Meeting The 3rd Hokage

"Hello, Riku."

Riku felt super anxious right now. He didn't know what his purpose was but this is also Riku's chance to get noticed and resources from the village.

"Riku I was watching your class matches today as I always do to see the new bright stars of the village and you caught my attention with your first fight."

"May I ask what I did that interested you?"

"You showed great battle awareness and physical strength, and when I thought that was it when you sparred with Sakumo's kid you showed even more talent in both of those aspects. So then I watched you practice daily with that kid Might Guy and got even more intrigued."

At this time Riku glances at his aunt to see her looking back at him with a proud gaze.

"So, I want to know Riku, what do you think a ninja is and what kinda ninja do you wanna be?"

Riku thought for a moment then said "I think a ninja is a killer though that's not the type of ninja I wanna be. I wanna be a ninja that helps people and protects those around me. I want to protect the village too as it's my home and I love it here."

When Hiruzen heard this he was taken aback for a second then smiled and said "I'm impressed with your attitude and will be expecting big things from you in the future. Now that I got what I came for I'll take my leave."

After sending him on his way Riku talked to his aunt about his day training when Riku's stomach growled.

"I guess we should go get some food, where do you want to go as a reward for your hard work?" Asked aunt Hina

"Let's go get some ramen at Ichiraku's.".

**********Time Skip(6 months)**********

In the past six months, a lot has happened. Riku's chakra control has reached a bottleneck and won't improve to water walking anymore even if Riku disturbs the water. Not only that Riku's chakra has improved to a chunin amount. He also learned 14 C-tier Jutsu in the lightning, wind, and fire release categories that he got from the school library. As those are the 3 chakra properties that he was born with. Along with those he created one A-tier Jutsu called Rasengan. As Minato hasn't made it yet, Riku decided to speed up the creation of it.

His taijutsu and physique have dramatically improved to elite genin status and he wanted to begin the practice of the 8 Gates soon. As for his hand sign printing speed, he can do 3 signs a second which is more than enough for none. As for school, he has stayed number 1 in the class every month so far and Kakashi has stayed in 2nd place.

Some big news happened too, Konoha's White Fang failed a mission in his attempt to save his comrades. Now the whole village hates him, and Riku knows that his suicide isn't far away. Riku doesn't plan on letting that happen, so he was going to go to Kakashi's house right now to try to help Sakumo deal with things.

Though Riku doesn't know how he's gonna do that as he is still only a 5 year old and people don't take him seriously. When he got to Kakashi's house he saw Kakashi practicing outside with Sakumo instructing him. Riku walked up to them and started a conversation with them.

"Hey Kakashi, Is this your dad? Hello, I'm Riku Tanaka a classmate of Kakashi" he directed towards Kakashi and then towards Sakumo.

"Oh hey Riku, yes this is my father"

"Hey there kid, Kakashi has told me a lot about you!" Sakumo said.

"Riku why are you here? Do you need something from me?" Kakashi lazily asked.

"I'm actually here to talk to your dad Kakashi!"

"My dad! Ok, I'll be over here practicing my Jutsu.".

Kakashi seemed to be relieved that he didn't have to deal with people.

"What did you need Riku?" Sakumo asked.

"I don't need anything, I was just walking around town and heard some gossip from the villagers saying that you failed the village and I want you to know that you didn't fail and if anything you succeed as a ninja. I live by a saying and that saying is "Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum" I just wanted to let you know that you did the right thing and shouldn't feel bad. Plus everyone will eventually just forget that it happened after a few successful missions anyway.".

"I.....I see, thank you Riku."

"Don't worry about it," Riku replied.

When Riku was about to leave Sakumo said

"If you ever want to come over and practice ninjutsu with me and Kakashi you can.".

Riku's eyes lit up when he heard this. This is equal to having a personal tutor for ninjutsu which is exactly what he needs right now.

"I would love to, Sakumo-sensei," Riku replied happily.