Another year gone, and Naruto and I have been refining our skills daily.
Both of us were now six years old, and we could even keep up with most of the seven-year-olds who were getting trained at the Academy. We were progressing in leaps now, since we decided to practice more toward certain specialties.
Naruto, obviously, chose to focus on his taijutsu and ninjutsu skills. While he wasn't too great at ninjutsu, still, he was definitely leagues above where he was when we started. Now he could properly form a clone! Granted... The clone was basically a static image. If he tried to will it to move, it would burst into a cloud of smoke. Neither of us really get why he can't do the basic jutsu too well. Maybe his chakra is just too violent? That was a problem he never really got under control. We didn't have a way of fixing it, so we decided to just... go around it. Basically ignore it, and focus on what he CAN do.
As for myself, well... Genjutsu was an obvious choice for my specialty. I even spent a few months and came up with my own unique jutsu! I call them Sweet Dreams and Night Terror. The first one pulls you into an idyllic world, where you don't have to worry about anything, and you can just... rest. That one, I didn't make for combat. I actually made it as a gift to Naruto. He has his own bad days... I kinda just wanted to help him cheer up. As for Night Terror, though, I made it with the intent of being used in a fight. It shows the person a manifestation of their deepest fear. Basically, I made it to stun people mid-fight, buy myself an opening. Unfortunately, the range is pretty low, so I need to be precise in my timing.
Oh, and Naruto made a jutsu of his own. Its a variation on the Disguise Jutsu, and honestly speaking, it was very creative. But... Yeah, there's no way I'm ever letting him use it in public. He did it once, to sneak into the girls' bathroom. Naive curiosity, I guess.
The beating he got that day... Yeah, I'm gonna make sure I never get a beating like that, not even just from association.
Well, aside from jutsu, Naruto started to get really good with his taijutsu. At this point, I don't think I could fight him without using my other abilities. Though, my chakra threads definitely evened the field between us. I had figured out some months back, that if I attached the threads to Naruto during a hit, I'd be able to send interference into his limb. Basically, I could stun him, and open him up for a counter. It was shockingly effective. I was only able to refine it when I referred to my Grey Secret Technique, and adjusted some information it gave me. But now that I have... It is really effective.
So I had built my repertoire around controlling the fight if I can, and Naruto was training a very straightforward, brute force style. We came to a sort of symbiosis; my tricks pushed Naruto to grow faster, get stronger, while his raw talent and strength forced me to refine my tricks and deceit as far as I could.
It was a brutal, efficient way to train. We pushed each other against the ropes, and helped each other push past them. There were a few times that we noticed older shinobi watching, and they gave us pointers, or just stood and watched. It was kinda strange, getting attention that wasn't wholly negative...
Unbeknownst to us, their current presence was actually at the behest of the Third Hokage, who has been monitoring the two of us for quite some time. Even now, he had eyes on us using the Telescope Technique. He found our training to be interesting, if a bit amateur. So he sent a few chunin to monitor, and occasionally assist us. It meant we got to actually refine our abilities more effectively, so as we wouldn't simply develop techniques to only counter the other.
There were a few days, even, where we teamed up to spar against a chunin. It did not go well. Nothing against him, but Naruto cannot follow orders. He just can't. So our abilities started conflicting instead of syncing up, and we were taken apart by the chunin.
More recently, though, Naruto and I were starting to adapt to cooperation. Well, mostly me just figuring out how to work around Naruto's style. There were a few times when we even managed to hit the chunin. Nothing critical, and nothing that would change a fight, but we take what we can get.
...
A few weeks more passed, and on one of the few times I was training alone, a stranger arrived.
He was young, but definitely a few years older than myself. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin. He wore clothes that were dark blue, and on his back was an emblem for one of the clans. If I'm not wrong...
"Uchiha."
The boy smiled when he heard me, and I quickly became nervous. The Uchiha clan has been getting rather... disliked, to put it gently. Not nearly as much as Naruto gets it, so I refuse to sympathize. But as I watched the boy, he simply approached me. In an instant, the world seemed to distort. The grass seemed to extend, the trees fell away, and darkness filled my eyes. And yet... I felt calm.
"Yuuto Amakuri, it is a pleasure to meet you."
I looked into his eyes, as he now stood in front of me. Blood red. His eyes were blood red, with three black tomoe circling the pupil. I'd never seen anything like it...
"You are... quite talented, Yuuto. You and Naruto train every day, far harder than any other kids your age. According to Lord Third, you even practice genjutsu on your own body. Hm..." He seemed to be reading me like an open book, his terrifying eyes never once leaving my own. "I was sent by Lord Third, with a message for you. In three days, come here alone. Do not bring Naruto with you." He said that, and I carefully nodded. The moment I did, however, I fell unconscious.
...
"Lord Third, I have delivered your message, as you asked."
Itachi Uchiha, ANBU captain, was currently kneeled down, behind the Third Hokage.
...
I woke up some time later, groggy and in my own bed. How did I..? Oh, yeah... That Uchiha guy. Why'd he have to knock me out? Haaa... Annoying.
I decided to get out of bed, only to see a bunch of plates on the floor by my door. Counting them... Shit, I've missed five meals. I slept for almost two days? Naruto has gotta be worried...
I decided to head over to his house, only to find that he was on his way over to the orphanage to find me. Unsurprisingly, we ran into each other in the streets.
"Yuuto! Where have you been?!" He rushed up to me, looking me over for a minute before grabbing my hands. He started pulling me along, toward his house. "I've been waiting for you for two days! I went to the orphanage, but they just said that you were feeling sick, and wouldn't let me in!"
"Yeah... I wasn't feeling good, so I stayed in. I asked them not to let you visit, so you didn't get sick. Sorry..." I fibbed, and felt a little guilty about it. But then I addressed him directly.
"Hey, tomorrow I'm gonna need a bit of time alone. Take a day off from training. If you do, I'll buy you something at Ichiraku's." I asked seriously, but I also threw out the bait that would stop him from being overly curious and showing up anyway. When I saw him get excited, I smiled and started to walk beside him.
The rest of the day went as expected. I practiced my doll-making, and Naruto worked on his ninjutsu training. I was slowly getting the hang of the various ways I could build them, and now I had a small doll, ready for testing.
It was small, shaped very simply, just an oversized head on a small and vaguely humanoid body. It had two arms, one leg, and three eyes. The chest of the body was hollow, fitted with a device similar to a crossbow. I experimentally threaded my chakra inside, and triggered it. The mechanism opened the chest, and threw a small metal ball across the room. So it works. Good. I inserted a second thread of chakra, and the doll started to slightly levitate, held in the air by my own chakra. I smiled, as I had it dance around the air above the desk. I sent another pulse of my will, and the mouth of the doll opened. After a second, there was a soft chime noise. Another feature working properly. Good. The last thing I checked, was the blade hidden in the foot. I willed it, and the blade extended. Another will, and it retracted.
That was when I looked up, and saw Naruto with his jaw on the floor. He had probably been watching for a while, and now...
"Yuuto! What the heck is that?!" He jumped up from his bed and crossed the room in a flash, grabbing the doll out of the air. On a reflex I didn't realize I had, I manipulated the doll and had it slap his hand away. I brought it close to myself, and the doll hugged my arm.
"It's a shinobi doll. It's used for puppet-style techniques, like my Grey Secret Technique." I took the doll from my arm, and set it on the desk as I tinkered with it some more. "It's basically an advanced version of bukijutsu." I added the finishing touches to the doll, a small cloak, covering the entire doll, except for its face.
"I'm going to call this one Little Wisp." I gave one of my rare smiles as I made the doll dance around, spinning and singing with its little chime.
Today was a good day, though I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a bad one.