very mixed feelings about the young Uzumaki.
"He…he threw me out," Naruto said in response, tears starting to well up in his eyes.
"What do you mean?" Iruka asked him softly.
"The teacher, he didn't call out my name, and when I asked about that, he got mad and threw me out," Naruto told the older man. He was starting to calm down as he was picking up no serious negative emotions from Iruka. There was some minor emotions directed towards him, but nothing strong either way, positive or negative.
Iruka sat down next to Naruto. He had a feeling about what had happened but felt that he should get the whole story before making any assumptions. "Do you know why he didn't call out your name? You did sign up, didn't you?"
Naruto shot him an annoyed look. "Hokage-jiji signed me up himself. He had me fill out a bunch of forms for ages."
Iruka nearly laughed at the name Naruto had used to describe the Hokage but managed to keep his composure. "Ok, so if that wasn't it, then why…"
"Cause he doesn't want me to be a ninja!" Naruto told him angrily. "If I miss my first day, I have to wait a whole year."
Iruka's eyes widened slightly at the slight outburst. It made a sick sort of sense, though being a newer teacher, he was very familiar with the rules and there had been some recent amendments to the school rules that allowed for exceptions to that particular rule.
"Hmm, that doesn't seem very fair," Iruka said as he thought about Naruto's situation. He wanted to hate the boy, but he didn't seem like the beast that had so ruthlessly killed his parents. Also, he couldn't help but realize that Naruto had lost his parents in the same attack, which made them very similar. Iruka looked down at the boy and made a decision. "Ok, Naruto, I'll go talk to the Hokage and get this sorted out. Why don't you go practice with your shuriken. It's something that you'll need to be good at."
Naruto looked at Iruka with narrowed eyes, trying to actively sense what the other man was thinking, but he wasn't used to his new abilities yet. Inoichi had mostly been helping him with controlling his abilities over the years through meditation and chakra control exercises. It helped him turn them off, so he didn't get overwhelmed, though times of stress made his control slip. He wasn't too used to turning them back on, but he was eventually able to do it. He picked up Iruka's emotions and some thoughts about helping him, so Naruto nodded his head and stood up before slouching and walking away.
Iruka watched the depressed boy walk away before standing up himself and walking down the hall to an office and poking his head in. He waved to a secretary and got her attention.
"Miss Mori, I need to go take care of something," he told a pretty blue haired girl.
She looked up at him and smiled. "It's ok, Umino-san. You won't be needed until afternoon classes anyway."
With that, Iruka smiled back at her and headed out of the building towards the Hokage's tower.
XxXxXxX
Naruto kicked a few loose rocks as he walked down the street. He felt so discouraged at what had happened that morning. His feet absently took him towards a training ground that Shisui had taken him to a few times. However, when he got there, he found that it was currently occupied. There was a man there that was dressed in an ANBU uniform, with a Hawk designed mask on his face.
That alone was startling enough, but what really surprised Naruto was the weapon the ANBU was practicing with. Naruto had seen various ninja practice with all sorts of weapons over the years, but this was the first time he had seen someone using a bow and arrow. There were targets set up in various locations all over the training ground that were riddled with arrows.
Naruto let out a yelp of shock as he suddenly found himself dodging an arrow, diving to the dirt just in time for the arrow to barely miss him. He landed in a roll and kept rolling, just in case more arrows were heading his way. He came to a stop after a few yards and he looked up from the dirt to see the ANBU standing in front of him. He couldn't see his face, but he could feel amusement coming from the man.
"Not bad, kid. You got some good reflexes on you. Though you should know better than to try and sneak up on an ANBU," Hawk said with a chuckle. He placed his bow over a tattoo on his left bicep and it disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Naruto jumped to his feet, a big smile on his face. "That was so cool! How did you do that?"
Hawk laughed at the eager look on the kid's face. "That? That was just a simple storage seal that I had put on my arm to hold my bow."
"Can you show me again?" Naruto asked with a pleading look.
Hawk laughed again and held his hand over the seal, and with a surge of chakra, his bow was back in his hand. He'd seen the Uzumaki kid around the village a few times, but always from a distance, so this was the first time he'd actually interacted with the hyperactive kid.
"Can I see your sticky thing?" Naruto asked him, his head cocked to the side, eerily like a fox.
"It's called a bow, kid. Ok?" Hawk told Naruto as he held out his weapon to the boy.
Naruto rolled his eyes as he took the bow from the ANBU. "Yeah, yeah. It shoots sticks and is made from a really big stick with a string. Sticky thing works too, you know?" Naruto held the bow curiously and looked it over carefully. He'd seen a samurai's bow in some books before, but this bow wasn't like those bows at all. They were really big, bigger than a person, but this one was much smaller, with a more detailed and pronounced grip that had indentations on both sides.
"Why do you use this thing? Isn't it usually used by Samurai? Why would a ninja use one?" Naruto asked the ANBU as he handed it back to him.
"My dad came from Tetsu no Kuni, and he was trained with it. So, he passed that on to me and I decided to keep up with it in my spare time," Hawk told the boy with a shrug, trying to downplay the situation. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect of making Naruto stop asking questions.
"Why?" Naruto asked the age-old question of the young. "You're pretty good with it, so why not practice with it more?"
Hawk shrugged as he sealed the bow away again. "Because as you said, it's a Samurai weapon, and most ninja would look down on anyone using one. So, I keep it under wraps. Besides, no one else wants to learn to use it for the same reasons. So why advertise that I use it?"
"I wanna learn to use it!" Naruto exclaimed with a pump of his fist. Hawk just looked at the young boy as if he was crazy, though it was hard to tell with the mask on his face. "Come on, teach me, please?"
Hawk rubbed his temple under the mask as he felt a headache coming on. All he wanted was to get a little practice in before heading home, but somehow, he now had the village jinchuriki wanting him to teach him an obscure and rarely used skill.
"You're nuts, kid. Why would you want to learn? No ninja uses a bow anymore," Hawk told him bluntly.
"You do!" Naruto pointed out with a smirk of victory.
Hawk actually stopped as Naruto poked a hole in his argument. "Well I didn't have a choice in the matter. You do. So why bother?"
"Everyone uses kunai and shuriken, so imagine how awesome it'll be to be known as one of the few ninjas that are able to use a bow to fight with," Naruto told him with a grin. "Plus, the range on a bow is what, ten time greater than with a kunai? I'll be untouchable!"
Hawk let out a laugh in surprise. "You'd hardly be 'untouchable', kid."
"Aw, come on! Worst case scenario, I can't shoot the bow straight and we give up. Best case? You go down as being the one that taught the greatest ninja in the world how to use his trademark weapon!" Naruto told him, a gleam of blue energy fliting across his eyes briefly. Though it was hard to tell with his naturally blue eyes.
Hawk sighed as he thought the situation over. As Naruto said, there was no real downside to the situation. And it would be nice to have a sort of legacy beyond the norm. Being known for teaching a very well-known ninja, as Naruto wouldn't be anything less than that, to use such a unique weapon…well that was very appealing. And who knows, maybe it would catch on and others would learn to use the bow again. As it stood, he only knew a handful of other ninja that used the bow for anything more than idle curiosity or show, and none of them lived in Konoha.
"Alright, kid. I'll give you a trial period to impress me. If you do, I'll teach you in my spare time, though don't be surprised if you don't see me for over a month at times. ANBU keeps me very busy. Got it?" Hawk finally told the hopeful boy after a few minutes of thinking.
Naruto let out a cheer and jumped in the air in celebration. "Yatta! You won't regret this, believe it!"
Hawk sighed and shook his head in amusement at what he had gotten himself into. "Alright. Lesson number one. This is the art of kyūjutsu, got it? That's the official name of using a bow and arrow. It takes dedication, practice, and immense patience to master this art. Anyone can become good at it, but in order to master this style, you must be able to use the bow as an extension of your body. No thought, no hesitation, just pure instinct and will."
With that, Hawk pulled out his bow and a single arrow before turning around, knocking the arrow mid-turn, and firing it without hesitation. However, his aim was true, and the arrow nailed the bullseye of a target at the far end of the training ground. To Naruto, his body had been a blur of speed and he had nearly missed what had happened.
"So cool! When will I be able to do that?" he asked excitedly.
"When you're ready," Hawk said with a hidden grin. "Now go home, kid. Come back here tomorrow after class and I'll teach you some more."
Naruto nodded and dashed away, his earlier depression a distant memory.
Hawk just shook his head and wondered what he had gotten himself into as he went around collecting his arrows before heading home.
XxXxXxX
While Naruto was having his little adventure, Iruka was sitting down with the Hokage. He was surprised that it hadn't taken much to get a meeting with the leader of the village. But simply informing the Hokage's secretary that it was about Naruto was enough that he was quickly ushered into the Hokage's office, the doors clicking shut behind him.
"So, what can I do for you, Iruka-san?" Hiruzen said as he idly stuffed some tobacco into his pipe. "I was told this involves young Naruto. What has happened?" He lit his pipe and puffed at it.
Iruka took a moment to compose his thoughts. "Well…it seems that he had a bit of trouble today. Yanshi-sensei declared that his name wasn't on his list and so he threw him out of class…physically. However, Naruto informed me that you were the one that had admitted his entrance paperwork for the Academy…"
Hiruzen inhaled some smoke and let it fill his lungs before blowing it out, trying to let his anger disappear with it. "Indeed, I did. Naruto's paperwork was completed and admitted over two weeks ago. There is no reason that his name should not have been on Yanshi-san's list of students."
"I agree, especially as Naruto told me that he felt that Yanshi-sensei's actions were on purpose to try and delay his entrance into the Academy for another year by forcing him to miss the first day. I'm guessing that Yanshi-sensei didn't pay attention to the recent amendments," Iruka said evenly.
"Indeed, if he had, then he would have known that his idea wouldn't have worked," Sarutobi agreed as he puffed his pipe. He looked at Iruka in thought. "Tell me, Iruka-san. Why are you doing this?"
"What do you mean, Hokage-sama?" Iruka asked as he stiffened slightly.
"I know of your past, Iruka-san. You should by all rights hold resentment towards Naruto, just like many in this village, yet here you are, trying to help him," the old Hokage said evenly, his eyes not leaving Iruka's.
Iruka looked away, unable to meet his leader's gaze. "I want to hate him, Hokage-sama…but when I saw him on the ground, looking like he was about to cry…I just couldn't help but see myself in him. We're both orphans, sir, and I don't approve of what Yanshi-sensei is trying to do."
"I see." Hiruzen continued to stare at Iruka in thought for several minutes. "Very well. I have made a decision." He waited for Iruka to look back at him. "Yanshi-san is going to find himself reassigned tomorrow. You shall be taking his spot."
"What? My lord, you must be joking," Iruka nearly shouted in shock. "I may not hate the boy, but that doesn't mean I want to teach him either! Just seeing him once brought back memories I've spent a lifetime trying to move past. Please, there must be someone else that can do it."
"My decision is final, Iruka-san. Make the best of it," Hiruzen told him firmly. "You are dismissed."
Iruka nodded numbly and bowed to his leader before turning around stiffly and leaving the office. He was only supposed to be a temporary teacher for a year or two before moving onto something else, but now he was getting saddled with a permanent teaching position. He dreaded hearing what his friend Mizuki was going to have to say about this situation.
So, it was a dejected and newly promoted teacher that left the Hokage's tower.
XxXxXxX
The next day, Iruka found himself standing before Naruto's class, with Naruto back in his seat beside Ino, who he caught staring at the young Uchiha boy a few times. He hoped that her infatuation with the boy wouldn't cause any problems, but he found that unlikely.
"Hello, class. I am Umino Iruka, your new teacher. Unfortunately, Yanshi-sensei was reassigned to another position before you all had the chance to get to know him, but hopefully we will all get along well. Now, please open your textbooks to page 10…" Iruka said as he started his class, going off Yanshi's notes. He'd have to sit down and reevaluate what Yanshi had planned for the class, but in the meantime, he'd make do.
Naruto listened to Iruka carefully, both with his ears and with his mind. After the trouble he had using his gifts the day before, he had decided to work on using them instead of just suppressing them. Though admittedly, his attention was also split as he was looking forward to his lesson with the Hawk ANBU later that day.
Naruto's eyes shifted over to Ino, who he caught staring at Sasuke again. For some reason, he felt a slight twinge in his chest, and a sense of unease filled him, before he shook himself mentally and turned back to paying attention to the lesson.
When the final bell rang for class, Naruto quickly gathered his things and headed out, being careful to suppress his abilities in order to not get overwhelmed. He dashed out of the Academy and headed over to the training ground he was supposed to meet Hawk at as quickly as he could.
When he got there, Naruto found Hawk leaning against a tree, his mask firmly in place. "Do you ever take that mask off?" Naruto asked him when he got closer.
"When I'm at home," Hawk replied dryly. "But for safety reasons, ANBU never reveal their identities without a damn good reason. Which means, while on duty, the mask stays on. Now, catch!"
Naruto barely brought his hand up in time to catch an object that was wrapped in cloth. He quickly unwrapped it to find a similar bow to the one he had seen Hawk use, though this one was obviously older and a bit smaller. He looked up at Hawk with a questioning look.
"One of my old bows. Figured it would be more your size and this way you can practice on your own. When you leave today, I'll give you a quiver with some arrows. I'm trusting you with these tools, so be very careful. As I'm sure you can guess, fixing or replacing them is very difficult to do," Hawk told the boy.
"Tools? I thought they were weapons," Naruto said in confusion as he looked up from his new weapon.
"They are, but they are so much more as well. A bow and arrow isn't just a weapon, Naruto, it's also a tool in the right hands. A very versatile one when used correctly," Hawk told the boy firmly. "But that's for a much later date. For now, we are going to start on your form, and then eventually…you'll get to shoot."
"When?" Naruto asked excitedly.
Hawk grinned wickedly under his mask. "When you're ready."
Naruto just let out a groan of annoyance. He had a very strong feeling that he was going to quickly come to hate that phrase.
XxXxXxX
Despite Naruto's worries, Hawk had him shooting by the end of the lesson. Despite Naruto's practice with kunai and shuriken, he found that his aim with a bow and arrow left much to be desired of. It required a completely different technique to accurately aim a bow and arrow compared to a shuriken, let alone a kunai. While he was able to hit the target, he couldn't hit the same place twice, unless by accident, and he missed the target completely at times.
During the lesson, Naruto's eyes would occasionally shine brighter when he was focusing completely on trying to hit the target, and at times, he could almost feel like he could sense the path of the arrow and affect it slightly. But those feelings would quickly pass, and he'd miss the next shot completely.
"Well, I've seen better," Hawk told him at the end of the lesson as he pulled out a quiver of arrows for Naruto to practice with. "Then again, I've seen worse as well. If you practice, you'll get better."
Naruto accepted the quiver of arrows with shaking arms. His arms had never been so tired before in his life. He nearly dropped the quiver and quickly slung it over his shoulder with his new bow so that he didn't drop either one. "How long will my arms be like this after practice?" Naruto asked him as he tried to rub some feeling back into his arms.
"Hard to say. It all depends on you, kid," Hawk told him nonchalantly as he sealed his own bow and arrows away.
Naruto sighed and thanked his new teacher before leaving the training ground and heading home. He needed a long hot shower and a good rest…after eating some ramen, of course.
XxXxXxX
Over the next few months, Naruto quickly fell into a routine. He would go to the Academy, sit through his classes, and then afterwards he would head home. From there, Naruto would either grab his bow and quiver of arrows and find a nice secluded place to practice, or he would head over to the Yamanaka Clan compound to meet with Inoichi for more practice with control exercises. With his insanely large chakra reserves, he needed all the practice and help he could get with his control, not even including his developing mental abilities.
There was unfortunately some negative developments in his life during this time as well. His best friend, Ino, had in a single week made a new friend named Sakura and then lost said friend to a developing rivalry over Sasuke, the boy both girls had fallen in love with at first sight. Which was something that Naruto just didn't understand, even with all his gifts. And for some reason, Ino spending so much time talking about Sasuke and gushing about how amazing the young Uchiha was, not to mention the amount of her free time she spent stalking him, made Naruto very uncomfortable and sad at times.
However, Naruto didn't want to lose his first and best friend, so he kept his thoughts and feelings to himself, not letting anyone know of his uneasiness besides Shisui, who continued to spend time with him when he could, especially after he had let the Hokage know of both Naruto's latest ability to read minds and his minimal knowledge of the Uchiha's unrest.
Shisui had been surprised to find that the Hokage was well aware of the unrest and growing tension in the Uchiha Clan when he had reluctantly revealed just what thoughts Naruto had picked up from his mind, though in hindsight, that shouldn't have surprised him at all. The Hokage was known as the Professor, after all, and he had eyes and ears everywhere.
Shisui was pulled from his thoughts by Naruto's finger poking into his side. He had taken the young blonde out to work on his taijutsu, seeing as the Academy's taijutsu teacher had quickly shown himself to be one of those that despised the young boy and refused to teach him properly. When Shisui had come across Naruto practicing his forms incorrectly, he had promptly burned the purposely wrong practice scrolls Naruto had been given and led the boy out to an empty training ground to fix what had been broken already.
"Shisui! Stop spacing out!" Naruto whined as they walked. "Come on, you know all about girls, right? An old guy like you must have been able to figure them out."
Shisui sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose as his wandering attention was brought back to the present. "For the last time, Naruto, I am not old!"
"You're like twenty, right? That's old," Naruto said with a nod, as if he had proven his point.
Shisui narrowed his eyes at the blonde and smacked him upside the back of his head. "Fine, I'm older than you, so respect your elders." When Naruto simply stuck his tongue out at him, Shisui laughed and rubbed his hair. "So, Naruto-chan is having girl trouble already. They grow up so fast," he said with a fake sniffle and pretended to wipe away a tear.
"Come on, Shisui," Naruto groaned as they approached the training ground. "What's the deal with Ino? It's like she completely changed overnight. Now all she does is talk about Sasuke and it's making me feel…weird."
"Oh? Are you…jealous?" Shisui said with a smirk.
Naruto blushed crimson as he looked away. "I aint jealous of Sasuke-teme! I just don't understand what Ino is thinking or why she's so hung up on him. He isn't even all that good, especially compared to you."
Shisui laughed and ruffled Naruto's hair again as they stopped in a clearing with several logs stuck in the ground. "Naruto, I'll let you in on a little secret. The female mind is a scary and unknowable thing. Just when you think you're starting to figure girls out; something will happen, and you'll realize that you were completely wrong. You might be able to predict what they are going to do or say, but no man can ever truly understand a woman's mind."
Shisui then winked at Naruto and got into a basic fighting stance. "Now come on, let's fix those mistakes they tried to teach you at the Academy. If we have time afterwards, then I'll see if I can help you with your little girlfriend."
"She's not my girlfriend!" Naruto shouted, his face bright red in embarrassment, especially as he could feel waves of amusement coming from the other man.
"If you say so," Shisui replied with a chuckle. "Now come on, copy my forms. When you master these basic moves and forms, then I'll teach you some more advanced techniques."
The still blushing Naruto sighed and tried to copy Shisui's stance, his mind unconsciously reaching out to Shisui's and helping him understand what he was doing and how he was doing it. When he was able to flow through the beginner's forms smoothly and without any errors after only a couple hours of practice, Shisui had to suppress his shock.
"Not bad, kid," Shisui said softly as he watched Naruto practice.
"Aw, come on! Why does everyone call me that? First Hawk, now you?" Naruto grumbled as he moved through the forms.
"Who?" Shisui asked curiously.
"Hawk. He's this ANBU that I met that's been teaching me kyūjutsu. He rarely calls me by my name, just calls me 'kid' usually," Naruto replied with a shrug as he finished and headed over to Shisui, who handed him a bottle of water.
"Wait, why are you learning kyūjutsu? Ninja don't really use that anymore," Shisui asked with a smirk of amusement.
"That's why I'm learning it. Because no one uses it, people won't know how to handle someone that does. Believe it!" Naruto told him excitedly. As he did, Naruto absently noticed that he wasn't as tired as he thought he would be. It seemed that his archery practice was making not just his arms stronger.
"Hmm, I hadn't thought of it that way," Shisui said as he considered this new development. He looked at Naruto with a new perspective. "Well, when you get good with your bow, we'll have to see about integrating that into your taijutsu. Kyūjutsu users are notoriously weak at close range combat, and if you take away their bow, they are practically useless. So, we should work on removing that particular weakness from your style before it takes hold."
"Awesome! I'm gonna be the best and aint nobody gonna stop me!" Naruto shouted with a fist pump.
"What would Inoichi say about your grammar, Naruto?" Shisui remarked idly as he looked at the excited child, smirking in amusement as Naruto visibly deflated.
"He'd make me reread those grammar books…again," he replied dejectedly. He then looked up at Shisui with tear filled eyes and a pleading look. "Please don't tell him? Please?"
Shisui let out a laugh and pulled Naruto into a one-armed hug. "Don't worry, I'll keep it to myself."
Like a switch being flipped, Naruto was cheerful again, no trace of his earlier tears or sadness evident. "Thanks, Shisui! You're the best."
So, another chapter done, and things are starting to get interesting, right? Anyway, hope you guys liked this chapter. Once again, if you have any ideas or thoughts you'd like to share, as long as they are constructive, I'd love to hear them.
I'm drawing from various inspirations for the archery idea, though I'll admit that there is one major source of inspiration that gave me most of my ideas, but again, it's something that I've only ever seen once in a Naruto fanfic and I think it'll fit in perfectly with the direction I'm planning to take this story.