The difference she made

It has been three days since Naruto woke up in the hospital and to say he was happy would be an understatement. Seikou had visited him everyday and told him all about what she did earlier, before conversing on their pasts, occasionally mentioning something they liked or disliked, you know just getting to know each other better. She even brought him some Ichiraku’s ramen one day, that instantly improved her ranking in his book.
Seikou was happy too, she found it easy to talk to him about, well, anything. He would always listen even if he was busy stuffing his face with food and would always say something nice or funny that would bring a smile to her face. She also learned a lot about him after visiting a small ramen stand named Ichiraku’s. It appeared that he was their best customer and worshipped their cooking like a deity, which was one of the reasons she decided to buy him some one day.
Well this morning Keigo was giving Naruto his final check-up to make sure that he was fit enough to be released. “Well Naruto-kun, it seems that you’re back in perfect health so you should be able to leave today.”
“Yatta! That means I can finally start training with Seikou-chan,” the overjoyed blonde practically screamed in joy.
“Calm down Naruto-kun, I’ve still got to fill out the release forms yet,” Keigo told him with a small smile.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but I can finally meet Seikou-chan outside of here, plus she said she would help with the stuff in the academy,” the blonde said enthusiasticly.
“I can understand that, but please, don’t push yourself too hard yet, we don’t want you coming back if possible, not that we don’t appreciate your company, but you know, we don’t want you to be cooped up in a hospital all the time now do we,” the older of the two told Naruto.
“You just don’t want me back so you don’t have to listen to me complain about the lack of ramen here,” the younger mumbled with his arms crossed.
“Alright then, if you would just follow me to the main reception, we can finally get you released from here,” Keigo claimed happily.
“Then let’s go already!” the academy student shouted out after hearing that statement.
-
Naruto had just been released from the hospital and was now standing around the entrance wondering what to do, since he and Seikou had forgotten to arrange a meeting place for when Naruto wasn’t in the hospital. He was currently garbed in his usual attire of brown pants, a white t-shirt with the Uzumaki spiral on it, and basic shinobi sandals.
“Hey Naruto-kun!” he heard from down the street, turning towards the direction of the call he was happy to see possibly his only friend walking towards him.
“Hey Seikou-chan!” he called back.
“How are you today?” she asked him kindly.
“I’m great but what are you doing here Seikou-chan? I mean, don’t you have team practice or a mission today?”
“Nope, Genma-sensei has decided that we’ll get every Saturday off,” she claimed happily.
“That’s awesome, I guess your sensei is a pretty cool guy huh! Anyway what do ya wanna do first Seikou-chan?”
“I was thinking that we should get something to eat before practicing our taijutsu, are you alright with that?” she responded calmly.
“Heh he, I’m not really all that good at taijutsu,” came his nervous reply.
“Of course you’re not, how can you be expected to be good at something when you aren’t taught it properly,” was Seikou’s simple response.
“Alright then, so something to eat, then taijutsu training!” he shouted out.
“Okay there’s this nice little place just round the corner from here, I say we should get something there,” she stated.
“Does it sell ramen?”
“No, and by the way, you do realise that you’ll never be strong if you eat nothing but ramen, right?” she asked him.
“What! But ramen’s the best!” he screamed at her like she was some kind of blasphemer.
“Fine then, think about it this way, if you eat other things and have ramen every now and then instead of all the time, you will appreciate it even more, so just imagine how good it would taste then,” she said trying to get him to eat a more balanced diet.
“But,” he started only to get cut off.
“But nothing, as your friend it is my duty to make sure you eat properly, don’t get me wrong, you can still eat ramen everyday if you want, just make sure you eat other stuff as well, okay,” she told him.
“(sigh) alright then, to the little place it is then,” Naruto said sounding defeated before they went to the place.
-
“Damn that was good, nowhere near as good as ramen, but still pretty damn good,” stated the filled blonde boy currently standing in the middle of the street just outside the small café.
“See I told you it wouldn’t be that bad now didn’t I,” Seikou stated with a grin.
“Yeah, yeah, you were right, I was wrong, there happy now?” he asked her.
“Yep! So first things first I think we need to get you some new clothes, come on my parents own a small clothes shop downtown,” Seikou told him before dragging him towards her parents store.
-
“Tou-san I’ve brought you a new customer!” she shouted as she dragged the young blonde through the entrance to the store.
“Is it your new friend from the hospital?” asked a rather well built man behind the counter, he was about 6” 10’ and had broad shoulders. His hair was a dark brown and his eyes were a dark blue.
“Yep, this is Naruto, Naruto this is my tou-san,” Seikou introduced them with a smile.
“Heh, I was wondering when he would finally come here,” her father said with a small smile.
“What do you mean sir?” Naruto asked him curiously and also a little concerned considering what usually happens to him in stores.
“During the merchant meetings, the number who boasted about chasing you out or overcharging you was ridiculous, the worst part is, they never explain why they do that,” the older man said clearly annoyed.
“Does that mean you’ll be fair to me?” the young blonde asked hopefully.
“No, I won’t be fair to you, you’re my daughters first friend in konoha and from what I can tell, this is the only place you can actually shop in, so I’m going to give you a discount here,” Seikou’s dad told him, “and to top things off, I’ll even give you any shinobi supplies you need.”
“Huh? I thought this was a clothes store, why would you have shinobi supplies?” asked a thoroughly confused child.
“It is just a clothes store, but our family was considered some of the best blacksmiths in Kiri, but we decided to move here seven years ago because of the kekkei genkai purges,” explained the owner of the store.
“Wow! You must be really good! Oh yeah, did you leave because you have a kekkei genkai?” Naruto asked the older man.
“No, we left because we didn’t agree with killing people just because of something they were born with, it’s just wrong. Anyway, enough chit-chat let’s get you some proper clothes!” the older man shouted enthusiastically.
-
Naruto and Seikou had just arrived at a training ground on the outskirts of konoha. Naruto now wore a pair of black cargo pants, black shinobi sandals, black fingerless gloves with metal plates on the back and a crimson short sleeved shirt.
“I have to admit, your new clothes look good on you,” Seikou claimed with a grin.
“I just hope your dad can get my custom order done soon,” Naruto said unhappily.
“What I want to know is WHY you are so obsessed with having spirals on your clothes,” she said clearly annoyed at the fact that he didn’t like his clothes, purely because they didn’t have spirals on them.
“Because spirals are awesome!” he shouted out like he was talking about ramen.
“(sigh) Whatever. Anyway, are you ready to start practicing taijutsu?” she asked him seriously.
“Of course I am!” he shouted.
“Alright then, let’s start then,” she said while assuming a basic stance.
“Here I come!” he screamed as he started charging forward with no style whatsoever.
“STOP!”
“Huh? What’s wrong Seikou-chan?” he asked her.
“When you start a fight, you aren’t supposed to charge straight at your opponent, you’re supposed to get in a stance first, plus the way you’re running is completely wrong for a ninja,” she told him.
“Sorry Seikou-chan,” he said with his head hung low.
“It’s okay, everyone makes mistakes, you just have to remember what you did wrong so you don’t do it again,” she told him kindly, “now let’s start you off with the basic defensive stance,” she said as she spread her legs apart with one in front of the other, with one of her hands held at chest level while the one closer to Naruto was held slightly lower.
He quickly looked over her form before assuming a decent imitation of the stance “How’s this?” he asked her wondering how his first attempt at the stance was.
“It’s okay, your legs could do with being a little further apart and your arms could be a little closer to your body, but it’s passable,” she told him happily as he adjusted his stance based on what she told him. “Alright then, lets teach you the defensive katas!” she shouted enthusiastically.
-
Naruto was laying in his bed. Seikou had finished getting the defensive katas drilled into his head a couple of hours ago, after which they went and got some Ichiraku’s ramen, with a bit of teasing from Teuchi and Ayame while they were there. They were both surprised that it had only taken 6hours for Naruto to memorize ALL of the defensive katas, now all he needed to do was practice them until they became second nature to him.
He soon drifted off to sleep with only one thing on his mind, “I swear I’ll make Seikou-chan proud of me.”
-
The next morning Naruto woke up earlier than usual and after having a shower and getting dressed, he decided to follow Seikou’s advice, “I guess I’ll just have some bacon and eggs for breakfast huh?”
Yes, Seikou had actually succeeded where no one else could, she managed to get him to consider eating something that wasn’t ramen.
After a quick breakfast, Naruto made his way to the unoccupied training ground they had used the day before where he proceeded to practice the katas he was taught so that he would build some muscle memory, as Seikou called it.
-
Seikou’s day was going well too. When she got to team practice, Genma-sensei had informed the team that Sunday would be dedicated to training, in other words, no missions on a Sunday. He then proceeded to teach them about how to climb trees using their chakra and they had been practicing the exercise all morning, with Seikou making it higher than both her teammates, though she was still only a quarter of the way up the tree.
“Alright that’s enough for today, you have the rest of the day off to do what you want, I’ll see you tomorrow at eight,” Genma shouted to the three genin under his wing.
“Hai Genma-sensei!” came the chorus of cries from the young teens before they each headed their separate ways.
-
Seikou had just arrived at the training ground she had used to train Naruto, when she saw him laying flat on the ground, probably asleep.
“Lazy git,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Hey! This is my first break all day!” was the response she wasn’t expecting.
“Your first break all day, and how long have you been here?” she asked.
“Since nine o’clock.”
“And how long have you been resting?” at this Naruto looked at his watch.
“3 minutes.”
“Let me get this straight, you are what nine years old,” he nods, “and you have just been training for EIGHT HOURS STRAIGHT!!!” she shouted at him.
“Hehe, come on I’ve always had lots of stamina,” he said with a foxy grin.
“Fine then, I’ll let you rest, then we can see how good you are before deciding what to do next,” she said before sitting down next to him.
“Hey Seikou-chan, did you learn anything cool today?”
“We started learning how to climb trees without using our hands,” she told him with a small grin formed on her face.
“Really, that must be handy,” was his comment on the technique.
“Meh it’s actually meant to help improve our chakra control,” she explained to him.
“Oh that’s pretty awesome.”
“Really?” she asked questioningly.
“Yeah, controls really important in everything else so why should it be any different with chakra,” he reasoned for her.
“Damn, I never thought of it that way, guess I’m not as smart as I thought I was huh?” she said with a small laugh in her voice.
“Anyway, I think I’m ready to start training now,” Naruto suddenly said.
“What? You’ve only been resting for what? Between five and ten minutes after eight hours of training and you think you can carry on?” she asked him disbelievingly.
“Like I said before, I’ve got LOTS and I mean LOTS of stamina.”
“Alright then, let’s see how your progressing,” she said uneasily as Naruto stood up and got into the basic defensive stance, “Okay so you’ve got the stance down, now I think I’ll come at you so we can test your skill at actually defending okay, go!” and with that she charged forward.
She threw blow after blow at him, ranging from punches and kicks, to grapples and tackles, she was amazed by the fact that he was capable of either blocking or dodging everything she threw at him, even if the look on his face told her he was having to think about every move he made indicating it wasn’t muscle memory moving him, though that only made her even more amazed.
“I can’t believe it, he’s actually thinking about his moves fast enough to make the right one at the right time, when he gets his muscle memory up to par, just how fast will he respond?” where her thoughts concerning the young blondes performance. Of course she could see the strain it was putting on him from his facial expressions.
-
The two were currently getting something to eat at the Ichiraku ramen stand after deciding to end their session for the day.
“You did really good today, I still can’t believe you managed to defend yourself like that. I think that I’ll teach you the offensive katas tomorrow after I’ve finished with my team. By the way, the academy’s out for the summer holiday’s isn’t it?” Seikou asked him.
“Yeah I’m free for the next three months, pretty cool huh!” Naruto shouted back with great enthusiasm.
“Yeah it is, anyway, after you’ve learned all the offensive katas for the academy style, I think we’ll just keep sparring until you’ve got your muscle memory built up, okay?” she told him.
“Alright! Thanks Seikou-chan!” was his happy response.
“Oh yeah, before I forget, uh, do you think you could teach me how to read people like you can?” she asked him nervously.
“I can try, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to learn how to,” he told her.
“Huh? What do ya mean?”
“Well, I’ve seen people who’ve been taught how to read people by the best, but they’ve been unable to realise that an academy student has been bullshitting them,” was his response.
“Uh Naruto-kun, where did you learn language like that?” she asked him slightly shocked that a nine year old had just sworn in a proper sentence, she had seen children swear before but she could always tell they had no idea what it actually meant, whereas she could tell that the blonde boy sitting next to her DID know what it meant.
“I’m an orphan, I’ve lived on the streets for a couple of years, I’ve been beaten by the odd mob every now and then, I had to learn how to speak on my own and that was through experience, with the lifestyle I’ve had, what most people learn later in life, I learned early on,” he explained to her.
“I see.”
“Well then I guess I’ll see ya tomorrow then Seikou-chan,” he said as he paid for their food and got up to leave.
“Y-yeah I’ll see ya tomorrow, bye,” was her response as she got up to leave as well.
-(6 weeks later)
Naruto’s skill in taijutsu has skyrocketed in the past 6 weeks, he learned the offensive katas just as quickly as the defensive and then of course the fact that he kept practicing them when Seikou wasn’t around helped improve his muscle memory, while the spars they had helped even more. So right now, he was actually capable of matching her, and even managed to beat her a couple of times, in taijutsu, so when she said she would start helping him with his ninjutsu, well you can imagine his response.
Seikou was doing just as well, with Genma as a sensei, she had been taught about chakra affinity and was even tested to see what type of jutsu she would be able to use, which turned out to be one typical of her homeland, suiton. She was still working on learning how to use suiton type chakra, but considering it can take anywhere up to 20years to learn an affinity, she was doing pretty good.
She was also showing slow but steady progress with her training under Naruto, as she was capable of telling when most genin and lower were lying, though there were some she couldn’t read, and any chunin or jonin was beyond her ability.
Right now they were standing in their usual training ground and Naruto was quite happy that he would finally get help with his ninjutsu, which was severely lacking.
“Alright Naruto-kun I want you to show me the three basic academy jutsu.”
“Alright then,” and with that he gathered his chakra, which was so great it was actually visible to Seikou, and then performed a flawed kawarimi, a disastrous henge and a dead bunshin no jutsu.
“Okay so you screw up ALL the academy basic jutsu by overloading them on chakra,” she decided to inform him.
“Wait! What do you mean overload them on chakra?” he asked generally surprised at her evaluation.
“Well let’s see, you are gathering so much chakra that it is visible, that should NOT happen with the academy basics, they need really small amounts of chakra to use,” she explained.
“Dammit, none of the instructors told me what I was doing wrong, so I just assumed I wasn’t using enough chakra, cause that’s what they told everyone else,” he told her.
“Well just try putting a small amount of chakra into the jutsu and we’ll see how you do then,” and with that said Naruto gave a small nod before using as little chakra as he could, which resulted in a successful kawarimi, a perfect henge and a dead bunshin.
“Okay so you’ve just got the bunshin to get down now, try using less chakra this time,” she said.
“Eh heh heh, I sorta was using a the smallest amount of chakra I could for them,” he decided to inform her nervously.
“That was the least you could use?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then I guess we’ll just have to teach you how to do the tree climbing exercise then,” she told him, “you see that tree over there,” she said pointing towards a tree, “channel your chakra to your feet in order to stick to it, if you use to little you’ll fall, if you use to much you’ll be blasted of the tree, do you understand what you’re doing?”
“Stick to the tree using the right amount of chakra, got it,” he said before launching himself into the exercise.
-
Naruto and Seikou had just had dinner at a local dango stand and right now he was walking home, when he noticed a figure sitting on the end of a pier overlooking the river running through the village. The figure had black hair styled like a chickens ass and he wore white shorts with a blue t-shirt. So Naruto decided to say hi.
“Hey there, whatcha doing?” he asked in a friendly tone.
“What does it matter to you?” the figure asked rudely.
“Not much, just trying to start a conversation that’s all.”
“Then leave me alone,” were the figure’s next words.
Naruto was about to leave when he noticed a symbol on the boy’s t-shirt, if he remembered correctly it was the symbol of the Uchiha clan that was all but wiped out a couple of years ago, “so you’re the survivor of the Uchiha massacre huh,” he decided to state.
“What does it matter to you!” the ‘last’ Uchiha snapped back.
“I was just wondering why you seem so hostile to me,” Naruto answered back.
“Why, WHY, MY ENTIRE CLAN WAS MURDERED INFRONT OF ME BY MY OWN BROTHER!!!” he shouted out.
“So why are you so hostile towards me?” the blonde asked.
“Because my brother told me the secret to his power, hate, bonds only make you weaker,” was the dark reply from the raven haired boy.
“Why?” Naruto asked.
“Huh? What do you mean why!” shouted the dark haired boy.
“Why did your brother tell you the secret of his power?” Naruto explained to him.
“He… He… I don’t know,” the Uchiha said losing all his conviction.
“Personally if I was some deranged psychopath who slaughtered his family but decided to spare his little brother, then I would probably try to keep him weak so I could get the satisfaction of being able to beat him down and keep calling him weak while he desperately struggles to catch up with me,” Naruto said drawing a blank stare from the boy next to him.
“…”
“…”
“I’m a total idiot aren’t I?” the boy finally said after several minutes of silence.
“Not really, the dude traumatized you so you wouldn’t think straight, that doesn’t mean you’re an idiot,” the blonde informed him, “anyway, names Uzumaki Naruto, nice ta meetcha.”
“Uchiha Sasuke, thanks for making me think straight,” the dark haired boy said.
“No problem, anyway, do you want to come train with me and my friend tomorrow?” Naruto asked Sasuke.
“Heh, yeah why not, I think I’ve kept people out long enough,” Sasuke stated with a small smile.
“Well then, see you here tomorrow at let’s say Nine O’clock,” Naruto said as he got up to go home.
“Alright then see ya at nine,” and with that the two left to go to their respective homes.