Naruto: Legacies

Sharingan

It had been a year since Hiruzen had allowed Naruto to live in his own apartment, and so far, all had gone well. Beams of light trickled through his windows at dawn, making Naruto's face scrunch up as he was forced to wake up with a groan. This outgoing year had turned out to be a decent one for the blonde. He had come to love living in his new house, a place where he didn't have to turn a blind eye to the insults of the his wardens made him happy. But the inherent need of home-cooked meals had persuaded him to learn some cooking from the cookbooks Hiruzen had bought for him. Hiruzen's constant nagging that he couldn't last off on ramen and pork cutlet bowls from Ichiraku's, cereal, and milk his whole life had turned out to be pretty accurate.

It was frightening how quickly food for the gods turned stale after continual consumption.

Naruto had protested at first, sure,and Hiruzen had conceded that he could indeed live off of ramen his whole life - if he wanted to grow up to be a midget that is - and that had shut Naruto's mouth pretty quickly. After a few destroyed utensils, some burnt precooked dinners, and easy to make meals, Naruto was proud to admit that he had now reached a point where he could make averagely delectable food - and had given him a pat on the back to himself when Hiruzen had told him that his cooking skills were improving pretty rapidly after a nice, warm dinner one night.

Speaking of improvements, right after Hiruzen had shown Naruto to the shinobi store, the boy had managed to scour out a few interesting books with Haru's help and had even unlocked his chakra on his own after trying, meditating and failing for a week until he had finally unlocked it. He had quickly managed to become a favorite customer at the White Dragon shop, and just as Hiruzen had so predicted, Naruto had forged a good bond with the shop owner, Haru that was now nearly impossible to break. Haru always helped him find rare books on various shinobi subjects to get him started on any subjects Naruto found interesting, and even threw in various books for beginners on stealth, trap making, chakra theory, basic chakra control, kanji, calligraphy and various other shinobi books with detailed accounts of war from his own pocket.

Haru and Hiruzen had been shocked beyond all belief when Naruto had started taking a liking to the revered art of sealing. Hiruzen had shown him the basics of sealing arts at first, where the boy had been shown some primitive explosive tags and storage scrolls as an example, and Naruto had been fascinated by the art ever since. Hiruzen was nearly jumping for joy on the inside that Naruto was following in the footsteps of his forefathers, and had been more than happy to introduce him to the finer arts of Fūinjutsu. Hiruzen had instructed Naruto to start off with improving his handwriting with some kanji, and had even bought him a basic calligraphy kit and various other books on calligraphy, a few scrolls on the basics and foundations of the sealing arts, and it's historic importance. Hiruzen had even managed to secretly smuggle in a book written by Namikaze Minato himself, a book that the Minato had once wished to make published for those who were interested in pursuing the art of sealing but never got around doing it due to it's faux intricate nature.

The journal had stayed with Hiruzen all this time, collecting dust in his bookshelf. He had decided to give it to Naruto as a memoir to his idol/father, and when Naruto had seen the index signed by the Fourth Hokage himself, and all his hand written manuscripts for the unpublished book that went along with it, it had come to be one of Naruto's most prized possessions. Naruto had become even more captivated with the extinct and forgotten art after learning that his idol, the Fourth Hokage, was one of the greatest seal masters this world had ever seen outdone only by the likes of some ancient Uzumaki sealmasters.

Haru had introduced Naruto to the Academy's curriculum, it mostly contained theory about the history of some major shinobi villages and the strategies that had been used by shinobi in the previous great wars. It was only logical that they had to learn it, so that they could think of similar ways to devise corresponding strategies in future wars. The next three years, Haru had told him, would be focused on perfecting the art of molding his chakra, some physical conditioning, basic chakra control, hand seals, and to fine tune the academy's basic three Ninjutsu coupled with the academy's basic Taijutsu stances. Naruto had asked if it was enough to learn just the three basic Academy Ninjutsu and graduate the Academy earlier to take on some missions and garner experience, but his idea had been quick to shut down.