Chapter 1 : A new start !(1)

Naruto looked around the small village he and Ero-Sennin had just entered, like most of the villages he had been to in Hi No Kuni (Fire Country) the buildings were all made out of a mixture of wood and bricks, and were modeled in a western style with flat rooftops and square architecture. Most of the buildings were shops that sold various wares and goods, which was obvious when Naruto observed the numerous people that were milling around looking in the windows. It had only been about a week since Naruto had left with Ero-Sennin on this training trip and the two had already been in two other cities in Hi No Kuni.

"So what are we going to be doing here Ero-Sennin?" Naruto asked as he looked up at the larger male.

Jiraiya was a fairly tall man, standing at about 6'5" making him taller than most of the people in Konoha with the exception of Kakashi. He had white hair that spiked up before going down to about mid back, it was held in place by a Hitai-ate with two horns and the kanji for oil on it. He was wearing a green gi under a red vest and had wooden geta sandals rather than the standard shinobi sandals.

Jiraiya looked down at his student and scowled, "what have I told you about respecting your elders gaki?"

Naruto shrugged, "you'll get my respect when I feel you've earned it. So far all you've done is go to whore houses or peek on women and I have yet to actually learn anything from you."

Jiraiya sighed at his students rather apathetic attitude, ever since they had left Konoha Naruto had… changed. He had become a lot more quiet then the loud mouth the Sennin had met during the Chunin exams; in fact he hadn't spoken more than a few words since they left Konoha, it was like the loudmouth had suddenly vacated the boys head and this new person took his place. Most of the time Naruto stared at nothing and seemed to be in deep thought, Jiraiya was not sure what was bothering his apprentice but figured that he would find out what was wrong in time.

"Alright, alright," the Toad Sennin sighed, "I have to meet a contact here who has some valuable information for me. After this is done I'll begin training you, how does that sound?"

Naruto nodded, "that's fine."

Jiraiya frowned at his godson's lack of enthusiasm but left it alone for now as he headed off.

Naruto walked around the town, not really bothering to pay attention to where he was going at the moment. Truth was he had been thinking a lot, mostly about himself and how he had not really taken his training seriously. When he was in the academy he had been more concerned with playing pranks to get attention, which had seriously hampered his ability to learn. Of course half of the problem was that by the time he had found a teacher willing to actually teach him rather than try to sabotage his training, Naruto was so far ingrained in his pranking and loudmouth tendencies that it had simply become a habit. He shook his head and sighed, despite that it still wasn't an excuse for not bothering to learn when he was able to. Had he actually applied himself to learn what he could he may have been able to keep Sasuke from leaving the village.

That was another of his problems, Sasuke Uchiha had been someone he had considered a brother. He had always thought that even with the small rivalry they had going that they were still friends and always would be; that feeling had been dashed when Sasuke plunged to Chidori's into his chest not once but twice. Naruto was no longer sure if he could keep his promise to Sakura by returning the boy, not that it would matter anyways. Naruto was beginning to doubt that Sasuke would ever willingly return, even if Naruto forced him to come back; he doubted team 7 would ever be the same.

Naruto shook his head of the morbid thoughts, now wasn't the time to be dwelling on such things. Sasuke's defection had opened Naruto's eyes to the reality of his situation. He needed to get stronger, he had to train and try his hardest to become a real shinobi, not the loud brat who could not even bring back someone he considered a brother. As he was now Naruto was lacking in every aspect of being a shinobi, sure he had the Rasengan (Spiralling sphere) and Kage Bushin (Shadow Clones) but that was really it. In every battle he had fought so far if it were not for the Kyuubi, Naruto knew he would have died. During the battle on the bridge, in the Nami No Kuni (Land of Waves) he had used it to fight Haku. During his fight with Orochimaru in the forest of death he had been forced to use it. His fight with Gaara, his fight with Sasuke, every major battle he had been in he had used it. Add on that he could not even use the Rasengan without the aid of a clone, he did not have proper control of his chakra and no set taijutsu style, or rather he just swung until he hit something, Naruto knew he had a lot of problems to fix.

Looking up he found himself standing in front of a store that appeared to sell shinobi clothing, Naruto looked at his own attire. His bright orange track suit had been with him for as long as he could remember, not because he wanted to wear it. No despite the fact that orange was his favorite color and was good for getting attention, the only reason he wore it was because it was the only thing he could afford. All the stores in Konoha had black listed him, making it nearly impossible to get a decent set of clothing; hell the only food he could even afford was ramen which was why he ate it all the time. Even these clothes he had were costly, the man who sold them to him making him pay three times the price most people would spend for normal clothes. Deciding that if he wanted to become a real shinobi he should look like a real shinobi, Naruto walked into the store.

The shop itself was fairly standard; there were many racks in the store with different styles of shinobi clothes in various colors. There were also a few areas that sold weapons, most of which were the standard Kunai, shuriken, ninja wire and basic sealing scroll. Unlike Konoha this was not a ninja village so they did not have any specialty clothing and weapons.

Naruto began to walk around the store to see what he might like; he looked at various forms of pants first. He wanted them to be in a dark color, looking at a few of the different styles and colors he decided to buy several sets of dark blue cargo styled pants. They had several pockets that looked like they were designed to hold various scrolls and were of a sturdy material that would not wear down. The next thing he went to were the shirts, looking through them he went with a dark blue and black colors. Buying several sets of both sleeveless and long sleeved shirts so that he would have some variety before he moved on, looking to see if there was anything else he might want. He eventually bought several other things, a pair of black fingerless gloves with metal plates on the back, a pair of black combat boots with steel toed tips and a sealing scroll so he could carry it all.

Walking up to the cash register which had an old man sitting at it, Naruto set the clothes down. The old man looked at him and began to tally up the price, "that's quite a lot of stuff you bought young man, the total will come up to 4,000 ryō."

Naruto reached into his pants pocket and pulled out Gama-chan, his frog wallet. Opening it up he looked to see how much he had, it was not well known but Naruto despite not looking like it was very stingy when it came to money. Living on the streets and having to be careful where he bought stuff and how much he bought, Naruto had been taught the value of cash. Right now he had 6,500 ryō , he would be using about 2/3 of his savings, but in Naruto's eyes it was worth it. Taking out the necessary amount Naruto gave it to the old man.

"Excuse me but do you have a place I could change?" Naruto asked, using a more respectful voice then he ever had before.

"Yes right over there," the old man pointed to a small changing stall that was somewhat hidden in the corner.

"Thanks," Naruto replied moving over to the stall.

"No problem young man."

Naruto went into the stall and changed, opting to go for the sleeveless shirt instead of a long sleeve one right now. He looked himself over in the mirror and nodded in satisfaction, sealing the rest of his clothes inside of the scroll he bought.

Walking out of the store Naruto created a kage bushin and told it to go find Jiraiya and tell him he was going to get some food. Walking around Naruto eventually found a small stand that seemed to offer a variety of different foods, Naruto eventually settled on Domburi with Gyudon (beef) and began to eat. A few minutes later Naruto blinked as the memories of his clone finding Jiraiya drunk off his ass with several girls hanging off the man hit him. What was that? Naruto wondered as he tried to figure out what had just happened. He had never had that happen when he made a clone before, of course normally when he made clones he would spam them out as if they were going out of style, so maybe he just never noticed. As he ate he absently wondered if this could be used for training or if he only retained the memories of the clones when they dispelled. He would ask Ero-Sennin when the man found him.

A little while later said man walked into the stand and sat down next to him, he ordered a small bowl of ramen and waited for it to come. When it did he began eating for a bit before deciding to speak, "we'll be staying the night here, tomorrow we're going to leave early and start your training."

Naruto nodded, "speaking of training, I noticed that I gained the memory of my clone when it dispelled."

"Hoho," Jiraiya said with a small hint of surprise and pride, "so you found out the secrets of the kage bushin eh?"

Naruto turned to face Jiraiya with an incredulous look, "so you knew about this?"

"Of course I knew kid," Jiraiya snorted, "I've been waiting to see when you would figure it out yourself."

Naruto nodded again, deciding not to bother getting bent out of shape about over not being told, "Do you think I would be able to use it for training?"

Jiraiya looked thoughtful for a moment, "that could work… with your reserves you could easily learn things in months that many others would take years to get down. Though I imagine there would be some draw backs to this method of training."

"Like what?" Naruto asked.

Jiraiya spent the next hour explaining the draw backs of using Kage Bushin to train.