Chapter 8

“Remind me again why we’re wasting our time like this?” Naruto found himself agreeing with Uchiha Sasuke again – something which was fast becoming a dangerous trend. Painting some rich merchant’s house did not exactly seem like an especially useful expenditure of their time, especially considering the reason why Naruto needed to become stronger. Contrary …

Chapter 7

“He’s late.” Sakura sounded disbelieving, though perhaps not quite as disbelieving as she had been yesterday, or the day before that. The three of them had been waiting on one of the simple wooden bridges spanning the river running through Konoha since six in the morning, having had to crawl from their beds only half-conscious …

Chapter 6

Naruto waited until well after he heard the door of the apartment close and Jiraiya’s footsteps died away, before sneaking out of his bed. He traversed the hall and stairs on tip-toes, still wearing his blue nightwear, and made his way to Jiraiya’s bedroom, softly locking the door behind him. It was as big a …

Chapter 5

“As of today, you are all ninja. To get here you faced many trials and hardships, but what comes next will be far more difficult…” The chūnin delivering the standard-issue academy graduation speech was not anyone Naruto knew, nor cared to know. The last he heard, Iruka-sensei was in the hospital undergoing extensive surgery, and …

Chapter 4

It was the final week before the academy exams, and Naruto still could not study. He had been staring at the same page from the same book for the last three hours, and tried to read the same basic sentence a hundred times, but the words just danced in front of his eyes, eluding any …