A New Friendship

"Happy birthday, Ryu!", exclaims both his parents as confetti are thrown into the air. Claps ensued after as everyone congratulates Ryu on his birthday. Not just his parents, but Inuzuka Mitsu is there along with Inuzuka Hana.

With a bark, Mitsu's ninken runs up to him and starts licking his face. Chuckling slightly, Ryu looks at the people united for his birthday. His father has returned already, as the war had come to an end.

[Five years. A little more, just a little more before my plans can begin.], he inwardly exclaims as a glint flashed through his deep, black eyes.

------------------

A few months went by after the birthday party.

Standing on an isolated corner of the training grounds, after half a day of physical training, Ryu resumes his training on chakra manipulation. During the last few months starting from the day he first sensed his chakra, he had been experimenting with both shape transformation and nature transformation. Of course, he did not let anyone see him practice chakra anymore after 'that' day.

Shape transformation was the easiest to learn, as it only deals with the physical transformations of the chakra. Starting his training with shape transformation, Ryu extends his left palm and by controlling his chakra, a billiard ball-sized rotating ball of chakra is created. Going even further, five more balls that are slightly smaller are materialized revolving around the bigger one.

Through extensive experiments in these few months, he concluded that this form is the most optimal form for shape transformation practice. Employing his chakra control, he made the smaller ones circle around the one in the middle, imitating a solar system. Experimenting with changing the orbit, speed, and inclination of different balls at the same time proved to be an excellent way to practice his chakra control.

After playing with shape transformation for an hour, he started practicing his nature transformation. After that day where he mastered the two methods to control his chakra, his mother gave him a chakra induction paper to test his chakra affinity. It turns out, he has an affinity for the fire attribute. Nature transformation proved to be a slight challenge even for Ryu, as he was only able to change his chakra after a month and able to use it in ninjutsu took another full month. He found the concept of chakra really interesting, sighing at how versatile this kind of energy can be. Instead of just being able to create a massive ball of mass destruction or very simple techniques like a bunch of energies used in other universes, he can use chakra for many more intrinsic techniques.

Releasing his use of shape transformation, he rests for ten minutes before resuming his training. Creating another ball of chakra, he starts using nature transformation. Starting with fire release, the originally blue-colored ball started taking a red hue. Concentrating a little more, the ball of chakra transformed itself into a rotating ball of fire. Nodding to himself,

Ryu released the fireball before creating once again a ball of chakra. And with that, he used the rest of the day to transform his ball of chakra into other elements. Transforming it with the lightning release, the ball turned transparent with flashes of lightning contained inside. He was able to affect the magnetic field around the chakra ball. Seeing some interesting uses for being able to affect the magnetic field of objects, he smiles. Using earth release, he was able to manipulate gravity! He was really thankful for this discovery, such a technique will prove to be one of the most useful. Transforming with water release, a ball of water was created.

And finally, he tried wind release but stopped right after a sharp vortex started appearing on the rapidly rotating ball of chakra. Looking at his left hand, a somber expression appeared on his face. [This... this is dangerous.]

Having finally finished training for the day, Ryu exits the training grounds and walks home, still lost in his thoughts. [That wind release... the ball of chakra started rotating too fast. So fast that it had already started taking effect on a cellular level. I can't use that again without having a way to protect myself.], he was closing and opening his left hand. It took slight damage during the test. Frowning once again, he changed his thoughts to another subject. [Forget about that for now. Yin and Yang release... even now I can't freely convert my chakra to these two natures. Even though I have a comprehension of what Yin and Yang are, it's revealing to be a challenge harder than I thought. It might take a few years for even me to really use these two. well, nothing I can do about it. Although, I will have enough work to do for a few years with the five basic natures.], he smiles as he starts thinking about the future techniques he may employ.

-------------------

Sitting on his bed and meditating, he could sense his own mother downstairs preparing dinner and his father reading a book in the living room. Not only that, but his senses can be spread further as he can 'see' the chakra signals of those around his house in a few hundred meters.

While peacefully meditating, he heard his mother calling him over for dinner. He stopped his meditation and prepared to go downstairs.

While the family of three are sitting at the table, having a usual family dinner, his father keeps asking questions about his training of which Ryu calmly answer. Suddenly Ryu freezes and lets the chopsticks he was holding fall and roll off the table. Puzzled, his father turns to him to

ask what happened only to see an aghast expression on his face. He became stunned, he never saw his son with such expression. He was always either smiling lightly or with an indifferent expression. "Son? What happened? Are you okay?", Endo reached for his son's shoulder but stopped as soon as he heard the horse voice coming off his son.

"What... what is this? Such chakra... it cannot possibly belong to a single living being.", trembling, Ryu abruptly stands up, knocking off the chair. Gritting his teeth, he seemed to have gone slightly mad. "No HUMAN should be in possession of THAT amount of chakra! And with such OMINOUS nature!", with a dash he seemed to disappear as he barged out of the front door and jumped towards the roof of the highest building in his vicinity. His parents dazed about their son's behavior, quickly run out of the house in pursuit but as he was too abrupt they didn't see where he'd go.

On top of the roof, he swallows a mouthful of saliva before looking in the direction where the chakra was coming. He could not see anything as it was too far. Frowning, he was about to go question his parent to see if they can sense this chakra. But just as he was about to turn around, with a boom, large amounts of white smoke suddenly appear in one of the corners of the village. Looking over, Ryu saw something that would forever change his view of this world.

An enormous fox with nine tails roared as the shockwaves spread throughout the entire village. At that moment, every shinobi, every civilian, and even the animals felt the most ominous presence they ever felt. With a roar, the monstrous fox started rampaging inside the village, destroying and killing civilians and shinobis alike. Suddenly, the monster turns toward the Hokage Rock and attacked it with a massive purple ball of chakra, destroying everything in its way. But before the ball could reach the Hokage Rock, it suddenly disappears before appearing once again a few kilometers away and immediately exploding.

When seeing such power, Ryu trembled with a slightly twitching mouth as he starts to become restless. Seeing the village's shinobis defending against such a beast, he walked over to the limit of the roof he was standing on. Ignoring all destruction and death around him, his eyes closed as he took a deep breath. Opening his eyes again, he lightly smiles and declares with a slightly mad expression, "You beast. That power... all that chakra. I want it all!", he started to change all his plans accordingly.

While enjoying the sight of the shinobis struggling against the beast, he suddenly feels a pair of eyes looking at him. Turning his head and looking down, he saw a boy staring at him as he was slightly smiling. He carried a baby in his arms and there was a girl following him. They apparently are running away from the place where the beast is attacking. The two only glanced at each other a few seconds before the boy continued his way, not slowing down the least.

Forgetting about the strange exchange he just had, he once again continued watching the fight. He had to change roofs quite a few times to avoid harm. Finally, the beast was sealed away and the attack was over. Chuckling lightly, Ryu decided to get out of the roof so that others won't notice him now that the attack is over.

A few days later, a large scale funeral was held on account of all the victims of the attack. He attended along-side his parents, and to his surprise, an acquaintance of his actually died during the attack.

Mitsu Inuzuka, a chūnin who died during the Kyuubi's attack, as they called the beast. She died while defending her village and those who she loved.

Mitsu, Ryu's mother cried during the entire funeral. Her best friend had died, just like that. Ryu just observed his mother with indifference. People die all the time, it's the truth. You just have to accept it and move on. No point in overthinking things that have already happened.

------------------

And after such an event, time passed by slowly in the village of Konoha. Finally, a year passed and Ryu is already six years of age.

Standing at the entrance of the shinobi Academy is a group of children waiting in a neat formation. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the current third Hokage is giving a speech about the Will of Fire. [I don't really need to participate in the academy, skills-wise. But if I want to progress with my plans, I can't just continue to be a civilian.], ponders Ryu.

Uninterested, Ryu just patiently waits until it's over, all while also ignoring his mother's fiery gaze at his back. She was too excited for her son who was about to enter the academy, thinking about how he was going to absolutely destroy the competition. After the motivational speech, the students finally get to know which class they are part of.

Walking towards his class, as he enters he does a cursory glance at everyone before momentarily locking eyes with one of the students. It was that boy who saw him during the Kyuubi's attack. [Oh... I saw during the speech that he carries the Uchiha emblem on the back of his shirt. He might be a little interesting to pay attention to.]

It was then that he heard someone calling his name. "Ryu! Hey, over here!", as he turns to the source of the voice, he is not surprised to see Hana waving at him. Shrugging, he walks over and sits beside her. Not long after, with the entrance of the teacher, the chūnin Daikoku Funeno, the academy life finally starts. Although right after that, Ryu quickly got bored on the first day, and ever since he just sends a shadow clone to attend the academy in his place.

During that time, he came to realize that the boy who provoked his interest is named Itachi Uchiha and that he is quite a genius. He is, alongside my clone, the only one who seems to have the answer to any question the teacher may ask. Today is the first day of practical skill training in the academy, and he has to admit that the kid seems quite calm and confident.

"Alright, class. Today we will start with shuriken practice. Each one will take the kunai over there and throw at the target in front of you.", as the teacher finishes, the kids are eager to try. One of the kids named Saisu Kamano starts to laugh loudly in pride as he was able to hit the target with almost all kunai, even though none hit the bulls-eyes. He quickly shut his mouth as he sees Itachi hitting the bulls-eye with four kunai at the same time with a single throw. Gritting his teeth, he was about to try again but became slack-jawed once more as he sees Ryu does the exact same thing. A feat that got the entire class exchanging glances between Ryu and Itachi, as if trying to compare one to another.

Ryu glances at Itachi for a moment, only to see him preparing to throw more kunai at the target. [This child. He has enormous potential. Maybe he can prove to be a good training partner for the main body. I'll try to talk to him later.], as he thought that, he turns only to see Hana hitting the bulls-eye with a kunai. Smiling lightly, he approached her. "Hana, here. Let me help you..."

Later that day, Saisu actually challenged both Itachi and Ryu to a spar. Indifferently staring at the brown-haired kid facing him, Ryu just chooses to ignore him and started walking away. "Eh, not feeling like it. Itachi, you can go on and beat him all you want.", Itachi just watches Ryu walking away with a calm expression. Before Ryu could walk off, the teacher frowned and called him out.

"Ryu, Saisu challenged you to a sparring, the most educated thing to do is to at least accept it.", Ryu groans. He is probably thinking about releasing the clone at this exact moment. Fighting his own thoughts, he just sighs and walked back.

"Alright. We can spar. Itachi, he challenged both of us. Do you want to go first?", he asks Itachi who was calmly watching him. He nods.

"Ok. I can go first."

As both Itachi and Saisu go into position, both doing the seal of confrontation as the spar is about to start. Signaling the start of the spar, Saisu rushes at Itachi before being easily handled as Itachi grabs his hand, spins his body in the air, and throwing him at the ground, with Itachi using his foot to stop his opponent's head from hitting the ground so that he would not be injured.

The easy victory of Itachi earned him quite a few 'wow' from the group of kids. Ryu just disinterestedly watch the commotion, he had no doubts that Itachi would win. Hana walked over to him. "Wow, did you see that Ryu? He won so easily. Can you do that?", he just rolled his eyes while having his head slump to the side while looking at her as if saying, 'really? have you forgot all the Inuzuka kids' dreams about taijutsu that I have destroyed in the past two years?'. She grins at him and pats him in the shoulder with a little too much force.

As he was having his interaction with Hana, from the corner of his eyes he can see Itachi offering the seal of reconciliation towards the fallen Saisu, who was reluctant at first but ended up accepting. [Calm and collected. He did not underestimate his opponent even slightly. Surprising maturity and remains humble despite his talent. This boy... he'll be a great shinobi one day.], thinking that he cannot help but become eager to see what the future entails for Itachi Uchiha.

"Sensei. Is it my turn? Should we let him rest a few minutes.", asked Ryu wanting to finish this quickly.

"I... I don't need to rest. I can still continue. I will win against you, Ryu!", says Saisu after standing up with the help of the Uchiha boy.

Getting into position, both did the seal of confrontation as they faced each other. "Begin!", before Saisu even register what happened he was thrown on the ground with a sweep motion directed to his feet. Seeing a fist coming straight to his face, he closed his eyes while waiting for the impact that never came. Opening his eyes slightly, he saw Ryu standing over him with a fist a few centimeters from his face. He got scared as he saw the indifferent expression on Ryu's face looking down on him. [This guy... is scary.], Ryu waited for a few seconds so that the image would be burned in his mind before offering the seal of reconciliation and helping Saisu stand up.

Ryu helped Saisu dusting his clothes, which made the little boy freeze on his feet. After making sure everything is alright, he put both his hands on the boy's shoulders, and with a bright smile, he says, "Don't ever bother me again.", then he turned around and left.

The next day, while some students are inside the classroom hanging out with each other, when suddenly a small commotion can be seen as a group of girls started running towards the window.

"Look over there. It's Itachi."

"Where?"

"Oh, he's walking. He's so cool!"

"Oh, he's looking this way!"

"Kyaaa." x6

"Tch. This is not good. Don't you think, gentlemen?", Says Saisu while gritting his teeth together with his two friends.

As the three of them keep babbling and gritting their teeth, more girls run over to the window to get a glimpse of their male alpha image.

"It's me. He's looking at me!"

"No, it's me!"

"He started walking again!"

"Itachi's walking!"

"Kyaaa." x9

As Saisu gets his confidence broken, one of his friends says, "Hey, at least it's not that bad. Look over there, he is even worse than us."

he points to Ryu's clone.

Ryu's clone can be seen sitting at his place with his hands behind his back, mouth half-open, and looking absentmindedly towards the ceiling.

Occasionally he would use his left hand to scratch his head.

"Y... Yeah. At least we are not at that level. Hey, let's go. Let's do something about this!"

"Yeah!" "Right!"

After they walked off the classroom, a few minutes pass by as Hana walks inside and goes direct to Ryu. Seeing him like this and looking at the group of Itachi's fangirls, she starts having some strange thoughts. Wanting to tease him, she says, "Ryu, what happened to you?"

"Oh, Hana. Tell me, if I show the teacher one of my advanced ninjutsu, do you think they will let me graduate early?"

"What? Why?"

Ryu sighs. "Nevermind. Forget what I said."

"Maybe you are just that jealous that Itachi got all the girls after him and not after you?"

"What are you talking about?", puzzled, he looked over at her then at the Itachi's fangirls. Blinking and stopping to think for a second, he becomes horrified. "Hana, they're kids! How could you think of me like that."

"Aren't you the same age as us? You're a kid too.", she answers with a smile on her face as if she figured everything already.

Frowning, he suddenly had an idea. Smiling, he says, "Oh, what if I am indeed jealous? Why does it matter so much to you?"

Freezing, she smiles stiffly. "W... what do you mean? I don't care one bit! You can be jealous all you want!"

Seeing her acting, he already knew. [Gotcha. You are a few bi... no, tri... well, a few universes worth of years behind to be able to set me up in a trap.]

"Thinking about it, Hana. Why are you the only girl who does not try to go after him? What are you hiding? Huh, Don't tell me you are actually my fangirl. How nice.", he smiles as he looks at her expression. Suddenly, she hits him with a punch on the top of the head and walked out.

His smiles become stiff. Touching the bump on the top of his head, he could not help but think, [hmmm. I have a six years old girl as a fangirl? Even though I'm also six... why does it seems so wrong?]

---------------

The next day.

Ryu's shadow clone was resting in the shadow of a tree with both hands behind his back. As he sensed a familiar chakra signature, he opened his eyes and looked in the direction of the entrance to the academy. Itachi Uchiha could be seen exiting the academy. The clone ponders for a second before standing up and walking towards the Uchiha.

"Oy, Itachi."

Hearing his name, Itachi stops and looks in the direction of the void. Seeing that it was Ryu, he nods to him. "Hi, Ryu."

"Hehe, now that I think about it, it's 'Master Itachi' now. Am I right?", the clone said with a grinning expression.

Trembling slightly, Itachi seemed a little upset about it the occurrences that happened the day before.

Laughing lightly, Ryu put his hand on Itachi's shoulder. "I'm just kidding. Don't worry about how those kids suddenly started calling you. It's just the way they are showing they respect to you.", Itachi nodded.

"I know. It's just a little embarrassing."

Sighing, the clone turned around. Looking over at the surrounding buildings, he asks Itachi, "Hey Itachi. Did you ever felt that the academy is so... easy?"

Itachi stared surprised at him. How could he know how he felt? "Yes, I do. Actually, I've been learning ninjutsu from my father as the one the academy teaches is too easy."

Smiling, the clone turned around. "Itachi, do you want to train together with me? I think that staying at the academy all the time is actually holding you back."

"Training? Together?", actually, Itachi does not have anything against training with Ryu. After all, he knows that just like him, Ryu also learns the academy ninjutsu at just a glance and having impressive shurikenjutsu and taijutsu. "But I can't ditch the academy."

"Ditching the academy? Of course not. My mother would kill me if I ditched just like that. What I mean is that you can just use a shadow clone to stay here while you are out training. At the end of the day, just release the clone to get the memories of what happened."

Now it's time for Itachi to be surprised. "You know shadow clones?"

"If I know? Since day two of the academy, the 'Ryu' that appears in the class were all shadow clones. Including me right now. My dad is Jonin, I just asked him for the Jutsu and he told me.", the clone shrugs.

Itachi was speechless. Since day two?

"Do you know shadow clones? Do you want me to teach you? It's not difficult, you can surely learn it really fast with your talent. I can even do it with a one-handed seal to show how easy it is.", just as the clone was preparing to show Itachi the Jutsu so that he can copy it, Itachi shook his head.

"No need for that. I know the Jutsu."

"Great! So that means that from this day forth, we are training partners! Tomorrow at the same time as the academy, meet me outside of the forest outside the village.", he says as Itachi nodded.

The next day, Itachi could be seen walking towards the forest where he will meet up with Ryu. As he reaches the beginning of the forest, he looked around looking for him.

"Up here."

Lifting his gaze, he saw Ryu seated on top of a tree branch with his leg left hanging and eating dangos. Meeting Itachi's gaze, he ate the last dango and jumped down.

"Let's go. I have a place I've been using for a while.", as both walk further inside the forest, Ryu suddenly shows two more dango sticks that he pulled out from... somewhere.

Giving one to Itachi, who accepts due to being too stunned from not knowing where they come from, he ate the remaining one. "C'mon, eat it. Can't train with an empty stomach."

Resigning himself to fate, Itachi decides to just go with the flow. maybe one day he might understand this new friend of his.

"Oh, right Itachi. I forgot to tell you something yesterday. Before calling you, I already had a training partner that shows up from time to time.", he eats one more dango, having only one more remaining. "Maybe you know him, he's from your clan after all. And he's really good at Shunshin no Jutsu. Even better than me.", eating the last dango, Ryu casually flicks the stick towards a tree to the left. The stick goes halfway in before stopping. "His name is..."