4 Beginning of the Journey

The Journey to Konoha took roughly a week, during that time, although Shiki saw nothing worthy of note he got started on his training.

First Shiki, quickly realised how to mold and control his chakra it came to him as a sort of instinct his precision at these two tasks was all over the place however, partly due to his great amount of chakra. This being the case Shiki decided to start simple with the leaf concentration exercise.

He did this by attempting to use his chakra to stick a leaf he picked up onto his forehead as they walked, the two kunoichi quickly realised what he was attempting and Shizune commented.

"Trying the leaf concentration exercise I see! Have you done it before?"

"Don't remember!" Shiki answered while keeping the leaf stuck. "But I don't think I have." He further added.

"Well, I think your it's a good attitude to have when it comes to training, not wasting any time. I'm sure you'll make a fine shinobi one day! Right, Tsunade-sama?"

Tsunade merely humphed prompting Shizune to make an apologetic smile. After that the walk continued in silence with Shiki more or less quickly mastering the exercise after all, he is supposed to have the necessary talent for all Uzumaki jutsu and a lot of fuinjutsu require good chakra control but while the talent help, in this particular case a good work ethic is far more important.

Having got the leaf concentration exercise down before their first stop at, Shiki took it as a chance to start practicing the tree climbing exercise while this time the two kunoichi simply left the boy to his own devices.

At first, he kept focusing more chakra on his soles than needed due to fear of not sticking properly to the tree causing repulsion to happen between his feet and the tree, it was due to this that he discovered something interesting.

Making a bit of distance between a tree and himself so as to get a nice runup, Shiki then blasted of the ground and picked up some speed before finally attempting to run up the tree but, after a couple of steps the problem plaguing him since the start acted up and his soles were pushed of the bark, the interesting thing is Shiki skillfully flipped in the air and landed safely on the ground.

After being stunned by what happens for a few moments an explanation surfaced in his mind.

'I must have already received some training! I merely don't remember it! It would also explain how I could mold chakra and focus it on body parts, thinking about it, chalking it up to talent was stupid, no matter how talented you are, some things can only be learned by doing them.'

Having reached this conclusion Shiki decided to spend the rest of his time before going to sleep, trying to uncover what other skills he might have been trained in before recovering the memories of his past life and reincarnation, while losing those of his first four years.

In the end all he found he had in that night, was some very basic training in taijutsu, a very unrefined shunshin (body flicker) and some rudimentary stealth.

As he walked back to Tsunade's and Shizune's position, Shiki thought about what he should do tomorrow.

'I was out of time today but I should try some basic jutsu tomorrow night. I thought the techniques in the legacy would be just Uzumaki specialties but other basic techniques are included, probably jutsu obtained from others during the clan's existence also count. If I have already practised these basic jutsu before it should come to me fairly easily.'

As he arrived at their small camp he greeted the two kunoichi and they all went to sleep. While Shiki laid in his bedroll he started thinking about what h would do tomorrow while walking.

'Since I can already keep one leaf stuck to my forehead while doing whatever, i'll try to keep two of them stuck in different places, I should get to sleep now though.

And so after a few minutes Shiki drifted of into the world of dreams until Shizune pulled him out next morning.

Once again awakening to Shizune's smile put Shiki in a good mood and after a couple of smooth compliments to both ladies they were back on the road.

The redhead quickly found keeping two leaves stuck in different places was more difficult than expected and he only managed to more or less do it by the time the stopped in a small town for lunch.

Although the lunch passed mostly in silence, Tsunade started to get a little liberal with the sake and Shizune had to intervene.

"Tsunade-sama that's enough sake for today!" She said as she grabbed the bottle of sake while Tsunade downed her cup.

Tsunade quickly tried to reach for the bottle in Shizune's hand while saying.

"Coome oon Shiizunee, I oonly haad a liitttle tiiiny bit . . ." If her blush wasn't enough to determine she was already getting slightly drunk Tsunade's dragging of her words was damning evidence. So Shizune turned to Shiki and spoke.

"Looks like we might have to stop here for today considering Tsunade-sama's state. Here, have a little money and go around town to see if you find something that catches your eye, I'll bring Tsunade-sama and try to fim a place to spend the night.

"Okay Shizu-nee!" Responded Shiki with wry smile "See you later!" As he said this Shiki left Shizune and a drunk Tsunade while thinking.

'Tsuna-nee is definitely doing this on purpose to delay the journey, no way a heavy drinker like her got that smashed over a bottle or two, guess she doesn't really want to return to Konoha but that much is expected.. Well, on the bright side I'll have some time to train uninterrupted today!

And so, instead of inspecting the town like Shizune suggested, Shiki went to the forest nearby to continue his training.

First, he decide to try out the basic E and D ranked jutsu normally learned at the academy. The redhead soon realised he could do most of them such as the Transformation jutsu, Clone jutsu and Body Replacement jutsu, the only ones he hadn't tried yet were the ones that required actual objects like the Enclosing and Unsealing jutsus and Rope Escape Jutsu.

Having only spent about an hour or so checking the basics, Shiki went back to tree climbing but apparently, after trying out the basic jutsus, some of the chakra moulding and control that were ignored after his memory loss started surfacing and so, he managed to walk up and down the tree without smoothly without preparation only a couple of hours in and by the time the sky started darkening he could already do the tree climbing exercise while sticking two leaves on each side of his forehead.

'Well this was a productive day, all things considered!' Shiki thought as we walked back to town.

He soon spotted Shizune who seemed to be looking around worriedly and immediately though.

'Oops! Guess I was too absorbed in my training and took way too long to return.' And so, Shiki started jogging towards Shizune while calling out to her.

"Shizu-nee!" "SHIKI-KUN!" Shiki flinched a bit at Shizune's shouting his name. She immediately closed the distance and hugged him

"Where were you? Do you know how worried I was?" She continued to admonish the boy.

"S-Sorry Shizu-nee, won't happen again" Apologised Shiki, a little flustered by the hug but was soon back to his sly self saying.

"B-But receiving such a hot hug from Shizu-nee after being a bad boy might make want to do it again . . ." Said Shiki purposely blushing while repeatedly moving his gaze back and forth from Shizune to the ground.

"W-What?" Said Shizune flustered while taking a step back until she saw a sly smile creeping up Shiki's face.

"Teasing onee-chan unh? You're going to be quite the heart breaker when you grow up!"

"Heh!" The redhead sounded out with a smug face while thinking. 'That's for sure, as a self respecting man of culture getting some waifus is imperative still, it actually feels really nice to be cared for . . ."

"Come on, I've booked us a room in the local inn. What were doing the whole afternoon by the way?" Shizune continued.

"Training!" Shiki promptly answered.

'Heeh, it's unusual for kid this age have that kind of self discipline he'll go far if he keeps it up.' Shizune thought to herself.

"So can you described the training to me?" She asked

"Sure!" And so Shiki began to describe the various things he did during the afternoon actually impressing Shizune.

'While not unheard of, for a four year old kid to have already reached the standard of an Academy graduate is quite impressive. Since he seems like such a good seedling maybe I can convince Tsunade-sama to train him and take her ming of the past and look towards the future . . .'

Shiki noticed Shizune fell into though so he kept quiet and they both walked in silence to the inn.