Ten glorious hours of sleep later, and Naruto is woken up to a brick being thrown through his living room window that causes him to immediately bolt upright in bed as his mind quickly tries to catch up and remember where he is. Recognizing his bedroom, and the now somewhat familiar sight of a broken window after some idiot throws something, he instantly is more awake and instinctively pops off ten clones, one to clean up the mess while the others scout and try to find and apprehend the suspect. As he slept through the whole day, and it was now dark again as evening approached, Naruto lost the vandal he was pursuing in the little light, and the slow and groggy start where also contributing factors.
Thankfully, the mess was easily cleaned and after waking further, he decided to continue from where he left off yesterday, and spammed 200 clones and sent half of them to the training field to continue with his practice and the other half back to the library to continue studying. Meanwhile, the original Naruto got dressed and headed to Ichiraku Ramen for some much needed "Food of the Gods" and some all you can eat celebratory dinner. His mood had never been better, he had finally achieved his dream of becoming a shinobi, and was now on his way to getting stronger one clone at a time, and currently heading to his favorite ramen stand ...life was great!
"Uchiha-sama, are you sure you don't want more kunai? Free for our favorite new genin," came the loud and sleazy voice of Himaro Buki, the leading weaponsmith in Konoha for several years, and also a royal ass kisser and member of the Civilian Council that favored the last loyal Uchiha something fierce.
Naruto just scowled as he watched the sleazy weapon merchant try to give away more stock to his hated rival for nothing other than his family name, and it really pissed the young blond off. He had been thrown out of Buki's store more times than he could count, and he still didn't have all the gear he knew he needed for the start of his ninja career, and wondered how he could go about getting his own ninja supplies filled, to bad he wasn't an Uchiha. WAIT! He had something that could make him pass for an Uchiha, and it would only cost him a little chakra to get the henge applied and he could be using Sasuke's face to get all of his needed gear at below average prices as most in the village bent over backwards if it meant helping the last Uchiha.
Deciding that he couldn't show up right after the real Sasuke left, he instead started making a mental list of all the supplies and gear that he needed to shop for before being assigned a jounin sensei and team. With a henge of the teme, he could probably get everything he needed for half the cost and couldn't wait to pull one over on the stupid prejudiced shopkeepers. But first he needed to eat and so, he planned to get his shopping done after he had his fill of Miso Ramen.
"Oi! Oji-san ...Miso Ramen and keep em coming," called out Naruto in a loud voice as he pulled aside the curtain into his favorite Ramen stand and made his way happily to the counter.
"Naruto," calls out Ayame happily as her favorite customer and honorary little brother comes and sits in his spot, a smile larger than she can ever remember seeing on his face makes her own lips curl. "Where have you been for the past few days? Dad ...get out here ...Naruto's here!"
Despite all the recent changes in such a short amount of time and everything he has learned in the last few days, Naruto was still very much the same loud obnoxious bragger and couldn't stop himself from grabbing and showing off his hitai-ate and his megawatt smile. Ayame eyes widened at seeing the symbol of their village on Naruto, and couldn't be happier or prouder of her little brother and smiled back congratulating him when her father finally stuck his head through the kitchen curtain.
"I like the new accessory Naruto ...the symbol of the Leaf looks good on you," came Teuchi Ichiraku's happily worded praise before ducking back into the kitchen and then emerging again a moment later with a steaming bowl of Miso Ramen for his favorite customer, who had reason to celebrate it seemed.
"Dattebayo," exclaimed Naruto with enthusiasm as his eyes followed the approaching bowl of heavenly goodness and his smile never waivered, "and thanks Old man."
Naruto paused barely enough to say thanks and break apart his chopsticks before attacking the bowl of Miso Ramen with gusto, as he finished in moments, and over the next half hour put away a dozen bowls of his favorite food with no end in sight. After the first two bowls, he was able to slow down enough to talk to Ayame and old man Teuchi between kitchen runs for more food, and tell them all about failing the exam and ending up being tricked by the traitor Mizuki to steal the Forbidden Scroll. He didn't go into too many actual details but was able to give the pair a good picture of basically what happened and what he has been doing since.
The Ichiraku family couldn't be prouder or happier for their young friend, whose dream of becoming a ninja and eventually Hokage was very well known. They knew how he was treated by most in the village, and knew all the difficulties he constantly had to overcome and deal with, and had always felt for the spirited boy. Seeing him happy, and seemingly turning his life around for the better, had them both overjoyed and also a little worried for their emotional friend as they knew the dangers of the ninja life despite being civilians.
"Just make sure you train hard, and always be careful ...we wouldn't want anything to happen to our favorite customer," pleaded Ayame as she watched the younger boy demolish his 15th bowl of ramen and finally seem to slow down.
"Dattebayo, Ayame nee-chan," responded an excited twelve year old to his favorite people in the village outside of Jiji and Iruka-sensei.
Once he was finally finished eating, he paid a tidy sum to the two Ichirakus for all of his food, and then decided on his plan to get supplies cheap by henging into Sasuke. He had three stops to make to get all the supplies he had slowly been thinking about, and decided to make Buki's weapon shop the last one. With that in mind, he headed towards the heart of the merchant district where his first stop was, Higurashi Outfitters.
Higurashi's is where you go to get the very best of custom and overly specialized weapons, and not necessarily the shopping place for fresh out of the Academy genin. But, they sold one thing that Naruto had seen mentioned several times in all of his recent reading, and that was storage scrolls and fuinjutsu supplies. The Art of Sealing instantly caught Naruto's attention while doing all of his research, as his life was defined by the Seal for the Kyubi, and storage scrolls were just about the coolest and most helpful things to use.
So, before ducking into the store, Naruto henged to look like Sasuke Uchiha and entered the large high-end weapon shop with his head held high and an arrogant sneer on his face that he thought resembled the teme pretty well. It didn't take him long to find the corner of the store dedicated to Fuinjutsu, and he quickly picked up all three books they had for sale, as well as six storage scrolls, and a small starter Fuinjutsu kit that had a small amount of usable paper, ink, and brushes to create your own seals. Taking it to the counter, the middle aged man there scowled down at "Sasuke'' which surprised Naruto as he thought everyone loved the last Uchiha, before demanding the full price of 20,000 yen and taking a sizable dent out of Naruto's available funds.
Luckily, the owner Itoi Higurashi showed him how to load everything he purchased into one of the storage scrolls and sent him on his way. The next stop was just two stalls down, and was one of the better clothing shops for the more standard ninja gear. There, a younger female clerk instantly recognized "Sasuke" and was all over him the entire time he was in the store, trying to help in any way she could.
Claiming that he was only buying training clothes, and didn't want the Uchiha fan on anything was a little more difficult than he thought it would be, but eventually he just got the civilian girl and former Academy dropout to "do him this little favor" with anime hearts in her eyes. On the plus side, he got ten standard black pairs of pants and shirts, as well as three pairs of black sandals, three sets of arm and leg guards, five shuriken and/or kunai pouches, and a few other basic necessities that caught his eye including a beginner set of training weights. Due to his stalker / helper he was also able to get the entire purchase for half off the would be 20,000+ yen price tag, and leaving him with still plenty of money to fill up his new weapon pouches.
As he planned, the last stop was to Buki's Weapons, and he was instantly greeted by the sleazy Himaro Buki, who was quick to tell him he knew "Sasuke" would be back for more supplies. He instantly started pulling senbon, kunai, and shuriken by the bucket loads and began piling it all up at the counter. Within twenty minutes, there were more weapons on his counter than Naruto had ever seen in one place before, but he was more than happy to seal them all in a storage scroll and take up Himaro on his generous recommendation to have them for free, or a later returned favor that had Naruto laughing his ass off on the inside ...take that teme!
After that, it was a return to his apartment as stores were now closing and all the civilians were starting to turn in for the night as was their usual. Naruto however was just getting started and after a quick trip to drop off his new things and put on his new weights and training outfit, he hurried to a nearby training ground he sometimes frequented and put his new training plan in motion. He wanted to know how many clones he could spawn if he really tried, and just decided to do what he usually did and throw a bunch more chakra into the jutsu and hope for the best.
Naruto surprised even himself when well over 500 shadow clones appeared all throughout the clearing, and did a little happy dance as he realized he could really step up his training even more now. Knowing how much it had already helped him, he sent the first hundred clones to the Shinobi Library to continue reading everything they could and after his henge success with shopping he also decided to send 100 henged clones to the Civilian Library as well. The next hundred were sent to work on chakra control, then a hundred went to work on his ninjutsu, while the last full hundred went to work on taijutsu, leaving the original with about sixty remaining clones.
Knowing from the Hokage's little lesson on the shadow clones capabilities, he knew that all physical training had to be done by his original body, but also wanted to test himself fighting against his clones. So he decided to just have them attack him in waves, starting small as he still didn't really have a very well defined taijutsu style, even if it had quickly started to improve over the last day. Because they could only really take one good hit, Naruto quickly worked his way through the sixty clones for a pretty good warmup and was pleased with his quickly growing skill in his basic taijutsu.
Naruto spent the next two hours running himself into the ground physically, through actual running as well as several other calisthenics exercises he vaguely remembered from the Academy. Shortly after he began he spawned and popped a clone with instructions to research other exercises and was able to incorporate them into his workout as memories of his researching clones would occasionally pop into his head at random moments throughout his activity. At the end of two plus hours, as the hour approached midnight Naruto felt that his chakra had recovered enough to try another mass clone creation, and this time was able to spawn over 650 of the dopplegangers.
Knowing that his library clones only needed a few replacements, he sent two dozen to each Library with focusing instructions for the Civilian side to start on learning about the body, and ways to improve it without chakra. He then sent half of the remaining 600 clones to the group working on taijutsu as they had suffered the most losses due to their activity, and then split the remaining 300 in half and sent each group to one of the two remaining groups, chakra control and ninjutsu. These last two groups had not lost too many people, as they only expired when they screwed up a jutsu, exhausted their chakra supply, or got too close to a neighboring clone.
With all of his clones now occupied again on improving his basics in the areas he had them working on, he stopped by the small stream in the training ground and got a long drink before once again starting up his physical exercises. He ended up doing the exact same thing another two plus hours later at 2 a.m., and spawned as many clones as he could with his recovered chakra adding them as reinforcements to all his others still out there before getting a long drink and small snack of three ration bars and starting up the physical exercises once again. When 4 a.m. came around, Naruto again had recovered enough chakra to easily spawn another 600 clones to add to his training troops, even if he knew that he was running out of room in the current two training grounds his clones were already occupying.
Taking a longer break this time to get a drink and snack, Naruto started processing the hundreds of memories and experiences he had gained over the last several hours and couldn't be happier with his overall progress in all fields. The Shinobi Library team reported to being over half-way through the genin section, and had even managed to slip three henged clones into the chunin section while the Chunin Librarians changed shifts. The Civilian Library team was still in its beginning stages, but he was pleased with what progress they had made, and he learned they almost completed the fitness section and were moving onto beginning medical texts to learn more about the body.
The chakra control team had finally mastered the leaf sticking exercise to an insane degree, keeping 20 leaves on different parts of the body and being able to move them around without dropping them, and had since moved on to the tree climbing exercise which was going very well. They had almost reached the top of the trees they were practicing on, and were then going to work on their endurance and ability to multitask while stuck to the tree. The book mentioned being able to fight or train while stuck to the tree for over an hour, as the ultimate test of this skills mastery, and Naruto was planning to master each of these skills before moving on to the next chakra control exercise on the list, water walking.
The taijutsu team was moving along relatively well, but without a specific style or proper instruction, he was kind of stuck as an unpredictable brawler just practicing the few limited moves he knew to exhaustion. His moves were getting increasingly better, but they still lacked the cohesiveness of a true style or the fluidity of a master of the art. He was hoping his jounin instructor would be able to help him pick out and practice a taijutsu style that was more tailored to him so he could really improve in that area too.
The ninjutsu team was probably the most behind and uncoordinated, as there were now a half dozen skills and jutsus that they were trying to learn and master simultaneously. The first jutsu he had really tried to master, was the kawarimi or replacement technique, and he reasoned that it was probably best to learn to dodge and stay alive first before moving on to others. Likewise, after that first day, his replacement was practically flawless now, and he only needed to keep working on his speed with the technique as he continued to dedicate several clones to continually improving it, as well as his hand signs.
With the help and increase in his chakra control, by the end of that second day he was able to get the standard henge illusion, and not just his overpowered true transformation but still couldn't produce a viable bunshin clone although he was getting closer. The survival skill jutsus were all coming along really well, as he was able to start fires, find and filter water, move earth for fire pits, latrines, and the cleanup of campsites and food preservation. He was also now working on some of the tracking and hunting skills he read about in the hopes of surviving out of the village while on missions, and couldn't be happier to find a way to not always have to eat ration bars.
The only problem the ninjutsu team was having was related to the two sensory jutsus Naruto picked up, the Echolocation one and the Enhancement one. He didn't understand the concept of echolocation and it made it really difficult for the young genin to do anything more than expelling chakra into his surroundings with no understanding of any "feelings" he was picking up. The Enhancement one he was capable of pulling off, but it left his head spinning, his eyes stinging, his nose burning, his ears ringing, and in no condition to do anything other than want to curl up in the dark and quiet.
Finished with his break, he was just getting up to start another round of physical exercises when he saw just at the border of his training ground a pair of green blurs, and heard the unusual sounds of two men screaming about their "Flames of Youth" as they raced passed. Amazed at their speed and dedication (as it was just 4 am), he shook his head and with a more determined look on his face jumped right back into his physical exercise. He was pleased to discover too, that his speed had almost caught back up to normal even with the first level of weights on and knew he would be turning them up a level soon.
At the next two plus hour interval, it was nearing 7 am and the village was truly starting to wake up and come alive, and Naruto was slowly becoming more weary and tired both mentally and physically. So this time, after spawning another 600+ clones and sending them off to reinforce their brethren, the real Naruto headed towards Ichiraku's Ramen to partake in some breakfast of the Gods, and a well earned break. It was somewhat amusing to see Teuchi and Ayame again so soon, since he had just had dinner there several hours and several hundred clones earlier.
"Back again Naruto?" asked Ayame as she saw him approach their stand while cleaning up the counter and finishing the last few tasks before opening.
"You bet ...I'm starved," responded the young blond tiredly as he seemingly dragged himself to his usual seat, "can you get me at least 5 Miso Ramens to start?"
"Um ...sure Naruto," replied Ayame as she looked at her young friend with concern, as she rarely saw him that tired or worn out. "Are you alright?"
"Um, yeah," responded Naruto with a little chuckle to himself, "just training a lot!"
"Oh ...well, that's good!" came Ayame's reply, before calling into the kitchen to her dad for Naruto's order, before continuing around their little restaurant and preparing everything to open, while peppering the young blond with questions about his training schedule as he obviously wasn't keeping normal hours.
Naruto told her a little bit about the shadow clone, and the memory transfer and then what all was going into his training and why the schedule was so wonky until team assignments tomorrow morning on Monday. His plan was to continue training through today until he dropped hopefully this evening, and then sleep it all off and be ready and refreshed Monday morning. He didn't know what to expect from team assignments, but had read enough to learn that every genin team consisted of three genin and one jounin sensei at least until Chunin Exams where promotions usually broke up the genin teams.
Naruto was somewhat worried about the makeup of his future team, as there were not a lot of people in his class or any of the others that he liked and got along with. What if he got paired with someone who hated him and wouldn't work with him, or with some losers that are likely to get themselves killed the first time they face any opposition. Not to mention, his jounin sensei might not be a good teacher, or hate him or the Kyuubi and hold it against him or any other scenarios he was dreaming of and possibly dreading.
Well, there wasn't much Naruto could do about worrying over something that hasn't happened yet, or plan for all possibilities, so he instead just tried to keep an open mind and promised to work hard. He wouldn't stop training that was for sure, and as long as he was doing that, he felt that he was improving and working towards his goal of being a kick ass ninja and Hokage. Finishing up his seven bowls of ramen, he thanked Ayame and Teuchi before returning to the training ground he had been using and jumping right back into his physical exercise.
Needing another bigger food break around lunchtime, after another longer exercise circuit and spawning of 600+ clones, Naruto decided to try somewhere different as his reading on nutrition showed that his diet was severely lacking in a lot of the essentials he needed for growth. Needing to incorporate more protein and vegetables, he ended up going to a nearby barbecue restaurant that Choji and Shikamaru from his class often frequented, and he at least knew of. Deciding to play it safe, he henged into a nondescript person before entering the restaurant and being led to a counter with a small grill in front of him, he started ordering everything to see what he liked the most.
After a large meal where he tried several different types of meat and vegetables, and discovered that they weren't all horrible, Naruto was pleased with ordering seconds of his favorites and really enjoying them. That afternoon, Naruto first upped his training weights to the second setting before attacking his physical exercise once again and pushing himself to always go faster and longer in order to improve. Around three in the afternoon, Naruto's chakra was recharged enough to spam another 700 clones that he quickly put to work reinforcing others and also setting a group aside to just work on hand seals.
By that evening when he practically collapsed onto his stool at Ichiraku's counter, Naruto was beyond fried mentally and physically and not really looking forward to assimilating all the remaining clones' memories and experiences. But first, he needed some serious food and asked his favorite father and daughter pair if they could make him a loaded Miso Ramen with additional vegetables so he could try and get a more balanced diet. They agreed to make him his own batch under two conditions, the first of which was they had creative control over the ramen still and could add things they felt were important that he might not know about. The second, was that he had to pay for and eat at least ten bowls any time they made him his own batch, otherwise they would be losing money.
The ten minute wait for a new batch to get cooking was pretty difficult for the overly hungry young genin surrounded by the smell of his favorite food, but he was able to remain seated and patient as he mentally reviewed anything else he needed to accomplish before team assignments. When he finally was delivered a large bowl of steaming ramen, he almost cried out in thanks due to his massive hunger and then in praise at the wonderful creation of the Gods after his first taste. Easily plowing through over ten bowls, Naruto ended up eating the entire batch of his new Naruto Special Ramen* and happily paid the Ichiraku's and promised to return for more.
Naruto then decided to head back to his apartment now that evening was approaching, his bone weary tiredness was starting to affect him and he knew he needed some serious sleep to recover from the almost 22 hour training day he just finished. Getting back to his place, he quickly got ready for bed and laid down on his lumpy old mattress, before beginning the long process of dispelling all of his remaining clones scattered throughout the village. The amount of knowledge and experience that was coming in from his clones was almost overwhelming, and he realized that some of the clones had survived almost twenty hours, and with the numbers he kept sending out, there was a staggering amount of returning data.
Even with the excessive tiredness from the night before, Naruto still only needed eight hours of sleep before he woke up fully refreshed and ready for another great day filled with team assignments and hopefully more training. As it was still only six in the morning, Naruto quickly put on a training outfit and made just a dozen shadow clones to clean up his apartment, make repairs to the broken window, go grocery shopping and prepare breakfast while he went for a morning workout. Keeping his training weights at the second stage for now, he pushed through a reduced physical workout until just after seven a.m. when he returned to his apartment for breakfast, and to gather his things and head to the Academy by eight for team assignments excited about what this first chapter of his ninja career would entail.
*Naruto Special Ramen, more protein and vegetables than usual, but much better for a growing boy and ninja.