A/N - Yo, yo! Guess who doesn't have to wait months for another chapter? You all! Because I love you <3 I was just really inspired to write for this story again and couldn't contain my excitement which is why you're getting this chapter only, what, a day after the last one? Maybe two days actually... That's beside the point, though. I have a lot of things planned for this story and... for the first time in a while, I think I'll actually be able to finish something. I know you're all excited to see how the rewrite will go and, frankly, so am I! I'm more active now so I'll be more inclined to hear and talk to you all. Love you all, see you in the next update!
P.S. - Something I'm quite proud of is that this story is well over 17,000+ words even though we're only on the fourth chapter. However, in the original, by the fourth chapter, the story had just barely surpassed 5,000 words. I think that's so crazy and I can't even begin to say how grateful I am to have a better tolerance for writing and knowing exactly where I want the story to go. Plus, I like the chapter lengths staying around 4,000 - 4,500 words.
As summer started slowly encroaching, Iruka had been too busy to really take time to relax. He'd been preparing for the end-of-year exams before his student's summer break. He and Mizuki, the other proctor for the test, kept going back and forth over what the test should entail or what should be taken out from last year's exam. It was exhausting, to say the least, and, on that Saturday evening, work was the last thing on his mind.
He sighed deeply, walking down the street with a to-go bag from the BBQ place down the street from his own apartment. The academy-student teacher was going to visit Naruto for a celebratory dinner of sorts. Iruka could see how hard his student was working and wanted to praise the eight-year-old boy for passing expectations and continuing to grow into a fine ninja.
The man smiled softly, the street lights had started lighting up as the evening progressed, illuminating his journey towards his student's apartment. If you had told Iruka almost a year ago that he'd be going out of his way for Naruto, of all his students, to bring the kid food and check up on him, he'd have told them that they were crazy. It still pains him to think how bigoted he was towards the blond when they'd met only two years ago, sharing the same hateful stare as the other people on the street.
But he wasn't the same person he was a year ago. The person he is now can see how innocent and kind of a person Naruto is, how willing and bright he was to carry on and continue to learn.
Ever since Naruto got hooked on learning about medical ninjutsu all those months ago, his grades had started to sky-rocket. While they were definitely not on the same level as Sasuke's, Sakura's, or Shikamaru's - in that order - the hyperactive blond was no longer being called the dead-last of the class. Iruka could clearly see that the storm cloud that had rested painfully above his head was now gone, replaced by a happier, more leveled Naruto. His temper had even plateaued which was, honestly, a big surprise.
Every change he saw in Naruto was amazing to watch, seeing him blossom into a student that wanted to do better, strived to become a ninja that people would be proud of. Anything promising Iruka saw in his classroom of the kid's progress, he reported it to the Third Hokage. Hiruzen and Naruto had always been close, Iruka noticed over the years - what he used to see as an obligation that the Hokage held after the death of Naruto's parents was actually adoration and love, like a grandfather and a grandson. The older man had been ecstatic about the blond-haired kid's progress when Iruka had reported to him. The Third Hokage even started giving Naruto more money so that he could spend them on books and the likes of.
It was a pleasant change after everything Naruto had been through over the years.
Iruka had finally managed to get to his student's apartment complex. He shifted the bag in his arms to knock on the sturdy, but olden door to Naruto's apartment. There was a startled yelp from inside and the brown-haired teacher couldn't keep his chuckle from escaping. He could clearly hear something falling over, another shout, some mumbling even, a gasp, more things falling for a second time, and finally a hearty laugh before the door clicked open.
Naruto beamed up at him, "Iruka-sensei!"
He smiled, "Hey, Naruto."
The boy giggled before his eyes caught the bag in his teacher's hand, "What'cha got there?"
"Thought you'd be hungry by now." Iruka merely shrugged but could see the way his student's eyes shined. If there was something Naruto loved more than learning about medical ninjutsu, it was free food.
"Well, come in!" Naruto beamed, opening the door more so that the older man could walk in.
Iruka did as such, eyes peering around the apartment, pausing when he'd finally got a good look around. The last time he'd been here was over a mess ago when the boy hadn't been to school in over three days. He had opened the, surprisingly, the unlocked door only to be greeted by an absolute pigsty - there was a mess anywhere and everywhere you laid your eyes on. The smell of old, used ramen containers filled the apartment and it was hard to look at the poor condition Naruto's apartment used to be.
However, now, everything was presentable, clean, and extremely organized. Some pieces of furniture had been discarded and replaced by something new and less abused. There was a desk of dark oak on the far wall near Naruto's bed with papers and pencils placed delicately on it as if they'd be ruined any other way. On either side of the desk, there were two extremely tall bookshelves. One of them had notebooks with papers sticking out of them, obviously filled to the brim with notes while the other bookshelf merely had several books of different sizes and shapes, all being related to health and medical ninjutsu. Underneath the shelves was a small little footstool underneath them. Iruka pushed down his chuckle upon seeing that as he continued to take in the room.
In the middle of the room was a circular table with three red and orange pillows placed on the ground for someone to sit on. He smiled at it, remembering the old coffee table he could never get his knees under and the uneven wooden floors that splintered his clothed toes had been covered up with a simple, gray carpet. Many nights he had seen that old coffee table filled to the brim with ramen containers that should have been in the kitchen but just never made it there. Now, on the coffee table was just a small cactus in an obviously hand-painted pot. Either Naruto did it himself or someone gifted him it. Otherwise, it was cute.
All in all, it was a sight to see - the dead-last of Iruka's class, a previously messy kid, had somehow turned everything around to prosper and clean up his act. The older man turned to Naruto just as the boy was closing the door, blinking in curiosity, "I'm... surprised." It was all he could manage, still in awe.
"Why?" The blond asked, tilting his head. Such an innocent question.
"Your apartment, Naruto. It's stunning." He gawked, waving to the open room.
He furrowed his brows, going to sit on one of the pillows by the circular table, motioning for his teacher to take a seat as well, "What are you talking about?"
"Do you not realize how much you've changed? Wait, scratch that - do you realize how much you've grown?" Iruka asked excitedly, sitting beside his student on the floor, setting the bag of food on the table.
Naruto scratched his cheek in thought, looking around at his apartment. "I guess?" He ended up mumbling out before shyly looking up at the man, a bit of apprehension in his eyes, "Is that a bad thing?"
"Absolutely not!" Iruka beamed, "That just means that you are on your way to becoming someone very mature and that's fantastic!"
"Really?"
"Yes!" The academy teacher gave the boy a thumbs-up before patting him on the back, "I know I've already said this a few times, but still, you deserve to hear it. I'm so proud of you."
Naruto flushed before looking away shyly, "You are?"
"I am." He gave another soft smile.
His student grinned brightly before giving an embarrassed smile, "I took what you said to heart. About pulling my grades up and going to bed earlier. I've also been eating better and studying. I'm trying really hard to be better... I just thought you'd like to know."
Iruka ruffled his hair, "Of course you are, you're Naruto. You can do anything that you set your mind to. You've done great so far."
"Thanks, Iruka-sensei!" Naruto seemed to glow in happiness, hands reaching for the plastic bag, "Now, let's eat!"
Roughly two weeks later, the two found themselves back in the classroom. Iruka had left his students to do some group work from their textbooks while he went to Mizuki's classroom with an inquiry to the exam prototype the man had created over the weekend. The man had trusted his students not to get into too much trouble while he was away.
And if Shikamaru knew one thing is that, if you have a Naruto in class, there's always going to be something troublesome popping up.
So, that's where he was at now, staring with wary eyes at his troublesome blond-haired friend. After he'd finished the worksheet with the Nara heir, he'd pulled out a tattered scroll and had been staring at the paper with one of the worst grimaces Shikamaru had ever seen on anyone for the last fifteen minutes. It was like an angry fire was billowing in Naruto's sky-blue eyes. The Nara heir didn't know whether to disturb the boy's obvious stupor and say something or to just leave him to stew in his own frustrations.
Either way, it seemed troublesome.
Despite every lazy bone in his body, Shikamaru turned and poked the other boy's cheek, "Yo." When the blond didn't say anything, he poked him again, this time a little harder. "Naruto." The Nara boy huffed, poking a third time, "What's wrong, brat?"
The other stiffened up for a second before sighing out sadly, shoulders sagging low and his head drooped. "It's nothing, Shikamaru." He looked like a kicked puppy, "Promise." He added as an afterthought.
"Troublesome brat..." He mumbled, rolling his dark eyes before poking the now-sore cheek a fourth time, "You're really bad at lying, you know?"
Naruto snorted, having not suspected his friend to say that, turning to look at the black-haired boy, "I'm just having a hard time with my studies."
Shikamaru paused for a moment. "Academy or medical?" He questioned.
"Medical."
"Oh." The Nara heir blinked before crossing his arms on his desk and laying his head on top of it, grumbling out a low, "Then I have no idea how to help you."
Naruto shook his head, doing the same as his friend after rerolling his scroll back up and putting it away, "Figured."
The two laid in peaceful silence, listening to the rest of the class chattering a bit more as everyone started to finish their worksheets up before Shikamaru glanced at the blond-haired boy from the corner of his eye, "How do you plan on fixing your problem?"
"Well, I was thinking that I should probably go see Jiji, see if he can help me out. I'm almost positive he, like, knows everything." He waved a hand, an exasperated look on his face.
"Jiji?" The other boy paused, "I didn't think you had any relatives."
"I don't." Naruto deadpanned before shaking his head, "That's just what I call the Third Hokage."
The black-haired boy was quiet for a few seconds before lifting his head a bit, an odd look on his face, "You do know how disrespectful it is to call the Hokage - of all people - an old man?"
"Yep."
"And he doesn't correct you at all?"
"Nope."
Shikamaru snorted, laying his head back down, "Figured."
Iruka walked back in looking a bit more frustrated than usual. He placed the stack of papers he'd left with when he'd gone to Mizuki's classroom on his desk before looking over the sea of children; they still hadn't noticed his arrival. "Alright everyone, settle down. Has everyone finished their worksheets?" Many students voiced their replies, getting a solid nod from the brown-haired man before he paused, "Naruto! Shikamaru! Pick your heads up from those desks immediately. This is a place for learning, not sleeping!"
"Damn..." Shikamaru groaned, lifting his head from the desk and leaning back against his seat, an annoyed look formed into his forehead.
Naruto, doing the same, only grinned widely, "You're so lazy."
"And you're a smart ass." He smirked.
"Whatever." The two eight-year-olds chuckled in the back of the class.
After class that afternoon, Naruto had run all the way to the Hokage's office, easily evading shinobi who were supposed to keep unwanted visitors at bay. However, upon seeing the blur of yellow and orange pass, they knew that they couldn't stop him even if they wanted to. Despite how much he'd grown over the last several months, nothing would stop Naruto yelling out, "JIJI!
Hiruzen merely chuckled to himself, hearing the boy from the hallway outside his office door. He waved to one of the ANBU agents standing quietly in the room to open the locked door for the academy student. He smiled as Naruto walked in with a questioning look on his face. "What can I help you with today, Naruto?" The old man asked.
"Can you help with this problem I've been having?" The boy huffed in exasperation, placing his backpack on the chair, rummaging through it.
"Like what?"
"I just want to know why these," He pulled out the four scrolls he'd purchased from 'Noboru's Used Weapons and Scrolls' shop a month ago, "haven't worked?!" Frustration was clear as day on his face. "I can't get them to do anything at all," Naruto explained heartbrokenly.
The Third Hokage picked up one of those old scrolls, opening them and reading the contents on the side before accidentally letting out a snort. He covered his mouth to keep himself from laughing. One mere glance at Naruto's shocked face made him lose it momentarily. "I apologize, Naruto." He ended with a cough, stifling his laughter once more.
"Jiji!" He gave the old man an incredulous look, "This isn't funny! Why aren't these working?!"
"I want to apologize again, heh." The old Sarutobi man whipped a tear from his eye from laughing so suddenly before turning his full attention back on the other boy, "I'm assuming that the academy hasn't gotten to any lessons on chakra control yet, have them?"
Naruto tilted his head in question, "Chakra control?"
"Chakra control is what every ninja needs to have to be successful when becoming a ninja." Hiruzen explained loosely, "To have this scroll show you the contents inside in full detail, you need to move the chakra from your body into the scroll. Here, it'll be better if I show you how it works. Come closer." He waved a hand, watching him walk towards his desk.
Hiruzen started to slowly feed the scroll some of its chakra, both watching as characters and words started to slowly appear around the drawn circle in the middle of the scroll. Then, all of the sudden, a fish popped into life... well, lifelessly as the fish was quite dead. That's probably what the 'revival' in 'medical revival scroll' meant.
There was only a moment of silence between the two before Naruto jumped to life, "Woah!"
"Do you know how I did that?" The older man questioned with an amused tone, using a bit more chakra to reseal the scroll, the fish and words disappearing with a poof of smoke.
"No, but it looked cool." He admitted, still in awe.
Hiruzen chuckled again, pushing the four scrolls back across the office desk for the academy student to collect. "Well, I used chakra control to carefully push my chakra out of my body and into the scroll. The reason you couldn't open the scroll is that kids your age don't have any chakra control whatsoever unless you come from some more prestigious clans who train their heirs and people at a young age."
"How do I get it?!" The blond-haired boy asked immediately, practically vibrating in excitement.
"You've got to train yourself to do that." He smiled, watching the enthusiasm and determination burn in the boy's eyes.
"How?"
The older Sarutobi man stood up from his chair, waving again for the boy to follow him. The two walked over to a wall on the left side of the room where a bookshelf stood with scrolls, books, or obscure items filling the entirety of it. Naruto blinked in amazement, eyes scanning the book titles before looking back to the Third Hokage. Hiruzen started to pull out some of the books, skimming over some lines before handing a few over to the blond. "Here you go." He stated.
Naruto looked down at them, "What are these for?"
"These books are about chakra control and some techniques you can use to better your control. It'll tell you all kinds of things: background on what chakra control is, how it's used, side effects of having bad chakra control, and many chakra control exercises." Hiruzen explained loosely, "I suggest you start with just researching about it. Don't try to do those exercises in one night. I know how you like to rush things, so I just ask that you take your time with chakra control. It could help you in the end."
"Thank you so much, Jiji!" Naruto gave the older man a genuine smile, beaming up at him, "I won't let you down!"
"I know you won't." The Third Hokage reached his hand out, ruffling the boy's blond locks with a somber look in his eyes that was quickly replaced by a smile of his own, "I will say, when you do attempt some of these chakra control exercises, do note that you may not immediately be able to do it. Uzumaki's were known for their large chakra supply, something you hold as well. The larger the chakra supply is, the harder it is to master any kind of chakra control. Do you understand?"
The eight-year-old paused a surprised look in his eyes after learning something else about his clan, one he'd never really heard about but held so much adoration for. He looked at the swirl on his jacket, something that everyone wore that represented the late Uzumaki clan. Naruto smiled at it before looking back to the Hokage, "I understand, Jiji."
Hiruzen laid a hand on his shoulder, "Alright, now if you have any questions about chakra control, just go ask Iruka. They'll be starting chakra control lessons within the next year so he'd be the best person to ask instead of myself since I'll be busy with my duties as Hokage."
"Alright, Jiji, will do." With that, Naruto sped off back to his apartment, a new sense of determination settling in his soul.
The Third Hokage watched him off with proud eyes, even walking over to the large windows expanding over the entirety of the village. His eyes tracked Naruto in his run back home before he disappeared around houses and between villagers. "He's going to grow up to be a great Hokage, I'd say. Wouldn't you agree, Danzō?"
The olden man stood against the wall, seeming to have appeared out of nowhere. "Hokage?" He scoffed, shaking his head, "I'm sure he'd do better training under me."
"Now, now, Danzō. Let him do his own thing for now. He seems to be doing fine by himself, taking one foot at a time." Hiruzen grinned, facing the man, "He doesn't need your training to be greater than he already is."
The bandaged man rolled his lone eye, stepping out of the darkness for a moment, "I highly doubt it. Eventually, he will need a teacher to help continue his training in a more linear way rather than a rounder one, like how all academy students are taught." Danzō huffed at that, grumbling about the difference in those trained nowadays rather than back then.
"Your doubts will not make Naruto falter, Danzō." The Third Hokage chuckled, looking out the window once more; the sun was setting, "He's going to do great things for this village."
"I think that's the only thing we're agreed upon," Danzō stated.
"Indeed."
:::^^^^^:::
"So..." Shikamaru drawled out, holding out a leaf in his hand, his voice unsure as he continued, "I just concentrate chakra into this leaf and hope it burns?"
Naruto laughed loudly, smacking his shoulder from where he sat cross-legged beside the Nara heir, "No, you idiot. You don't hope it burns - it will burn! I haven't been able to get it to completely burn, but it does spark a bit." He picked up one of the leaves that had fallen around them. He took a deep breath, settling his body into a comfortable position as he tried concentrating. Emotions slid off his face as a deep-seated seriousness appeared in seconds. After calming his nerves, sky-blue eyes closed, trying to still himself long enough to control his chakra flow until the leaf started to sizzle. However, upon feeling the heat, Naruto got too excited before losing control of his chakra.
A deep sigh left the boy as he set the leaf down, eyes peering open again. He handed the chakra book he'd gotten from the Third Hokage last week over to Shikamaru who lazily took it, reading over the lines and instructions for this specific chakra control exercise. "Well, it's definitely interesting." The Nara heir drew out.
"I've been trying really hard to get this down fast but I'm struggling a lot. Jiji said it's because of my Uzumaki blood and how they have large chakra reserves, but it's disheartening a bit." Naruto ran a hand through his hair in his frustration, "I need chakra control to even open up those medical revival scrolls and I probably need it too if I want to heal anyone." He let out of huff before falling onto his back, staring at the cloudless sky.
Shikamaru was silent for a couple of minutes, a nice breeze filtering through them. "I think it's because you're starting with the wrong kind of chakra control exercise." That got Naruto's attention, blue eyes suddenly staring down the other boy.
"What?!"
"Ugh, what a drag..." He mumbled out before positioning the book to where the blond could see it, "Look at the leaf-burning exercise you showed me. There's a spot here that says you need minimal chakra. If what the Hokage says is true, you're unconsciously putting too much chakra into such a tiny leaf, meaning that it'll just sizzle as it did before."
"Are you serious?" Naruto blinked widely, "Wait, does that mean I'll never be able to be able to control my chakra?"
"No, you troublesome brat. It just means you need a different chakra control exercise to start with." Shikamaru flipped through the book a few pages after the leaf-burning exercise before stopping, reading over the page quickly. He showed it to the other boy again, "This is tree-walking which allows shinobi to move up and down trees without the use of their hands. And this one is water-walking; basically, you could run over water without falling in or getting wet even if the water is choppy or uneven."
The blond-haired boy held his hands out, being handed the book by his friend. He read over the two sections carefully. "This seems really advanced..." He mumbled out.
"Because it is. You usually wouldn't attempt this until you were in a genin team where your teacher could watch over you to make sure you didn't hurt yourself or push out too much chakra." The Nara heir explained, finger motioning to different sections of the page, "But, if you want to learn chakra control so bad right now, these two will be your best bet. To first learn it, you have to balance how much chakra output you're using to get the feel of it before it'll start feeling natural to you. Plus, a tree or a body of water is going to be a lot bigger than a tiny leaf, meaning your chakra will have more places to move out."
"Shikamaru, have I told you how much I love you?" Naruto leaned forward hastily, hugging the other eight-year-old over the shoulders.
His hands immediately went up, not used to hugs as a deep red blush started to travel across his face and down his neck, "Uh... um..." He didn't know what to say - not even he and Choji hugged and they'd been best friends for years. Shikamaru moved slightly, patting the other boy's back lightly before the blond finally drew back, face bright and happy.
"So, how do I do it?" Naruto eagerly asked eyes lit up in excitement.
Shikamaru cleared his throat, motioning to the book that had somehow managed to fall into his lap, "Well, you see..."