Ch 3

(Three months later)

It was lunch time over at Konohagakure's shinobi academy and, as it was to be expected, it was a very active period for both the students and the teachers. In the foundations and junior primary areas of the playground, sandpit and pitch, the children could all be seen running around and having a good time, with each group enjoying a certain activity. So far there hadn't been any incidents or issues for the shinobi on duty to report and, as the hour ticked by, things were pretty peaceful.

However, across the field and behind the tree line, out of sight of the teachers and children, there sat a wide open grove with a bunch of tri-level, climbing and monkey bars set up in random spots across the clearing. This particular area was often used by the upper-primary and middle school physical education classes, where students were taken to practice their climbing and swinging skills in leading up to the more advanced levels of the shinobi curriculum.

During recess and lunch periods this area often remained empty. But today, as it had been for the last three months, it was currently being occupied by only one person.

This person happened to be the blond haired newcomer of the academy, Naruto Uzumaki, who was currently using the area for his own purposes.

Propped up the middle of the tri-level bars in a handstand position, his legs and body pointed straight up towards the sky, the youngster in the white shirt and green shorts was slowly pushing himself up and down at an agonizingly slow pace. At the same time sweat trickled down his face and his muscles trembled, all the while the child counted his reps through a low and hoarse voice, which clearly illustrated the amount of effort he was using.

"Eight-hundred and eighty-eight… eight-hundred and eighty-nine… eight-hundred and ninety…" Naruto hissed as he diligently powered through his workout, even though his body was telling him to quit. "Eight-hundred and… uhh…" Briefly forgetting the number he was supposed to say and stopping half-way through his rep, the adolescent quickly thought back through his basic counting skills, before breaking out a smirk and pushing on, "Ninety-one… eight-hundred and ninety-two…"

Despite being in such a precarious and potentially dangerous position, the adolescent wasn't terrified or shaken in the least. In fact, he was greatly enjoying the exercise he was doing. This gave indication to the fact that Naruto had been practicing this technique a lot in the last several weeks, to the point where he was now able to perform it repeatedly without fault or fail. This much was obvious from the number he'd already counted to.

Eventually, after reaching a thousand, the child then performed a gymnastic spin around the bar and hopped off, landing on the dirt gracefully. He then picked up his water bottle, took a swig, and moved over to the monkey bars to begin doing some chin-up exercises. When he was about to start said routine at end of the equipment, the bell to the end of lunch sounded, signalling for all the children to return to class.

Naruto ignored it however and, focusing on the bars in front of him, jumped up and took a hold of the first one. "They won't care if I'm there or not," the boy thought, knowing how his foundation teacher often forgot he was even there. So, deciding to give today's class a miss again, the child instead continued his workout, doing about fifty slow reps on the first bar before jumping to the another two-over, and repeating.

For the blond, he had better things to do than attend classes to learn about 'friendship', 'the days of the week' and 'finger painting'. He could do all that in his sleep.

Right now he had other more important things to do, like getting his body strong and flexible enough for the next level of training. Being so driven to pursue his dream was more than enough to push Naruto to improve and refine his skills, so that he could surpass his classmates as well as everybody else who was older and stronger than him.

You couldn't deny that the results of this kind of fortitude were definitely starting to show…

XXX

Though Naruto was trying his very best to keep his new training routine hidden from everybody in his class and at the orphanage, there were some days where he just couldn't help but exercise in full view of the villagers. For the people living in the neighbourhood near his orphanage, it soon became a common occurrence to see the youngster running down the road repeatedly over the course of an entire morning, doing parkour at the local reserve, or lugging a massive boulder about a few hundred kilograms up a hill over and over.

It was these types of cardio and strength-based workouts that were a little more difficult for the youngster to conceal from the rest of the village. However, for all the other exercises revolving around gymnastics, static strength-building, taijutsu and such, he could easily practice them out of sight of the public.

In the weeks to follow since the start of his intense, militarized training program, Naruto had also taken on board shurikenjutsu and implemented the study and practice into his daily routine. For the children coming from big wig clans and families within the village, acquiring the tools to conduct this branch of shinobi training was easy and didn't result in any issues.

Naruto however, being an orphan of only five years of age with no family or clan of his own, struggled to get his hands on any weapons he needed to practice with. Not only were the teachers reluctant to lend a bunch of dangerous ninja tools to a minor, they were also hesitant about loaning them out to someone with such a bad reputation. This was something that really annoyed the blond, but also encouraged him to think outside the box and discover different ways and means to practice.

As it turns out, the driven and sharp-minded youngster was able to come up with an appropriate resource in the form of rocks and pebbles. Able to function as incredibly versatile projectiles, as well as giving him a variety of odd and complex shapes to work with, Naruto was able to use the very environment itself to load himself up on tools from which he was able to train with.

Every time he wanted to practice his throwing, Naruto would find himself a quiet alleyway or a spot out in the park away from the village, and do some target practice by hocking rocks at various angles towards a number of strategically placed objects. These took the form of cans, discarded boxes with painted circles on them, pieces of tinfoil, and strings.

Whenever he wasn't doing strength exercises or taijutsu lessons, the determined orphan would work on his throwing arm. At first his technique started out stiff, clumsy, and his aim was all over the place. But in studying some of the books he was able to come across at the academy's resource centre, he was able to modify and correct the aim, distance, and trajectory of his throws.

Soon he was knocking over cans from an average distance of eighty to a hundred yards- a feat which was quite impressive for a junior primary student with a handful of pebbles.

However, it wasn't just distance and accuracy along a straight line Naruto was working on either.

On this particular day, the child had opted for a different kind of practice. Standing in the middle of a dingy alleyway surrounded by trash cans with random targets set up around him, the boy was not only working on trying to throw multiple rocks at the same time, but was also attempting to alter their trajectories by ricocheting them and bouncing off of stationary targets to hit another. This would then hopefully lead to him being able to bounce rocks off of airborne rocks.

Sure, it sounded simple in theory, but in reality it was ludicrously complicated.

Panting heavily as he stood in the middle of the walkway, covered in dirt and bruises, with a cut over his temple, Naruto then crossed his arm over and chucked the handful of pebbles he had in his hand outwards. The three rocks flew out, spinning on their respective axis to pelt three different targets down the alley. Spinning around, the blond grunted and chucked another pebble upwards, bouncing it off of trash can lid and up towards can, which he managed to knock over with a loud clatter.

Gritting his teeth, the child then reached into his shorts pocket and drew another two rocks, which he clenched between his fingers.

"Not enough," the boy breathed out, glancing over his shoulder towards another two targets spaced out in the narrow space. "Not good enough." With a yell, he turned and threw the rocks, watching them separate and strike their targets with two loud 'clap' sounds echoing down the walkway.

And so he kept on going, stopping every once in a while to reload…