5 5 Handyman

Psst! Hinata-chan, are you awake?"

"Eeep!" The lavender haired girl came awake in fright, only to see Naruto there with the goggles she'd once given him on his head were his headband used to be. His ninja marker now hung around his neck, like hers did.

Before she could conclude anything, he was leaning closer, "I'll leave so you can get dressed. I'd just hoped we could walk to the exam together. After all, I just discovered the cutest girl in our class was also the one who has been giving me presents all these years. Thank you Hinata-chan," he bent close to place a kiss on her unresisting forehead. "You believed in me. That, more than anything, is what kept me going."

Then he was gone.

She hurried to wash herself and scramble into her clothes.

Naruto was waiting for her by the gate. So high she was that her long time crush had finally discovered, and LIKED her, that her feet barely hit the ground as they chatted along on their way to the center.

She was walking on clouds the entire time.

It never occurred to her to wonder how he knew the guard schedule and sentry posts around the Hyuga complex well enough to sneak into her room, or that they couldn't have their bloodline active all of the time due to chakra constraints.

For Naruto, it was the least he could do after finding out about her unhappy home life. Really, he'd always thought having no parents was bad, but having her dad was possibly worse. The guy was an active negative!

He'd been upset before the time loop when Neji told him about the Caged Bird seal, but between that, plus what he'd been worming out of Kurenai and the Hokage, plus what he could get by prompting Hinata (sometimes confronting Neji, also) he was beginning to get an extremely poor opinion of the clan, or at least of the clan head.

It had taken weeks of learning her responses, learning how to befriend her quickly and get her to trust him, but in a conversation about how to help Hinata, Kurenai (whom he'd gotten half drunk) had told him of that time she'd picked up the shy girl to take her to the academy for her first class, how she'd warned the father that being a genin was a dangerous path for Hinata.

Naruto still felt chilled over her quote of the man's response, that it didn't matter, as Hinata was a failure and the Hyuga clan had no use for her. Then the coldness of Hiashi declaring, "If she dies, she dies."

Worst of all, he'd said that in front of her with Hinata right there listening.

No, in Naruto's mind, the Hyuga clan was a problem that had to be fixed. And the biggest part of that to him was making sure Hinata could be happy.

Fortunately, at least that part was easy. He loved that girl, and only part of that was she was the person who'd taught him what love was.

I I I

"Say Kabuto. What have you got on Neji Hyuga?"

"Hmm," the silver haired ninja selected a card from deep within. "It says here he was last year's top rookie. Unarmed fighting specialist, practicing his family's Gentle Fist style. His bloodline also makes him a prime contender in the exams."

'Nothing on the Caged Bird seal' Naruto though despondently, and nearly turned away before pausing. "What's the top card in your deck say?"

"Oh? It's a chart showing the population of the five great ninja villages and how they compare to each other. See?"

I I I

"Say Kabuto. What's the second card down in your deck say?"

"Hmm? Oh. That lists off the leaders of the various elemental countries. Here, let me show you."

I I I

"Say Kabuto. What's the third card in your deck say?"

"Hmm? Oh. Well here, let's see. Ah! That's my listing of the various villages that have hosted the chunin exam, in order, ever since I started taking it. Only a memento, really. They never ask."

I I I

"Say Kabuto. What's the eighty second card down in your deck say?"

"Hmm? Oh. Just picking numbers are you? Well, let's see anyway. That's a nin-info card on a girl who died during our last exam. I guess I should throw that one away."

"What did she die of?"

"Oh, a Rain ninja killed her using a rain of needles. It was ugly, but not too unexpected. She just wasn't up to taking the chunin test, to be honest."

I I I

"Say Kabuto. What's the two hundred and ninety second card down in your deck say?"

"Hmm? Oh, wow, I never expected to be asked anything like that. Just picking numbers out of the air, are you? Well, let's have a look. Ah! It's the bottom one, and it looks like an information chart on Hayate Gekko, a special jonin of Konoha and frequently an instructor of the chunin exams when they are held locally. It says here that he is in chronically poor health, which is particularly sad since his specialty is swordsmanship, although he is also a master of the shadow clone technique."

"Thanks," Naruto waved, then paused, turning back to face the silver haired genin. "How do you make those cards, anyway?"

Kabuto smiled, straightening his glasses. "Oh, it's pretty simple. Here, let me show you how to make your own. Do you have a piece of paper handy?"

Naruto smiled. "I'll bring one tomorrow."

"Well, no need to waste time. I think I have a spare on me." Kabuto started rummaging around in his pouch, but came up nothing. "Well, I guess not. Sorry, I guess we'll do it tomorrow. It's not like I have a card I can just erase to show you."

Naruto, still smiling, suggested, "Try cards eighty two, one hundred and three, and two-twelve."

I I I

"Oh, hi Sakura!" the blond, orange-clad genin called out as he blurred past.

Pink hair swishing in the breeze of his passage, the girl paused to wonder at Naruto's behavior before continuing on her walk towards the test center.

Why hadn't Naruto bugged her?

"Oy! Nara!" she heard him call out in the distance. "You up to a shogi game after the test, if the examiners don't need us?"

"So troublesome. You wouldn't be any challenge."

"Win or lose, I'll take Ino off your hands for a day."

"Deal!"

"Stupid! Why would I agree to such a thing?" Ino objected, fists clenched.

"Because I'll carry your things while you shop, and help you out in your store for the rest of the day," the other yellow haired genin told her.

Ino blinked once, twice, then smiled. "Sure! Thanks Naruto!"

Behind them, the pink haired girl stood, blinking over this exchange.

I I I

Naruto whistled as he skipped along.

He was now varying his daily schedule as much as possible. Some days he picked up Hinata at her home and spent the day with her, and those were always nice.

He and Hinata had really started to become close friends as he learned more about her, and he'd really started to like her.

It was hard not to like her when she already liked him so much.

From her perspective (from what she told him), his just suddenly revealing that he liked her too was a gift from Heaven. So he could reveal all sorts of knowledge about her likes and dislikes and she would just assume that he'd somehow miraculously been observing her while she'd stalked him. In short, she'd gladly accept whatever level of friendship he offered her.

Naruto had, very quickly, grown to like and appreciate her. Nobody else in all of those repeats had been changing how they acted towards him, except her; so she stood out in that whatever attention he gave her would change her reactions toward him.

It had quickly become a lifeline to the endlessly repeating boy.

However, he was careful not to rely on it too much, lest that too became boring. And he didn't think he could bear to have his one, true friend start to bore him. He'd rather die.

Well, he HAD died, fairly often actually, and it hadn't stuck, but it was the sentiment that counted.

So he reserved those Hinata days for when he really needed them, once a week or so at most, and even so he'd begun to take her out on picnics and so on, varying their dates as much as possible to keep things fresh.

Other days, well...

Some days he researched, both the Hyuga clan and other topics.

The conversations to impress his friends had lost most of their initial luster. By this point, when he started to reveal 'hidden knowledge' they tested and tested him to find its limits, until that took all day without him learning about any new subjects he hadn't covered.

He'd found he could change that when he had a new topic of his own to introduce, but those were hard to think of, as left to their own devices they'd all ask the same questions over again leading to the same subjects he'd studied before.

So he'd taken to breaking into the Academy and reading the schoolbooks over, including some texts he had never owned any copies of (and some of which had been sold to him as 'special copies' with information deleted or changed, to teach him wrong answers), just to have fresh material to inject into those conversations, as otherwise they grew too boring.

But he had also started to vary whom he'd hang out with on most days. Nara was a bright spot on the otherwise dull backdrop of repetition, in that after the lazy boy had taught him shogi they'd been able to play together, and their games had always been different.

Of course, Naruto always lost, but that wasn't the point.

Ino was another refreshing person to be around. As he'd begun to expand his circle of friends, Naruto had discovered the girl to be nothing like Sakura was and yet everything he'd hoped she would be.

To put that another way, all of the qualities he'd previously admired about his pink haired former crush had been taught to her by Ino, who also had none of Sakura's flaws. Well, none except a crush on the Uchiha anyway, but there Ino was capable of listening to reason.

Sakura never was, in all of the times he'd tried her.

The textbook definition of a chauvinist was "a blindly devoted patriot", and by that Sakura was definitely a Sasuke-chauvinist. Nothing he did was wrong in her eyes, nor COULD HE do anything wrong as far as she was concerned!

Naruto had long since grown tired of it.

But luckily, he didn't have to put up with it, as there was nothing that required him to hang around with his team outside of missions. So long as he showed up for tests, they had nothing to complain about.

At least until Orochimaru killed them again.

And by spending less time with his team Naruto got to hang out with more interesting people. Ino was one such, by just suggesting one thing or another he could get her to shop for it, and so long as he stayed in disguise (for reasons he found easy to explain to her) they'd go around town shopping for whatever.

Doing such, he was learning how to tell good deals from bad, judge prices and product quality, as well as where to get deals - all stuff he'd never known before, as he'd been lucky to get inside a store's door growing up.

Those times they shopped for food, she'd also help show him how to cook, which was yet another of those skills he'd never had anyone to teach him as he'd been growing up.

His ramen obsession was a function of three things: his desperation to eat SOMETHING, his inability to shop normally (people sold him old, out of date or rancid food as often as possible, and all for premium prices, which was a real problem back before he could read and couldn't tell they were cheating him), and not knowing how to cook on his own forcing him to choose the simplest of all food to prepare, even though it had all of the nutritional value of warm cardboard. It was probably only his healing ability that kept him alive.

Well, that and the people at Ichiraku, who were nice to him.

No, Naruto was swiftly becoming very fond of Ino, and after shopping, and sometimes a meal, she'd let him help out in her family's flower shop (usually in his Sexy Naruto-chan disguise, to avoid scaring off any customers) where he learned about the various flowers, their meanings and properties.

So that was good.

By now Naruto had exhausted the limits of what Iruka could teach on most school subjects. The man was only a chunin, and a schoolteacher at that; so while he had a broad grasp of the essential ninja basics on up to chunin level, his focus had been down, on teaching genin, not up, on learning jonin level techniques or knowledge.

But still, while Naruto might not be chunin level on most skills, it was nice for him to have the book smarts of his hoped-for ninja rank, and to be able to calculate a parabola when he needed to.

So he went on reading books on those subjects for answers to give Hinata because asking Iruka grew to be too much of a pain, as his former teacher took longer to find things than just looking up the answers himself.

Next day he was planning on losing a bet with Kiba and paying a forfeit of 'having' to help out around that family's kennel, where he learned almost as many things as at Ino's shop.

They just weren't as nice about it, and taught about dogs instead of flowers.

After that, well, maybe he'd hang out with the Hokage for a day and prompt the old man to tell him stories. That had started out as a way to learn about his former favorite student, Orochimaru, but it turned out the old guy had a storytelling bone or two in his body, and he'd lived so long and seen so much stuff, all he'd have to do is prompt him the right way and the Hokage never seemed to run out of material, really interesting stuff, too.

Yeah. It was worth it. He'd go hang out with the Hokage again after this.

I I I

After who knows how long training with Ebisu, months of hard work on basic chakra control to be 'decent', then weeks each spent mastering intricacies of the Body Switch, basic Clone, and Transformation techniques, then MORE months spent on further chakra control exercises until he was 'tolerable, above average, but barely', the special jonin had taken him back to the basic essential three ninja techniques again until he could perform them without seals, on almost no notice and with hardly any sign he was doing them.

It was hardly possible to master them any further. There was only so much you could do to refine something, and he'd about hit that limit.

Yes, Ebisu liked to focus on the basics. He considered them important, vital even; or it could just be that he disliked Naruto that much.

Once more the blond genin showed up for his instruction, almost physically able to feel his expectation of the guy wanting to spend more time refining basic techniques, or to show him yet MORE minor refinements to establish slightly greater chakra control, on the road up to 'acceptable, almost good.' He nearly fell down in a faint when his teacher declared it was time the boy ought to learn a jutsu that WASN'T among the basic three!

Finally! At Last!

He got to learn Body Flicker, the short range transportation technique!

Okay, it wasn't much, being both low rank and common - almost a calling card for being a true ninja. But hey, he was excited! Kakashi may have a thousand ninja techniques, but Naruto only had four that he hadn't invented himself.

One more made a big difference.

I I I

"Sasuke, you do sense something odd about Naruto?"

"hn."

Having failed to get a useful response from her crush as he passed by where she sat eating, Sakura went back to her lunch, gazing off at her other teammate, who was laughing and joking with a trio of normally reserved genin from Hidden Sound.

The next day it would be Hidden Rain, but she didn't know that.

I I I

"... Naruto?" A voice asked from the door to his apartment.

The boy looked up from what he was doing. "Oy! Sakura. I wasn't expecting you."

He looked oddly puzzled by that statement, but he hid it well, so she didn't notice. Her mind was preoccupied anyway, but not so much she didn't notice the parts strewn on the floor around him. "What are you doing?"

"Oh," the boy gestured casually to the open book on the floor beside him. "Learning how to fix things. The lock on my door has been busted for a long time. I thought I'd learn how to repair it."

"That's nice," the kunoichi mumbled, not really meaning it.

"So what brings you here?" he prompted.

"Earlier today, I saw you talking with some Sound ninja," she stated. "I don't think that's right! They could just be using you! They might do anything to get ahead in the exam!"

I I I

"What are you doing?"

"Oh," the boy gestured casually to the open book on the counter beside him. "Learning how to fix things. The hot water tap in my sink has been busted for a long time. I thought I'd learn how to repair it."

"That's nice," the kunoichi mumbled, not really meaning it.

"So what brings you here?" he prompted.

"Earlier today, I saw you talking with some Grass ninja," she stated. "I don't think that's right! They could just be using you! They might do anything to get ahead in the exam!"

I I I

"What are you doing?"

"Oh," the boy gestured casually to the bucket of plaster on the floor beside him with the spreading tool in his hand. "Just repairing some of the holes in my walls. It makes it less drafty in here."

"That's nice," the kunoichi mumbled, not really meaning it.

"So what brings you here?" he prompted.

"Earlier today, I saw you talking with some Sand ninja," she stated.

"Oh yeah!" he brightened. "Gaara is the youngest son of the Kazekage, and the other two members of his team are his brother and sister, Kankuro and Temari. Nice folks."

"Why did you approach them?" she demanded, fists clenched in worry. "That one with the jug almost killed you!"

"Oh, I just wanted to know why they are going to attack our village, that's all. And being hostile or wanting me dead doesn't make them any different than most of Konoha."

Sakura found herself gaping like a fish.

I I I

"Oh, hi Sakura-chan!" Naruto called out through the mouthful of nails held between his teeth.

"What are you doing?" She approached, momentarily forgetting why she was there.

"Oh, I'm just opening up the wall of this room. The apartment next to mine has always been empty, and I got the Hokage's permission to join it to mine so I can have plenty of space for guests to visit. I've got it almost done now. What do you want?"

I I I

"Naruto, I just wanted you to know that I saw you flirting with Kiba's sister!"

"That's nice. Could you hand me that wrench please?"

Baffled at this response, Sakura did so. "Why did you do it?"

"Because it was fun. Why do other people flirt?"

Sakura had no answer to that. Instead she looked around her. "Why are we in the basement of your apartment building?"

Naruto confidently spun the wrench around his fingers before making the last adjustments to the pipes. "Because this is where the hot water to my apartment got turned off. I'm just turning it back on again. Oh, I had to replace some rusted through and busted up pipes first, though. Someone must have taken an axe to them to make certain I had cold baths. But I was able to salvage spares from a building that's scheduled for demolition."

"Oh."

I I I

"Naruto, I had no idea your apartment was this good!" Sakura looked about herself in amazement while handing him the screwdriver he'd asked for.

"Yeah, it does look like kind of a dump from the outside, doesn't it?" He said through a couple of screws held between his teeth, lying on his back on two boards between two ladders as he did something to his ceiling.

"What are you doing up there, anyway?"

"Oh, I'm just finished rewiring the place and I thought this would be a good spot to hang a ceiling fan from. What do you think?"

She thought about it for a second. "Wouldn't it be better over there?"

"I was going to put a sofa there, with a coffee table in front and recliners to either side. The table is going to go here. I thought about carpeting, but I think I prefer hardwood floors with some throw rugs on high traffic areas."

"Yes." Sakura chirped brightly. "I think that would look nice."

I I I

"I'm just saying you should have shown up to the test wearing more than your underwear and a cape, that's all!" Sakura insisted.

"Uh huh," he mumbled, busy fastening upholstery onto a newly assembled recliner frame.

I I I

"Naruto! Could you turn that thing off! I've got to talk to you!"

"What is it, Sakura?" The boy lifted up his goggles after turning off the power saw on the work bench.

She saw it. "What are you doing?"

"Making myself a matching dining room set to go with the remodeled kitchen. Don't touch the table, it hasn't had a chance for the varnish to dry yet and I don't want to have to buff out any fingerprints to get a good, high gloss."

"Oh." She blinked several times in confusion.

"What did you want to talk about?" he asked, going over to check on the clamps that were currently pressing wood for the curved-back chairs.

I I I

"Oy! Sakura! Something you want to talk about?"

"Yeah, I guess." The kunoichi nervously entered the room where he was working.

"Just a moment," he cautioned, blowing through the hollow wooden rod to expand the ball of glass on the end into a mold. "Okay, you can talk now."

"What are you doing?"

"Making a set of goblets and glasses to go with my new tableware, why?"

I I I

Immediately on waking up one morning, Naruto created sixty Shadow Clones that immediately set about performing tasks transforming his house in ways that he himself had practiced up before.

Two more ran off to make purchases around town, including a better set of clothes, a blue outfit based on Kurenai's suggestions. He'd be broke after doing it, but that would reset tomorrow with the rest of it.

That afternoon, when he led Hinata to his house for their lunch date, she stood staring, then turned to him with stars in her eyes.

"I learned how to fix it up since your last visit," he told her, looking the girl fondly in her eyes while gently stroking her chin.

"Naruto-kun!" She leapt into his arms and squeezed him tightly as the romantic atmosphere overwhelmed her.

Sighing as it heard this from the next room, the apron wearing clone in the kitchen turned down the heat on the roast. It looked like dinner would have to be delayed.

Sighing fondly as she got told about it later, Kurenai told him, "About the only thing you missed was romantic music. Good job Uzumaki."

"Music?" the boy asked her intently.

Nothing must be neglected or forgotten in providing the perfect date to the one girl who'd always believed in him!