OOO
About half an hour out from the school, a new type of game was being played out on the busy streets of Konoha, and this time it didn't involve any large number of kids running around with a ball being kicked between them or anything like that. This was purely a test of patience and soon to be physical endurance for a single individual. Naruto had set this particular one up after finding quite a bit of value in knowing exactly how to duck and weave through a series of obstacles when you needed to escape from a band of persistent pursuers.
Come on. One didn't get as good at pulling practical jokes on people as he did without taking in a boat load of other skills to go along with his ability to make paper bombs from scratch and traps out of a few bits of thread and a log. Out of every student in the academy, Naruto was probably the best at setting up traps, and was the fittest and fastest in terms of long-distance sprinting, obstacle runs, and any kind of activity that required the participants to be able enough to pull through the miles. Even when lessons up at the school encouraging these activities were stopped due to time running out on them the blonde was never tired at the end of any of those sessions.
He simply plowed through the physical tests with ease. It was probably his main saving grace in the academy when it came to a usable set of skills for a shinobi… something which he went out of his way to purposely screw around with to mess with Iruka…
But enough with the old war stories; the jinchuriki had even more interesting things to focus on.
The program Naruto was currently investing his time in was one of the reasons why he was as good as he was when it came to pulling his own weight.
Crouching low in amongst the thick brush of an oak standing high above a cluster of apartment buildings, the blonde had his sharp eyes trained on a couple of birds perched on tall picket fence standing on the other end of a nearby garden. The two fast fliers grooming each others' feathers had no idea that something was watching them from the shadows and this time, out of the dozens of animals that could possibly be hunting them, it wasn't a cat. They didn't need to fear cats. They could sense them coming from a mile off.
This one was in a completely different league and class.
Making sure he sat downwind from them as per what he had learned from this routine, Naruto readied himself by grinding his feet into the branch he was on to test the foundations of his placement. It was solid and fixed. The movements of his hands, shoulders and legs were quieter than a leopard's as he crept along at an agonizingly slow pace, making sure to position his form well within striking distance.
Ten feet.
Beautiful.
The blonde grinned and licked his lips, his right hand flexing, "Oh, I've got you this time Swift-chan!"
Without a moment's warning, he pounced, exploding from the tree in a shower of leaves. The birds shrieked loudly as they took off, chirping madly with every flap of their wings. The blonde attacker landed perfectly upon the fence the animals had previously been perched on before giving chase to one…
A fork-tailed swallow with red feathers on its back shaped like a kunai.
The bird dove low for the buildings and weaved around them as well as other obstacles lying in its path including bushes, power-lines, poles, signs and lights at an incredible speed. It was so fast in fact that it immediately held confidence that it would be able to lose its attacker… completely misplacing the fact that when Naruto set out to do something, he would see it through to the end.
A shadow darting from the right across a line of rooftops told the swallow that it was being followed and it quickly made a sharp, ninety degree turn to avoid the blonde boy diving at it from above again, hand outstretched and aiming to catch it. The Uzumaki laughed out when he landed on a length of gutters lining another roof and began sliding along them like he was on a skateboard skidding down poles.
"You're not getting away from me this time!" Naruto shouted, reaching the end and flying off of the pipe right at the bird, which darted out of his reach again and into the trees. "COME BACK HERE!" He dove after it.
Completely ignoring the results of the commotion he was probably causing, Naruto pursued the bird through the trees relentlessly. He saw its red dot of a back dodge and weave gracefully through the smallest of gaps in the trees' branches it was flying through and, being the persistent son of a bitch that he was, he spared no effort in going after it. Amazingly enough, for the majority of his pursuit, he was following the exact same path the bird was without even snapping a twig.
This showed just how nimble as a human being he actually was.
Bursting out of the treetops right on the bird's forked tail, Naruto's hands grabbed at the air ferociously trying to catch the damn swift as it flew circles around him just within reach, avoiding the lashing claws of his determination. It was like the boy was attacking the air itself, his body twisting, contorting, warping and spinning as he tried to nab the critter, but all in vein. He growled out when he tried slapping it between his hands, only to catch nothing.
"Shit! Damn it! Gah… STOP FLYING AROUND ME!" Naruto shouted, completely ignoring the fact that he was now following the path of a full twenty story drop. It was when the bird finally shot off in some random direction when he finally noticed his main problem. "Oh SHIT!"
Eyes trained towards the ground, the blonde gritted his teeth and took action. He began a corkscrew spin, turning his body horizontal to the floor and slowing his drop. Once satisfied at the rate of his fall, he then threw all his limbs out in a sprawl, his right arm cocking out further to reveal a brace around his wrist. He flicked his hand once and produced a hook wrapped in rubber, which he snagged onto a power line.
Spinning around, he kicked off a nearby wall and shot down the cable, continuing pursuit of his quarry. "I'm not done yet!"
Able to keep tabs on the bird's movements, he made it to the end of the line and flung himself off, retracting the hook from his grip and barrel rolling onto a roof to absorb the impact. He jumped back into the hunt, chasing the bird now zigzagging its way in between the buildings once more.
Why this creature just didn't take off into the skies to completely outrun the blonde was beyond comprehension. Perhaps it took too much time to gain altitude to avoid a persistent foe, that it wasted energy, or that its favored method of losing air-capable predators was by sticking as close to the ground as possible and take the risk of ducking in and around the tightest of turns. Its aerial acrobatics and stunts were really impressive, especially as it was able to perform them while being struck at by Naruto's claw-like hands.
In any case, their cat and mouse game was undoubtedly intense as hell and soon enough, Naruto was back on its tail.
The pair danced across the air above Konohagakure for the next fifteen minutes, dodging traffic, avoiding clothes-lines, despite Naruto hilariously crashing into one and draping himself in all sorts of horrendous garments, scaring house pets and startling a lot of civilians.
Eventually, all the maneuvers and zipping around corners surprisingly began to wear on the usually more energetic swallow, which slowed down just enough to catch its breath before deciding it had had enough.