章 2: Chapter 2
"Do you even know how to use hand-signs?"
Madara's question halts Naruto's desire to dive straight into learning the Ninjutsu the old man promised him, and he realizes that no, he doesn't know how to use them.
The old man sighs and mutters something about "more than just blood" before beckoning him over with his hand.
"Here," Madara stops him, but close enough to see his hands. "This is the Ram Seal, it's the most commonly used seal because it is the only neutral seal. All it does is speed up your chakra so that it can be used for breaking Genjutsu or activating a Ninjutsu that you are already skilled in..."
And this went on until Madara had shown him all twelve basic signs, and made him repeat them back to him while doing them. A correction here and there and nearly half-an-hour later, Naruto could perform all of them well-enough to perform a Jutsu.
"The seals you need for this Jutsu are first, Tiger, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, and Tiger again."
Madara weaves the signs as he says them and takes a deep breath. Facing the river, he breaths out the Jutsu.
"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!"
Naruto gawps when a house-sized fireball engulfs his vision. The old man's hair billows behind him as the Jutsu boils the water and cooks whatever is unlucky enough to be caught under the gigantic flame.
Madara stops the Jutsu when he runs out of breath, and Naruto is still in complete awe.
"I'm gonna learn that?!"
He is given a gentle push from Madara's cane and it's enough for him to clumsily fly through the signs three times before getting them right enough for a first attempt. Madara turns and sits on a wooden bench.
Madara waves a hand-sized fan to stave off the heat. There isn't exactly much shade right next to the river but he wants to watch his grandson master the coming-of-age for the Uchiha Clan, even if said grandson doesn't know it yet.
He smirked at Naruto's first attempt when he blows out a flame as big as a house cat, just like his own father laughed at him for doing the same. Naruto's shocked exclamation of annoyance makes him even more amused.
And then Naruto sets to work with the same perfectionist attitude that he did to master the chakra control exercises yesterday. He stands in place for hours, weaving the same hand-signs over and over again and by mid-day he can create a fireball as tall as Madara.
He is impressed. Very impressed. But it isn't just the small amount of time that Naruto has spent on this jutsu but rather how little chakra the boy has used over the course of the day.
Maybe 'little' wasn't describing it accurately. It was more a matter of the great quantities of chakra that Naruto has used over the day having had no major impact on his reserves. Even a seasoned Uchiha Genin would be hard-pressed to match Naruto's feat. It was usually quite common for an Uchiha child to master the Jutsu in a few days, but like Madara at that age, Naruto's chakra coils weren't able to express the full strength of his chakra through them yet. The lungs didn't magically fill up with fire chakra, they were supplied to by the tenketsu attached to them, which needed training through use to apply more chakra.
It was vital that Naruto learn how this worked before he got older. If he were to receive an ignorant teacher to the nature of chakra as a whole, then Naruto would be at risk of never reaching his full potential using it.
As the hours pass, Naruto's fireball becomes more than adequate for his age, and Madara believes that he has mastered the Jutsu. All that was left was to grow older in order to make him more capable of using it.
"Naruto." Madara beckons, and his grandson bounds over, face alight with joy.
"I can make the fireball now!"
"Yes, you can." Madara agrees, but with grim voice to capture Naruto's attention. "But Ninjutsu also comes with responsibility. If you show off your Jutsu without thinking about the consequences, you might get in trouble. Or worse, the enemies you'll meet when you grow up and graduate will have the upper hand."
Naruto didn't really seem to understand, so Madara was forced to endure a good twenty "why's" in a row.
"So the bad guys won't know how to beat me if I keep it secret?"
"That's right. Good lad."
Naruto beamed.
It is the first of many lessons subtly taught, enough that Naruto's young mind would keep it up without questioning it.
Over the course three years, Madara was forced to realize that in his current condition, there were just some things he could not do for Naruto.
Naruto had just turned eight, which meant he was finally ready to start Shinobi Academy! He would be bouncing if Jiji hadn't been strict about being too 'emotional' or whatever. He was done with kiddy school! He was allowed to be happy!
Tsukimi-baachan had equipped him with some flip-flops and a kimono shirt, and some pencils and books that he was supposed to need. He recognized one of them as a book he learned the leaf-sticking exercise from. It was nice looking at a new one instead of the tatty one he had before. Jiji always said you should take care of your belongings, especially your equipment that you need.
There were lots of kids around. He guessed they were going to be his classmates. It was kinda funny how they all looked like baby versions of the adults standing with them. Was that normal? Maybe he needed to ask Baachan. Jiji knew a whole lot too.
"Uzumaki Naruto!" His name is called by a man with a scar on his face.
He steps forward arm raised. "Here!"
Several adults look at him. It makes him feel a little shy, the way they speak to eachother in hushed whispers.
Naruto doesn't like it.
"Who can tell me the two founding clans of Konohagakure no Sato?"
A pink haired girl raises her hand.
"Your name again please?" Iruka-sensei is very polite. Not like the previous teachers.
"Haruno Sakura!" She chirps, standing up. "The Senju Clan and the Uchiha Clan."
"Very good Sakura-chan! Take a seat. Now, can someone else tell me who the leaders of those clans were?"
"Senju Hashirama!" a boisterous voice shouts from the back row. Naruto looks back and doesn't recognize them as one of the 'Clan Kids'.
"Raise your hand if you would like to answer." Iruka-sensei ignores the shout, so Naruto raises his hand.
"Name?"
"Uzumaki Naruto." He stands up. "Senju Hashirama was the leader of the Senju Clan."
"That's right. Take a seat." He does so as the loud boy in the back squawks indignantly. It almost makes him smile.
Iruka speaks up again. "I heard one of the Clan Leaders names, but not the other. Can someone tell me who the other leader was?" His eyes seemed to trail deliberately over another dark-haired boys.
Said boy raises his hand.
"Uchiha Sasuke." He stated without being asked. "The leader of the other clan was Uchiha Madara."
What?
Naruto couldn't stop thinking about the name Uchiha Madara, but he didn't see Madara for nearly a week.
"I waited for you but you didn't show up!" Naruto scowled. His youthful petulance had only been tamed so much.
"Don't be so quick in jumping to conclusions. You failed to notice that you were being watched last week."
"Watched?" Naruto looked alarmed, but was also trying to hide his guilt at sounding so pushy to the old man that was teaching him.
"Yes, I did not reveal myself because it seems that your fellow orphans decided to follow you here." Madara revealed, purposely adding a mite of annoyance to his voice. "You need to practice Taijutsu anyway. An old man like me can't do anything more than tell you what to do. That might work for Jutsu but not for things that will hit you back.
Naruto looked more guilty, but it seemed he didn't want to completely concede fault. He could have a worse trait in Madara's opinion. Not wanting to give up was a valuable behavior, but knowing the facts and choosing his battles was another thing Naruto needed to learn.
"But why does that matter? You could have taught them too."
"I also don't want to train them, Naruto. I chose you to train for a reason." Madara baited.
"But why?" Was the golden question.
Madara smiled. "All I will say is that we have a connection, and you have vast potential. You can find out yourself exactly why it is that I am interested in your growth in particular. Konoha has a wealth of information at its disposal, and its history since the foundation of the village is well recorded. Figure out our connection, and then you will understand. You have my name already, and you have yours. Start there."
Naruto stayed silent while Madara sat down on the bench.
"This link that we share is the reason that I must remain a secret to those around you. It is the reason why your life is at risk for as long as you remain weak. I have a great deal of knowledge myself, and that knowledge may be used to harm you if you recklessly give it away to just anybody, orphans or otherwise. So go. I will be here at the same time, every week, and when you have gained the knowledge you need to understand why I have chosen you, ask, I shall answer all of your questions."
A deep breath, so that his dusty lungs could continue.
"When you can be bothered that is. You are young and full of life. Konoha was built so that children like you could flourish and be given the time to become strong adults. When you are ready, look for answers. Until then, you'll just have to put up with being annoyed with the way I'll train you."
Madara took a deep breath of the fresh Konoha air. It seemed things were going to go quicker than he thought. But perhaps that was for the best. He was on his last legs so-to-speak. A man more bone and dust than anything else. Naruto was a citizen of Konoha, and that afforded him a service in the form of caretakers and friends that could help him adjust to modern parlance and social cues, and it gave Madara the ability to focus on actually teaching Naruto abilities, and providing educational hints on what might be a good thing to believe in order to preserve and advance what he cared about.
He felt that while Naruto was too young to impart his age-earned philosophies and beliefs upon, he could set puzzle pieces in the mind of his grandson. So that when an event occurred that was related to something he spoke of, a piece would fall in place and Naruto would unintentionally understand something that he might not even remember being taught. It was like teaching him to walk, he liked to think. Madara did not have the time left on this earth to mold him in every way, but Obito hadn't exactly turned out how he wanted when trying to turn him into the second coming of Uchiha Madara.
"I'll give you a hint." Madara allows, for the sake of speeding up the process further.
"What?" Is the immediate question.
"I'm training you and teaching you for the same reason that the other children in your class get taught early."
"That's it?"
A deep heaving breath to continue again. "That's all you're getting from me, brat."
Naruto lets it go, but he does look give distracted and concerned glances towards 'Jii-san'.
Occasionally the coughing and raspy breathing doesn't stop and Madara can't say goodbye sometimes before he leaves.
"Tell me what... you learned today." Madara's voice can barely escape his mouth.
"I-Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei showed us how to throw kunai. We can't have our own yet they said, but Iruka-sensei said I was really
good for someone who never threw one before!"
Madara's breathing calms, and he listen with a smile as Naruto recounts his day.
Naruto can't help but wonder, is this old man the Uchiha Madara?
"Are you gonna die?" Naruto asks quietly, voice sombre but steady.
Tsukimi is not surprised at Naruto's question. He has always been quicker on the uptake than his fellow orphans. She could hardly lie to him.
"Yes." She croaks. It was inevitable. She was old, there was no medicine for that. Not that she would buy it, every bit of money she had would have to go to the children if they weren't going to be provided for by Konoha's Council. And if they did, she wanted what money she had to go to her granddaughter who rarely had time to see her given her busy life trying to get her bakery up and running.
"Do you have any family?" Naruto poses another question, and she would not be surprised if he had managed to tell her thoughts from her expressions.
Tsukimi smiles at the concerned boy. "Yes dear, my family is very beautiful. I miss them when they aren't here."
Naruto fidgets with the line of his shorts, looking down. "What's family like?"
She smiles wider.
"Family is wonderful Naruto-kun, words can't describe to you the love and happiness family brings you. One day you're going to have a family of your own, and you'll realize too that there is nothing you won't do to protect and make them happy too."
She goes on to tell stories both funny and sad at Naruto's behest, and unknowingly impresses upon him.
Family is wonderful
Naruto and the other orphans are not woken up by Tsukimi the next morning, and Naruto has decided it's his responsibility to let someone know.
His first and only stop is the Hokage's office. He doesn't bother going to The Academy for the rest of the week.
"Tsukimi-baachan died. I dunno what to do now."
Shizune kneels down before the crying boy and pulls him into a hug.
"Don't worry sweety, everything's going to be fine."
Naruto is one of few that are given their own apartment, with a caretaker that stops by once a week with some frozen meals and teaches him how to cook and clean. He is one of the only kids at the orphanage who isn't placed into foster care after the process is rushed following Tsukimi's death.
And he thinks he knows why.
His first encounter with death is something he remembers intensely.
"Jiji. Are you my grandfather?"
"...Yes Naruto. I am."
Single tomoe Sharingan meets triple tomoe.
Training barely changes, but Madara is going in full-force teaching in comparison to before.
"It is true that small chakra reserves are easier to control at first." Madara agreed after listening to what the Academy instructors had to say about it from Naruto. "However, easy doesn't always mean best. Some chakra control exercises can't be learned unless you have a certain amount of chakra. People not born with the potential for large reserves like you or myself could never hope to achieve the utmost perfected chakra control."
"Why can we learn it and other people can't?" Naruto asks astutely.
Madara had known at some point he would need to explain exactly what made them different to normal people. He hadn't expected Naruto to catch on so quickly. Shared smarts was a blessing and a curse.
"I will only explain this to you once. You must never tell anyone what I am about to tell you until you are powerful enough that it won't matter. Do you understand me?" Madara's question was firm, and his eye dangerously sharp.
Naruto only nodded in response. His Sharingan read Madara's lips so that he could remember forever.
"Good." Madara sighed and leaned back into the wooden throne. "I will first need to tell you the history of the Uchiha and Senju..."
And it went on for nearly two hours. Naruto sat patiently but enraptured with Madara's tale. The Uchiha bloodline's origin, the link between the Senju and Uzumaki. Just what it was that he and Madara were different from the rest, with an embarrassing speech on how babies were made thrown in. To Naruto, it may have well been torture. He regretted asking after the first five minutes.
"-your mother, while not showing it in any way, possessed my genes which were passed on into you. That is why you look so different to your parents, because you look like me instead."
"But why aren't they here?" Naruto asks morosely. "Why did they die if they were so strong?"
Madara stays silent for a few moments, looking at his hands on the top of his cane.
"It is because of me." Madara states in monotone. "My dream to bring peace upon with world drove another like-minded man to take up my goal, Tsuki no Me."
"What?"
"Tsuki no Me was my plan to force the world into an inescapable, perfect Genjutsu. One that would control all beings to submit, and each person would have their individual utopia to reside in forever. The problem with my plan was that I needed the Rinnegan, the combined DNA of Uchiha and Senju, along with the Nine Bijuu, and a lifespan that would allow me to fulfill the plan at the correct time. I did not have that time, so I made an apprentice out of an Uchiha to fulfill it for me."
"What's that got to do with Kaa-san and Tou-san being dead?" Naruto asks, stomach dropping.
Madara looked up from his hands, and Naruto is reminded that the old man isn't strong enough to keep the Sharingan on all the time anymore. A fading charcoal eye looks him in his crimson ones.
Naruto held his tongue. He wanted to shout out all of the anger that was boiling in him. He didn't want to say something that would turn the only person he had against him.
"Naruto..." Madara calls, softer than he ever had. "No matter what I have done, and how evil I may appear to you now, you can always trust that from now on, I would do anything in my power for you."
"How am I supposed to believe you?!" Naruto leapt to his feet, face red with fury. "You still haven't told me why they're dead and now it feels like you might have killed 'em!"
"I haven't done anything since meeting you to make you believe that I am your enemy. At least listen to my words before you decided to kill me."
Naruto looked stunned. "I-I wasn't going to-" He trails off, unsure what to say to something that hadn't even crossed his mind.
Madara looks like he misjudged the reaction too by the way he sucks his lips in, a semi-frustrated expression. So he begins to talk again.
"My apprentice killed her in a sense. Extracting a Bijuu from a person kills them. They may manage to last a short while without dying afterwards, but there has been no record of anyone actually living. It is only because of how powerful your mother's chakra was that she managed to survive so long after the extraction, and if she had been given medical attention then she may have lived long enough to raise you. The problem is, is that a female Jinchuuriki's seal is at its absolute weakest when they are giving birth. My apprentice took advantage of that to obtain the Kyuubi sealed within her. I don't know how he knew where she would be, that information should have been kept secret. Giving birth to you, having the strongest Bijuu taken out of her, and then not receiving medical help because the threat of the Kyuubi destroying the village was all too much for her to live. If she had the choice, she would have stayed with you as all parents want."
Madara breaths deep, ancient body not able to deal with so much talking at once.
"Your father understood that there was no hope of your mother surviving, so he sought to make a new Jinchuuriki. You."
"I'm a Jinchuuriki?"
"No." Madara denies. "Kushina took over the sealing ritual, and used the power that your father was going to use in order to send the Kyuubi away. She couldn't bare the thought of you suffering as she did, regardless of what Konoha needed. On the brink of death, she made a decision that would leave her despised by village officials... but at least give a better chance of her son living happy and healthy."
"Both of your parents suffered terrible wounds to save you from the Kyuubi. Given that your father lived long enough to attempt turning you into the new Jinchuuriki, I would wager that he was strong enough to either kill my apprentice or leave him to lick his wounds for at least a decade later."
It probably didn't matter either way. Zetsu was still at large, probably plotting. Being a tool in created in his darkest moments, it wouldn't stop until it fulfilled its purpose.
"If you had the chance, would you change anything?" Naruto asks, somewhat rhetorically.
"There is no point in dwelling on what I would change. Even if the things I have done remain secret and not a single person knows, it would still be the truthful past, least of all the past that has had a tangible effect on our reality today."
Naruto is quiet, toiling this information dump in his mind for several dozen minutes.
"Old man," Naruto begins his declaration, drawing Madara's eyes to him.
"Train me to be the strongest."
'I'm gonna have a family one day too. I'm not gonna let them down.'
Several weeks pass since some important revelations changed Naruto's outlook, but the only thing that changed about his training was that Madara was no longer withholding helpful information now that he knew Naruto could keep secrets. Teaching Naruto about the Sharingan was one of many things, as well as other Uchiha Jutsu, and while Madara could no longer participate in Taijutsu training, he could still use the occasional Genjutsu if he was feeling well to help guide Naruto's movements.
"In the Era of Warring States, there were Taijutsu users everywhere. While fewer in number, they have not changed. They still remain weak in skill and power, and the true Taijutsu masters were the only ones in the spotlight." Madara lectures. "Ninjutsu and Genjutsu did not have the same great repertoire's they did after the founding of the hidden villages. Before that, it was important to master each Jutsu with immeasurable ability very quickly so that it could be used in battle instead of training to develop new Jutsu based off of them."
Naruto listens intently as he did pull-ups on a wooden beam, strengthening his body and therefore, his physical energies.
"So why... is Taijutsu... still so... important? We have... those jutsu... now." Naruto barely articulates his sentence through each pull-up.
"Taijutsu is more an umbrella term that governs all things physical in combat. It is not just forms of martial arts, it is the chase as an enemy runs, it is the speed at which you evade kunai, shuriken, sword strikes, and even Jutsu. Most shinobi use Ninjutsu and Genjutsu as their first and last resorts when it should be the opposite. Using Taijutsu conserves your chakra for when it is needed, and the chakra in your body automatically converts itself into the appropriate energy for fueling and repairing your body in the midst of combat. It is more than fine to use your chakra when you see fit, but do you understand what I am trying to tell you?"
Naruto drops from the beam and grabs his bottle of water, taking several small sips at a time as to avoid spewing it up. He has learned his lesson from the first time he did. He answers his grandfathers question, putting that thought away.
"Don't leave gaps in your skills." Naruto states.
"And what do you mean by 'gaps'?" Madara presses, making sure that his charge had practice in conversation and also to find out if he had taken his teachings to heart.
"If you rely on any skill too much and it doesn't work, you might not have any other options to win." Naruto sits down, legs sprawled out. "You can't do anything if the only thing you're good at keeps getting countered. If you're not the best as you can possibly be in world where people can pretty much do anything with chakra, there is always going to be someone better than you to take away everything."
"Good." Madara leans back in his chair, but not taking his eyes off of Naruto's exhausted but thoughtful face. Something was clearly bothering him though. Could he have the right answer, that took him so long to discover himself?
"What bothers you, my grandson?"
"Jii-san." Naruto addresses quietly as he looks up at Madara. "Can your chakra get stolen?"
Close. So very close.
"It depends on what you mean." Madara indulges.
"I mean, taken away forever. What if I couldn't use chakra anymore?"
Perfect.
"Possibly," Madara replies. "but it is not a simple matter of just being unable to use chakra ever again. Chakra is built into our bodies from conception, to birth, and to death. If you took chakra away from someone who wasn't a shinobi and never learned to use it, the same effect would be created by doing the same to people like us who train our lives to use this power. They, and we, would die."
Naruto looks a bit disturbed at that, and with good reason.
"I thought-" Naruto cuts himself off. "Didn't you say that the Rikudo Sennin gave humans chakra? Why would he give us a weakness like that?"
"I told you the legend of how the Rikudo Sennin brought peace to the world, by giving humans chakra and teaching them Ninshu for cooperation and the active facilitation of peace." Madara corrected, inwardly thrilled that he actually has someone to talk about the point with.
"You say 'legend' like you don't believe that's the truth." Naruto observes, dark-eyes showing curiosity and not disregard or rejection.
"Legends are often derived from actual truth." Madara acknowledged. "But just the same, they are hardly ever the real truth. You observed yourself just now that the glaring weakness of all beings is that their chakra can be drained from them, killing them, so it stands to reason that we should question why exactly that is. Did the Rikudo build this weakness into us on purpose, or is it something necessary tied to our biology that we need to have this weakness for the Rikudo to teach us how to use chakra in the first place?"
Naruto considers this for a few moments.
"I think both could be as likely as each other." Naruto thought aloud, eyes narrowed in thought. "I don't know anything that could say that the Rikudo Sennin was really a good guy fighting for peace. Maybe he used pain and death to terrorize people into submitting to his will of peace?"
"Reasonable, given the information I have taught you." Madara admits. "But the Rikudo would have left a darker legacy upon the world had that been the case. After he died, his sons continued a legacy of war between them, as evident by the never-ending conflict between the Uchiha and Senju, and it could easily be argued that they are the cause of the One Thousand Year Strife and the Era of Warring States, it was they who showed the world how to use chakra against your fellow man. It could have been that they were using what they were taught by their father, but it is more likely the reason behind that conflict was because of personal behavior instead of their fathers legacy."
"Why is that more likely? The Sage is just a legend now, it's not like there's anyone left that still practices Ninshu."
"True," Madara admits. "But consider what I told you before. It is not as though the Rikudo left a legacy of suffering on the world. The hearts of the people he brought peace to did not change, only their perceptions of his sons. He went far and wide, to every corner of the world to spread his religion, and they passed on their knowledge to their offspring, teaching them that the Sage was a man of good will and that his sons were misguided and irresponsible, and that is a legacy that was still visible in the world until less than a hundred years ago. The Uchiha and Senju were regarded as nothing more than war-mongering tribesman, undeserving of the power they were born with."
"But then they forgot." Naruto realizes. "When the Uchiha and Senju banded together, everyone else banded together too in desperation so they would have the power to fight back, when the Uchiha and Senju both wanted real peace for once."
"And so they forgot their own legacies, and brought upon the age of the Hidden Village." Madara smiles, pleased at his grandsons reasoning. "They sought more and more power and then forgot why over the span of a hundred years, before sinking into the same pit they sought to never fall in. 'Might is right'. They became even worse than the Uchiha and Senju ever were. They employed tactics such as attacking small and harmless communities to provoke responses from other villages, and kidnapping children with Kekkei-Genkai in order to give themselves strength, instead of earning it on their own."
"Like... Kaa-san. And the Hyuuga girl."
"Indeed." Was all Madara had left to say on that matter. "But back to what I was saying earlier. Everything has a weakness. Individual Jutsu have weakness in opposing chakra natures, Genjutsu can be broken, but only think on this weakness of possessing chakra that could be stolen as something you need to improve all of your skills for. Chakra can only be stolen by Jutsu more powerful than the chakra itself. It is a natural weakness in your body, but it can be improved, even though the answer for the occasion may not be as simple as having stronger chakra. We have talked about this, do not rely on a single thing to save you, or that thing will betray you by not being what you need it to be. Not even the Sharingan can be the key to open every lock."
A labored breath. "Perhaps it's better that you experience it for yourself. Combat will be revealing for you."
Madara hands the boy a fresh-looking, small book.
'Bingo Book: Land of Fire South.'
"Pick your mission well, and do not leave until you are certain you are ready to. Getting blood on your hands for the first time is no simple matter."
A terrible incident involving their distant relatives occurs, and Madara has little good to say about the dead. He seemed to have a view on family that kept his immediate relatives in higher regard.
"They got what they deserved."
"How cruel grandfather! Do you not love your family as you love me?"
Madara doesn't so much give an eye-roll and his grandsons sarcastic remark.
Naruto was well aware what Jiji thought about those who 'Betrayed' him.
"There was only one survivor. Sasuke is in my class and it was his big brother that did it."
"Weak. He didn't finish the job."
"Mean!"
Madara goes off on another lecture.
"The fact that even one survived means that there may be some foul play, and I doubt that just one man killed an entire clan. No, there may be more to this tale than meets the eye. Perhaps my apprentice lived after-all..."
Naruto narrows his eyes.
Madara smiles at that. It was easy to stoke the flames of determination within a hot-blooded boy like his grandson.
"What would you do if I were to die tomorrow?"
"Before or after I stopped laughing?" Naruto is back to being dry.
Madara's brow twitched at his grandsons response. Suddenly, his sense of humour wasn't so funny when it was turned against him.
As it was however, Madara whacked him on the head with his cane.
"Ow!"
"You're a wily little fox. What happened to the rugrat that used to beg me for jutsu?"
"He realised he was getting the jutsu either way." Naruto made an annoyed face.
"Too bad you're a brat who can't use them all yet." Madara 'dismisses' that comment. His grandson might think he was going soft.
"You'd keel over if you tried one at your age, old man."
"Children these days. No respect and no skill."
"Old people. Mush for brains and smell no matter how much they shower."
Naruto yelps when Madara strikes him again with the cane.
"Alright, alright!"
Under the cover of night, nine-year-old Uchiha Naruto moved swiftly through tall trees and windy weather.
His grandfather told him this would be his final test. If a shinobi was to thrive in this cursed world, no matter their lineage, then they must learn to kill.
Naruto had spent the past week tracking a group of Missing-Nin that had been terrorizing neighboring towns of Nami no Kuni. He had a sword tucked to his waist in order to compensate for the lack of reach he had on adults. No matter how unskilled they were, they still had bigger bodies. If they managed to grab him at his size and physical strength, it could be all over.
He extends his sensory ability, and finds his prey within it. Thirteen signatures. Good. They're only a few hundred meters away.
His Sharingan swirls into life, and three tomoe in each peer ominously into the darkness.
Naruto reaches the camp, and sees what his sensory power could not. Four women and a child locked up in a slaves cage, looking unharmed for the most part but still terrified. Their chakra resonates in distress.
"Don't you worry now, sweethearts," A shabby looking man leers at them. "We're going to take real good care of ya, ain't that right boss?"
The man looks around when he doesn't get a reply. "Boss? Bo-urk!"
He drops to the cold ground when a kunai hits him between the eyes, and unfortunately draws the attention of the rest of the camp.
Naruto swoops in behind another bandit before more alarm can spread and puts his sword through the rogue's back out of his chest.
"There 'e is!" Another howls, and the last five turn to the intruder. "He's just a kid!" The same one exclaims.
"That brat still killed the boss! Get him!"
The bandits draw the swords and descend upon Naruto. One swipes clumsily, hoping to catch the boy in the chest and end it quickly. His underestimation rewards him with a quickly-flicked kunai in the throat.
The remaining four are more cautious in approaching. But to Naruto, it doesn't matter. They all die tonight.
Not fighting the surge of adrenaline, he attacks the one who is holding his sword a bit too loosely and gives the blade a good push to one side with his own. He quickly makes a chopping motion against the bandits hand, lopping off several fingers.
He is forced to dodge an incoming kick from another before he can finish the man off, and reels back when the erratic swipes attempt to make him flee.
His attacker resembles a weed in the wind with how haphazardly his arms are moving, and all Naruto needs is one swift cut to the culprits head, going straight down vertically from the top of his head and when the sword stops, it is resting in between two halves of a nose.
The last two attackers halt in their tracks unwillingly, and drop to ground like puppets with their strings cut upon gazing into Naruto's hypnotic eyes.
Naruto has a perfect line to finish of the two unconscious bandits and the other one currently screaming his head off after losing his fingers.
He sheaths his sword and weaves his hands through several hand-signs as he takes a deep breath.
"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!"
The screaming intensifies for only a moment, and disappears before their ashes do in the wind.
Naruto escorts the terrified women and little girl to the nearest village, where he turns in the heads of the Missing-Nin and receives a hefty reward that he needs to seal into a scroll in order to take back home.
"They were bad people, Jii-san." Naruto reveals in a solemn tone. "Really bad."
He is under no illusions as to what they would have done to the women if he hadn't gotten there in time. His grandfather has given him the talks and lectures on issues like this, and tells him that there really are bad people like that in the world.
The women, as a token of gratitude, swore not to speak a word of what he looks like to the authorities that question them. He wasn't one to pressure people after experiencing something like that but he knows that he isn't strong enough to beat every enemy that would come after him for the mere fact that he has the Sharingan.
"Did you run into any problems?" As usual, Madara is more concerned for his grandson than for some strangers, but he wasn't so callous to the point of being unsympathetic.
"Not a problem," Naruto stuffs some food into his mouth that Madara prepared for them both. "I expected it to be more trouble than it was."
"And the fight itself?"
Naruto pauses before he can put more noodles into his mouth, and carefully considers his answer.
"It was... fun." Naruto admits slowly. "I could feel my heart pounding, and-"
Madara stops him by putting a hand on his head and ruffling the black spikes.
"Now, you have tasted true combat." Madara speaks gravely. "But there will be many more foes in your future. Stronger, and faster than the ones you fought. Do you understand a little of what it means to be strong now?"
Naruto swallows and nods. Madara has told him that experience was the only way to truly measure ones own strength, and he felt that the fight could have easily gone the other way if the enemy had only been a bit smarter and more aware of their surroundings.
He understands now, the mountain-sized difference between his strength and his grandfathers, and resolves to work twice as hard to obtain an even greater power.
Eleven-year-old Naruto made his way to the hideout, his shoulder-length spiky black hair swishing with the wind. He decided he wanted his hairstyle to be like his grandfathers, and was allowing it to grow longer.
He is so absorbed in his training that often he doesn't even bother going to the Academy. Naruto doesn't think that he has the time to listen to the same-old stuff on repeat for the next two-years until he graduates and makes a greater effort to train himself past his current limits.
His grandfather helps of course, providing a wisdom that Naruto had never really appreciated up until his first kills little under two years ago. He absorbs everything that Madara has to say, masters every jutsu, and scrapes up every shred of energy he has to make himself not just stronger, but the strongest.
Madara lectures him in strategy, history and shinobi as a whole with their many styles and Kekkei-Genkai, and pushes him to his absolute limit in Taijutsu training. Swordplay. Genjutsu. Sharingan. Shurikenjutsu, and quite a bit of Medical-Ninjutsu. There are many things to learn and Naruto wants to master them all. Naruto knows all the forms by now but committing them to muscle-memory and actually being strong enough to use them was a different story.
On the days that his grandfather is too sickly to watch and help, Naruto would either train on his own or go to the Academy if he was in need of a day to relax. He aces his exams and wipes the floor with everyone during Taijutsu spars and it frightens off the less confident students.
Naruto also develops an interest in Fuinjutsu, not because of his heritage inclining him towards it but because he doesn't want to get caught by a seal that could potentially lead him to powerlessness. As with everything he learns, he studies this art rigorously. Not to mention that Fuinjutsu was basically untouched on seals or barriers that could enhance his training. His grandfather was the closest thing he had to seal-master sensei, but Madara hadn't actually needed them to train. Not when he had Hashirama constantly testing his mettle.
Madara was only lesser to Hashirama in reputation. Konoha had made sure that it forgot how Madara had once been Hashirama's equal, rivalled him blow-for-blow and was once regaled as an unstoppable monolith of power, even having Hashirama on the receiving end of what was possibly the only instance of Uchiha mercy up until that point. Better in a great many fields, Taijutsu a mere one of them, but Hashirama gained a certain something that outclassed Madara; Senjutsu.
If he had known where to learn Senjutsu at the time, perhaps he would have beaten Hashirama in the state he was without the Rinnegan or the mans cells hitching a ride in his body to keep him alive.
As someone with similar powers to Naruto, he made the perfect teacher to reach his full potential, and what he could not teach, Naruto had the time gifted from youth to seek out his answers.
Eventually, Naruto just quits going to the Academy. He was required to sit in a meeting to 'discuss his future' with the Hokage and four Academy administrators to make it evident that the program was not helping him grow, and since early graduation was prohibited after the Uchiha incident, he had nothing to do in class besides go over the same points he already knew several times a day. Mind Numbing.
Tsunade agreed easily, telling him only to train even harder with the time given to him, and as she did so the Academy admins folded like wet paper and their arguments dissapeared into nothingness. He was still required to show up for at least six-months a year in order to make sure his literacy skills were up to scratch, and also to instill some of that 'Konoha Spirit', but six months a year to train in exchange was a worthy sacrifice.
So he had two years to train himself as much as possible before being tossed into Genin life. He hoped that the pay was alright.
Looking around to make sure he wasn't being followed, and sensing around for good measure, he carefully enters the hideout as usual.
Something was off though. Jiji was weaker, but he could still usually at least feel his presence.
He couldn't feel his grandfather's chakra.
"Jii-san?" Naruto called out, voice echoing through the cave.
Naruto made his way further and spotted his grandfather sitting in his usual chair. But something was wrong. Naruto still couldn't sense
the strong chakra that should be there.
"Jiji?" Naruto tried again. He tried to shake his grandfather awake.
No response.
"Wake up, Jii-san." Naruto shook harder in panic.
His mind registered the ugly truth, but the boy still wanted his grandfather to wake up.
Naruto collapsed to his knees, and for the second time he could remember, broke down crying.
He sat there on the dirty cave floor, and remembered the times he shared with the last of his family.
6 Months Later
Tsunade smiles as the young Uzumaki enters her office. Naruto picks the days well to ask for help, seeing as no-one else was around.
"Happy Twelfth Birthday, Naruto."
More stern and serious than she remembers. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."
"Watcha here for?" She asks him casually.
"I want to take the Graduation Exam."
"You have good timing. Your age-group is about to go through their own exam. If you can wait two-weeks, you can take the test with them."
"I can." Naruto replied simply.
"Good," Tsunade smiled. "I need you to wait while my assistants get the paperwork ready. You will need to attend the last few weeks but I probably won't be able to get you in in time if you sign up any later. Are you sure you still want to go through with it?"
"I am sure. I do not want to wait any longer than I need to."
"Alright then. Take a seat in the waiting room. Shizune will be there as soon as she can to help you fill in the forms."
'Soon' being ten minutes later, and yet it still felt like forever.
"Uzumaki Naruto?" Shizune calls.
Naruto stood up and approached her, glad the eternity of waiting was fading away.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," Shizune gives a sheepish smile. "It's been pretty intense with the Genin exams coming up. There are quite a few clan heirs in this class so we need to run things by their parents a bit more than usual. Just put down your details here so we can put you into the Academy system. You don't need to do anything besides get your photo taken if you graduate, and it stays that way right up until you get chosen for promotion."
"What is this section meant to be?" Naruto asked politely, eyeing the words 'Stipend Mission Credit'.
"Oh, this means that people who aren't supported by their families will still receive a stipend from the village until they are qualified to start taking on more missions and support themselves."
That was good news, Naruto thought. He hadn't saved a dime since Tsukimi-baachan died and he was put into a crummy little apartment. All of the money he got went into making sure he had the food and tools to train and recover. He would repay the village with the results of his training, of that he was sure. He was currently dirt poor.
Naruto signs all he needs to, determination still burning in his heart.
'I'll make you proud, old man.'
週次パワーステータス
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