The following morning, Naruto sought out the one man who seemingly knew everything.
Naruto pushed open the office door without knocking.
"Old man! I need answers!"
Hiruzen looked up from his paperwork with the exhausted expression of someone who had already dealt with far too much nonsense that morning.
Before he could answer, something whistled across the room.
THUNK!
A shuriken buried itself in the wall a few feet from Naruto's head.
Naruto blinked.
Konohamaru stood on the other side of the office with another shuriken ready. Several targets had been placed around the room, though judging by the holes in the walls, floor, bookshelf, and one unfortunate portrait, they weren't helping much.
Naruto slowly looked toward Hiruzen.
"Why is he throwing shuriken in your office?"
Hiruzen took a long drag from his pipe.
"I've been asking myself that for almost half an hour."
"Boss!"
Konohamaru ran toward Naruto.
"Help me with my shuriken!"
Naruto caught him by the forehead before he could crash into him.
"Later. I'm looking for somebody."
He turned toward Hiruzen.
"Kakashi said I'm getting some surprise teacher this month. Who is he?"
Hiruzen's eyes showed absolutely no surprise.
Naruto immediately pointed at him.
"You know!"
"I am the Hokage."
"So tell me!"
"No."
Naruto's face fell.
"WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP DOING THAT?!"
Hiruzen chuckled before glancing toward Konohamaru. Another shuriken was already turning between his grandson's fingers.
The old man's eye twitched.
"Perhaps we can make an arrangement."
Naruto instantly stopped complaining.
"What arrangement?"
Hiruzen gestured toward Konohamaru.
"Take my grandson somewhere that isn't my office and help him improve his shuriken accuracy."
Konohamaru pumped a fist.
"Yeah!"
Naruto narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"And?"
"When you return, I'll give you a clue about your instructor."
Naruto stared at him.
"A real clue?"
"A clue."
"That's not the same thing."
Hiruzen smiled.
"It is the offer."
Naruto considered arguing.
Konohamaru threw another shuriken.
THUNK!
It buried itself in the side of Hiruzen's desk.
Silence filled the room.
Hiruzen slowly looked down at it.
Naruto grabbed Konohamaru by the scarf.
"We're leaving."
"Boss!"
"NOW."
A blue window appeared as Naruto dragged him toward the door.
PING!
Minor Quest Generated!
The Professor's Professor
Help Konohamaru improve his shuriken accuracy.
Rewards:
+20 System Points
+2 Intelligence
Naruto paused.
"...Professor?"
Behind him, Hiruzen coughed.
Naruto shrugged and kept walking.
Naruto took Konohamaru to one of the Academy's outdoor training areas.
"Show me."
Konohamaru planted his feet dramatically, drew a shuriken, and hurled it with everything he had.
WHOOSH!
THUNK!
It struck the very outside edge of the target.
Konohamaru grinned.
"See?!"
Naruto frowned.
"Again."
The next one missed completely.
Naruto's frown deepened.
"Again."
By the fourth throw, he'd figured it out. Konohamaru was so focused on throwing hard that his shoulder and torso twisted every time, changing the angle of his arm before release.
"You're trying too hard."
Konohamaru scowled.
"I'm throwing hard!"
"Exactly."
Naruto took one of his shuriken.
"You don't need to murder the target."
He flicked his wrist.
THUNK!
The shuriken landed close to center.
"You need to hit it."
Konohamaru stared.
Naruto handed him another.
"Keep your shoulder straight. Don't twist your whole body every time you throw."
Konohamaru tried again.
THUNK!
Outer ring.
His eyes widened.
"I HIT IT!"
Naruto crossed his arms proudly.
"Obviously. I'm an awesome teacher."
"Again!"
For the next half hour, Naruto adjusted Konohamaru's stance, made him slow his throws down, and moved him closer whenever his accuracy started falling apart. Once Konohamaru could consistently strike from one distance, Naruto moved him farther back.
It was surprisingly familiar.
Watch what someone was doing.
Figure out what wasn't working.
Ask why.
Change something.
Naruto blinked.
"Huh."
"What?"
"Nothing. Again."
Konohamaru threw.
THUNK!
Near center.
By the end of the session, five of his last seven shuriken had struck the target.
PING!
Minor Quest Completed!
The Professor's Professor
Rewards Received:
+20 System Points
+2 Intelligence
Konohamaru jumped into the air.
"I'M AWESOME!"
Naruto pointed at himself.
"Because I'm awesome."
"Because I'm awesome!"
"I literally just taught you!"
Konohamaru grabbed his shuriken.
"Race you back!"
"HEY!"
The kid disappeared toward the Hokage Tower.
Naruto sprinted after him.
Hiruzen was enjoying perhaps the first peaceful stretch of his afternoon when his office door slammed open.
"OLD MAN!"
The peace ended.
Konohamaru ran in immediately afterward.
"Grandpa! Look!"
Before Hiruzen could stop him, the boy drew a shuriken and threw.
THUNK!
Dead center of one of the practice targets.
Konohamaru stared proudly at it.
Naruto crossed his arms with an even prouder expression.
"Told you."
Hiruzen smiled.
"Very good."
Naruto immediately approached the desk.
"Clue."
"Straight to business?"
"Clue."
Hiruzen chuckled quietly.
"You truly have been searching everywhere, haven't you?"
"Training grounds. Academy. Ichiraku. Bathhouses. Random old guys."
"Random old guys?"
"Not important."
Hiruzen studied him for a moment.
"Interesting."
Naruto narrowed his eyes.
"What?"
"You've spent all this time looking for someone to teach you, yet today you've been doing quite a bit of teaching yourself."
Naruto paused.
Hiruzen leaned back in his chair.
"Shikamaru. Ino. Choji. And now Konohamaru."
Naruto's eyes narrowed.
"How do you know about—"
"I am the Hokage."
"Oh."
Hiruzen smiled faintly. "A teacher doesn't always need to possess the answer. Sometimes his purpose is simply to notice the question that another person has stopped asking."
Naruto became quieter.
"You questioned how Shikamaru used his shadows. You questioned how Ino could create opportunities for her technique. You helped Choji recognize a weakness, then found someone more qualified to help him correct it."
Hiruzen glanced toward Konohamaru's shuriken.
"And when you did know the answer, you taught it."
Naruto looked at his hands.
He hadn't really thought about it that way.
Hiruzen continued. "Perhaps it is fitting that you've spent your time trying to become a better teacher while waiting for your own."
Naruto looked up.
The old man's expression had that irritatingly wise look again.
"Learning isn't always about standing beneath someone stronger than you and copying what they do. Sometimes understanding something well enough to explain it to another person teaches you more than repeating it a hundred times alone."
Naruto thought about his shuriken training.
His strange ricochets.
Choji's movement.
Shikamaru's shadows.
For once, he didn't immediately interrupt.
Hiruzen smiled.
Then Naruto remembered why he'd come.
"Okay, wise old-man stuff was actually pretty good."
Hiruzen's eyebrow rose.
"But you owe me a clue."
"Indeed."
Naruto leaned forward eagerly.
Hiruzen took a slow puff from his pipe.
"The man Kakashi has chosen has been a teacher before."
Naruto waited.
"And?"
"That is your clue."
Naruto stared.
Hiruzen smiled.
"More importantly, he has taught shinobi who went on to become exceptional in their own right."
Naruto's eyes narrowed.
"A famous teacher?"
"You could say that."
"Is he a Jonin?"
Hiruzen's smile widened.
"That would be a second clue."
Naruto slammed both hands onto the desk.
"OLD MAN!"
Hiruzen laughed.
Naruto pointed accusingly at him.
"I got Konohamaru out of your office!"
"And I gave you a clue."
"That barely counts!"
"It counts perfectly well."
Naruto grumbled as he turned toward the door.
Hiruzen watched him go.
"Naruto."
The blond glanced back.
"Don't become so focused on finding the person who will teach you that you overlook what you are learning before he arrives."
Naruto stared at him for a second.
Then grinned.
"Yeah, yeah. Konohamaru you ready?"
The professors's eyes narrowed, he could not predict what his grandson and Naruto were about to perform.
Each young boy performed the ram seal gathering their chakra into a POOF of smoke.
Two beautiful bodacious beauties appeared, their goods covered by quickly disappearing smoke.
Hiruzen's jaw dropped as he was blasted back by an ever present perverted nosebleed.
The two boys ran out of the Hokage's office in their regular forms laughing all the way.
PING
You've defeated the Hokage (kind of?)
+10 System Points!
After exiting the Hokage tower, Naruto made it halfway down a street before thinking about another person he needed to visit.
Hinata.
Unlike everyone else he'd visited, she probably shouldn't be doing any serious training yet. Neji had beaten her badly enough during the preliminaries that Naruto wasn't sure how much she'd even recovered.
That didn't mean he couldn't check on her.
Naruto found Hinata walking slowly near one of the quieter roads bordering the Hyūga district. She wasn't wearing her usual jacket, and from the careful way she moved, some of Neji's strikes were clearly still bothering her.
"Hinata!"
She nearly jumped out of her skin.
"N-Naruto-kun?"
Naruto jogged over, stopping when he noticed her wince slightly.
"You still hurt?"
"A little."
Hinata smiled anyway.
"The doctors said I should keep moving, as long as I don't strain myself."
Naruto nodded seriously.
"Good."
Then he pointed down the road.
"Wanna go for a walk?"
Hinata froze.
Her entire face turned pink.
"A-a walk?"
"Yeah." Naruto shrugged. "I was gonna walk around anyway, and walking by yourself is boring."
Hinata's blush deepened.
Naruto looked at her for another second.
"You know, you're prettier when you're not lying unconscious in a hospital bed."
Hinata stopped breathing.
Naruto frowned.
"...Hinata?"
She made a tiny noise.
Naruto waved a hand in front of her face.
"You okay?"
"Y-Yes!"
"Awesome."
He started walking.
Hinata remained completely still for another two seconds before hurrying after him.
Naruto deliberately kept his pace slower than usual.
He didn't mention that part.
Hinata noticed anyway.
They walked along one of Konoha's quieter streets while Naruto talked enough for both of them. Hinata mostly listened, occasionally asking questions as he explained what he'd been doing since the preliminary matches ended.
"I've been checking on everybody from our class."
Hinata glanced toward him.
"Everyone?"
"Pretty much."
Naruto started counting on his fingers.
"Sasuke and Sakura trained with me, then Shikamaru, Ino, Choji... I helped Konohamaru this morning too, but he doesn't count."
Hinata smiled softly.
"Why are you helping everyone?"
Naruto looked genuinely confused by the question.
"Because we're all Konoha."
Hinata blinked.
Naruto shoved his hands behind his head.
"The finals are gonna have people watching from everywhere, right? Other villages, nobles, important people."
His grin appeared.
"So we should clean house."
Hinata giggled.
Naruto continued. "I mean, obviously I'm beating Neji."
Hinata's smile faded slightly.
Naruto noticed.
He slowed.
"Not because of what he did to you."
Hinata looked at him.
Naruto scratched his cheek.
"Okay, that's part of it."
A small laugh escaped her.
"But it's bigger than that now. Sasuke has Gaara. Shikamaru has Dosu. Kiba has Kankuro. Everybody's got somebody dangerous."
Naruto looked toward the village around them.
"If one of us figures something out that keeps another person from getting hurt, why wouldn't we tell them?"
Hinata became quiet.
Naruto shrugged.
"I want to get stronger. A lot stronger. But it'd be pretty stupid if I got really strong and everybody around me stayed the same."
He grinned at her.
"Then who am I supposed to show off to?"
Hinata laughed again.
Naruto smiled.
"There. You should do that more."
Hinata's face warmed.
"Do what?"
"Smile."
Naruto looked ahead as though he'd said nothing unusual.
"It looks good on you."
Hinata nearly walked into a signpost.
Naruto caught her lightly by the shoulder.
"Careful."
"S-Sorry!"
"Why are you apologizing to the sign?"
Hinata stared at the ground, desperately hoping her heartbeat wasn't audible.
Naruto continued walking.
Completely oblivious.
For the next several minutes, Hinata thought about what he'd said.
Naruto wanted strength more desperately than almost anyone she knew. He wanted acknowledgment, wanted to become Hokage, wanted to prove everyone who had dismissed him wrong.
But somewhere along the way, that hadn't remained entirely about him.
He saw his friends struggling and involved himself.
Sometimes badly.
Sometimes loudly.
But always because he believed their strength mattered too.
Hinata looked at her hands.
For most of her life, she'd thought becoming stronger meant proving that she wasn't weak.
Proving her father wrong.
Proving Neji wrong.
Proving that she deserved to stand as a Hyūga.
Maybe that wasn't enough.
Naruto wasn't only trying to become someone others could believe in.
He was trying to make the people around him stronger too.
Hinata slowly curled her fingers into a fist.
If she wanted to become stronger for herself, perhaps she needed something beyond herself to fight for.
Not because she needed to carry everyone else's burdens.
But because having people she wanted to protect gave her another reason to keep moving when fear told her to stop.
Hinata glanced toward Naruto.
He caught her looking.
"What?"
She smiled.
"Nothing."
Naruto narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"That's what everyone says when it's definitely something."
Hinata laughed quietly.
"I was only thinking that... you're very different from how people describe you."
Naruto grinned.
"Yeah. They usually forget the handsome part."
Hinata's face exploded red again.
Naruto nodded to himself.
"See? Like that."
"W-What?"
"You keep turning red."
He leaned slightly closer, studying her face.
"Maybe you're still sick."
Hinata nearly died.
Again.
PING
National Crisis Quest Updated!
Some training doesn't involve throwing punches or jutsu. Exchanging ideas and beliefs can count too!
Hidden Sub quest updated!
Rookie 9 trained with 6/8
+2 Charisma
Name: Naruto Uzumaki
Village: Konohagakure
Rank: Experienced Genin
Stats
Strength: 68
Agility: 81
Endurance: 80 (+10%)
Intelligence: 83
Charisma: 60
Luck: 12
System Points: 360