Chapter Text
Naruto was six, and while he’d been one of the first in his class to unlock his chakra, ever since then, the academy had them focus on control — and he was lagging behind.
He didn’t understand what he was doing wrong, though. Every time he asked, Amara-sensei would just tell him to use less chakra.
If he knew how to do that, he would’ve already done it.
Worse, he’d missed most of the lessons on the three basic academy jutsu — not by choice, but because Mizuki-sensei always seemed to have something for him to do outside. Or he’d get punished for the stupidest things.
So here Naruto was, on a Saturday morning, in the library.
He’d never been there before, mostly because he wasn’t eager to be turned away from yet another place where everyone else was welcome. But this time, he didn’t have a choice. He needed help, and he had to hope someone here might actually give it.
As he stepped through the front doors, he was struck by how silent everything was. He stood there for a moment, wide-eyed, staring at the endless shelves — towering, heavy with books, stretching farther than he could count.
A quiet clearing of a throat pulled him back to reality. Naruto turned toward the sound and froze.
An old man stood there — not very tall, but broad-shouldered, muscles rippling under his robe in a way that didn’t make sense for a librarian. Naruto had never imagined someone so strong would spend his days looking after books.
And stranger still, the man wasn’t glaring at him. He was smiling — or maybe smirking — his eyes warm with amusement instead of the usual suspicion or disgust Naruto had come to expect.
“What can I do for you, young man?” the old man asked. “Are you looking for something in particular?”
“Uh—hi.”
The old man actually smiled his way, “Hello, young man.”
“Right, um… I’m looking for, uh, som-m-mething on chakra control. And, uh, jutsu. Like the ones we learn at the academy.”
The old man looked down at him, eyebrows raised in mild confusion. “Isn’t the academy teaching you that already?”
Naruto shrugged, fidgeting a little before he tried to explain. “Well, yeah. For the control part, kinda. But I don’t get what I’m doing wrong! For everyone else, their leaves either don’t stick or just fly off—mine don’t do either! They just, like… turn into dust or something! And the teachers keep saying, ‘Use less chakra,’ but they never tell me how! And—and Mizuki-sensei keeps sending me out of class whenever we’re practicing jutsu!”
By the time he stopped, Naruto realized he’d been talking faster and faster, until he wasn’t even sure he’d made sense anymore. But the old librarian didn’t look annoyed. If anything, he seemed thoughtful.
“I see,” the man said at last. “Then maybe I do have something for you. Follow me, please.”
Naruto hurried after him, curiosity buzzing in his chest. “Ne, old man—what’s your name? I’m Naruto!”
“You can call me Togawa-san,” he replied, leading them down a narrow aisle. “And here we are. For chakra control, I’d suggest starting with this one.”
He pulled a thick, slightly worn book from the shelf and handed it over.
Naruto squinted at the title, sounding it out as best he could. “Cha-ku-ra Con– control: The U-zu-ma-ki Me-thod… Hey, that’s my name!”
“Is it?” Togawa-san chuckled. “Then it must be the book for you. Now, about jutsu—anything available without a rank is going to be pretty weak. But if all you want are the Academy Three, you’ll find what you need soon enough. Ah, here we are.”
He gestured toward a small study area, neat and quiet, before setting down a few scrolls beside the book. “You can use these tables as your workspace. And here—” he handed Naruto the scrolls with surprising gentleness, “—these are the ones we used to give students when they were learning. Now they only rely on their sensei, which, between you and me, is rather stupid.”
He gave Naruto a faint smile. “Don’t hesitate to ask if you need any help.”
And just like that, the old man left him alone at the table—with a book, a handful of scrolls, and the quietest hope Naruto had felt in a long time.
For the first time, he thought maybe—just maybe—he’d found a place that could actually help him become a shinobi. The kind of place he’d hoped the academy would be.
Figures, really. Of course it’d be somewhere he’d have to do the heavy lifting himself.
He sat down, pulled out his battered notebook and a stubby pencil from his backpack, and opened the book. Reading wasn’t easy for him—not yet—but that just meant one more thing to get better at.
And Naruto Uzumaki, even at only six, knew one thing for sure: if he ever wanted to get anywhere near his dreams, he couldn’t give up. Not on anything.
It took him a while to understand what the book was saying, but in the end, he’d written down a lot of things to try. That would be his focus after school from now on—until he could finally get that stupid leaf to stick.
He’d also finally figured out what those “basic” jutsu were actually for. He was most drawn to, if leery of, the Clone Technique, partly because the scroll said it required the most control and the least chakra. Which, naturally, only made him more determined to master it—if only to spite the universe itself.
The Transformation Technique seemed easier, even if still an illusion really, but he copied down notes for all three. By the time he finished, he practically had a second set of the scrolls scribbled into his notebook.
And just in time, too, because old man Togawa was making his way back toward him.
“All right there, Uzumaki-kun? Aren’t you hungry? It’s lunchtime, and you’ve been studying for over three hours now.”
Naruto stretched, rubbing his eyes. “Reading’s hard, Togawa-jii-san. And writing too. But I think I got everything!”
He stood, realizing how much his stomach agreed with the old man.
Togawa chuckled and took the scrolls from his hands. “Don’t worry about those, Uzumaki-kun. Go get yourself something to eat—I’ll handle the shelving. And I’m sure you only need a bit more practice. Before long, you’ll be an avid reader.”
As Naruto stuffed his notebook and pencil back into his backpack, the librarian added, “Tell me, did anything else catch your attention while you were studying?”
“Hmm… illusions seem awesome,” Naruto said absently, tugging the zipper closed. “But I think I’ve got too much chakra for those.”
“Mmm,” Togawa hummed, smiling. “You never know. You might just surprise yourself.”
“Thanks, jii-san!”
With that, Naruto darted off toward Ichiraku for a well-earned bowl of ramen—and then, hopefully, to finally make some progress on his chakra control.
After all, all he needed was a tree.
And there were plenty of those in Konoha.
And it was at the base of one of those trees that, hours later, Naruto found himself cursing it.
And the forest.
And the flowers.
And basically every piece of vegetation in Konoha.
He groaned, picking himself up from yet another fall in his ongoing war with gravity. The training exercise looked simple enough—walk up the tree using chakra. But somehow, his chakra always blasted him straight off the trunk before he even got halfway.
To be fair, that was still an improvement. When he’d first started, he hadn’t even managed to stick to the bark at all.
Still, after his umpteenth tumble, he decided maybe it was time for a short break. He flopped onto the grass, brushing off dirt and leaves while flipping open his notebook.
“Okay,” he muttered to himself, “if I can’t stick to a tree, maybe I can at least learn one of the jutsu.”
Not the illusions yet—he wanted better control before diving into those—but the Substitution Technique seemed doable.
He scanned his notes again, squinting at his own uneven handwriting. The first step was simple enough: practice the hand signs. The scroll said that to graduate with good marks, a shinobi should be able to substitute without using them—but Naruto had to start somewhere.
So, hand signs it was.
Considering how long it had taken him to write down all the details, Naruto was pretty proud that he’d managed to memorize the hand signs in less than twenty minutes.
Sure, he’d taken his time to get them just right—fast and flawless—but that only made the small victory sweeter.
Now all he needed was something to substitute with.
He looked around, scanning the training ground, until he noticed… someone else.
Or rather, someone trying to hide behind a tree while watching him.
Naruto squinted, tilting his head. Yep. There was definitely someone there.
The Hyūga girl—Hi… Hina… something.
She seemed nice at the academy. And she kinda reminded him of that girl he’d “saved” from bullies before classes even started. Maybe they could train together?
Grinning at the idea, he got up and jogged toward her. But a few meters away, he noticed something weird: the closer he got, the redder she turned.
Was she sick?
Panic flickered through him. Maybe he needed to find an adult? He had no idea what to do about sickness—he just didn’t get sick himself.
“Hey! Are you alright? You’re all red!” he asked, leaning forward in concern.
The girl made a tiny squeak—“eep!”—stammered something incomprehensible, and promptly fainted.
Naruto froze, blinking down at her.
“…Huh. So… no training, then?”
After staring at her for a long, uncertain moment, Naruto made up his mind. He ran back to his backpack, grabbed his water bottle—he was pretty sure he’d heard someone say it was important to stay hydrated when you were sick—and jogged back to the Hyūga girl.
“Okay, uh, Hina-chan—or whatever your name is—hang on.”
He gently (well, as gently as Naruto could manage) propped her up so she was sitting against the tree, then started tapping her cheeks until she blinked awake.
“Hey, hey! You alright? Here, drink some water. Do you need an adult? I can go fetch one!”
She was still really red. Why did people even get sick? It was so inconvenient. You couldn’t get anything done when you were sick.
“N-n-no, th-thank y-you, N-Naruto-kun,” she stammered.
“Alright, if you’re sure, Hina-chan.”
Somehow, she turned even redder.
“I was practicing the Substitution Jutsu and my control,” Naruto said, grinning. “You wanna train together?”
“S-s-sure! H-hum… I know the p-principle behind t-tree walking. M-maybe I c-could help?”
His eyes lit up immediately. “Really?! That’d be awesome! Thanks, Hina-chan!”
Her blush deepened again—but there was a tiny, shy smile behind it.
With Hinata’s help, Naruto actually managed to make it halfway up the tree before an adult—probably one of her relatives, if the matching eyes meant anything—appeared out of nowhere.
The man immediately started scolding her, though it was the most polite scolding Naruto had ever heard.
“Hinata-sama, there you are,” the man said, bowing slightly before fixing his disapproving gaze on her. “Why did you disappear so suddenly? If you wish to train, you know it would be far better to use the compound’s training hall. At least there, you wouldn’t be bothered by… riffraff.”
His eyes slid toward Naruto’s sweaty, dirt-covered form on that last word.
“Come now, Hinata-sama. Your lord father has already inquired about your absence.”
“Y-y-yes, H-hayato-ji-san. B-bye, Naruto-kun.”
Naruto grinned and waved. “Bye, Hina-chan!”
So what if that wasn’t actually her name? At this point, it was a nickname—and she’d never corrected him anyway.
When she turned to leave and her uncle gave him one last, frosty glare, Naruto couldn’t help but pull a face right back.
Well, maybe it was time to call it a day. He hadn’t gotten around to practicing the Substitution Jutsu, and now that the adrenaline was fading, he realized just how tired he was.
Even though the sun hadn’t yet set, his limbs felt heavy, and his head was fuzzy. He remembered reading somewhere that when your chakra ran low, it caused fatigue symptoms. At the time, he hadn’t been sure what that meant—now he had a pretty good idea.
So he trudged home, grabbed some leftover rice from the fridge, and collapsed into bed at the scandalously early hour of 7 p.m.
Only to wake up at 4 a.m. the next morning.
Bright-eyed and rested, ready for another day of training.
He would get that leaf exercise down by the end of the week. No matter what.
The first thing Naruto did once he got back to the training field was grab two handfuls of leaves.
The book had said to use more than one — in case one disin… disteg… dis— well, in case it turned to dust.
So Naruto lay down on the ground, spread out like a starfish, placed about twenty leaves across his arms, legs, and forehead, and focused on making them stick.
He nearly shouted in joy when, for a few glorious moments, they did.
Then half of them flew off, and the rest crumbled away like ash.
So he tried again.
And again.
And again.
Each time, he added a few more leaves, concentrating harder, adjusting how much chakra he pushed into them.
After over an hour of trial and error — and a lot of grumbling — all the leaves finally stayed exactly where he put them. He even managed to juggle a few in the air without them disintegrating.
That had to mean progress.
Maybe, he thought, he could try a few leaves while walking up the tree. That had to be easier than finding space for twenty all at once.
So he did just that.
And somehow, even though it was harder to split his focus, it actually made both exercises easier.
By the time he stopped, panting and grinning, he’d managed two whole steps higher than yesterday—while keeping about ten leaves perfectly stuck along his arms.
He stopped there, though. As much as he wanted to keep training his control, he really wanted to start on at least one jutsu before the weekend was over. Besides, he still had to do the reading for history class that Iruka-sensei had assigned.
So first, he ran through the hand signs again—just to make sure he still remembered them.
Then, after locating a log a few meters away, he focused. He gathered his chakra carefully, adjusted it the way the book had described, formed the seals, and—
…nothing.
Naruto stared at the log, frowning.
Well. He’d just have to try again, wouldn’t he?
He decided he’d give himself until noon. If he still couldn’t get it to work by then, he’d take a break at Ichiraku and head back to the library afterward. Maybe old man Togawa had a copy of the academy textbook.
His own was all torn up and scribbled over. He’d gotten it secondhand, and it wasn’t even the current edition—just whatever he could afford at the time. The recommended version had color diagrams and examples. His had stains and missing pages.
Still, it was better than nothing.
And Naruto Uzumaki had made “better than nothing” work plenty of times before.
Not that it ended up being needed, though.
When Naruto returned to the library and explained his problem, Togawa-jii-san didn’t hand him the right book or offer him a reading nook like before. Instead, the old man led him to a smaller section tucked inside the library — a space filled with secondhand books available to buy or donate.
And there, sitting on a low shelf, Naruto found the exact textbook he needed.
Alongside it were a few others he recognized from the academy list — ones he didn’t own but definitely should have. And the best part? They were cheap.
Usually, people charged him twice what anyone else would pay. But these books actually cost less than what a random villager would spend at the regular secondhand shop.
When he asked about it, Togawa-jii-san just smiled and said, “A library isn’t supposed to charge access to knowledge. The small fees are only there for upkeep. Most of it’s covered by the Hokage’s office, anyway. The sales just help with the rest.”
Then the old man guided him to a few more books — ones meant to be read inside the library — that covered the same topic as his history assignment. But, as Togawa-jii-san put it, these were written by “authors who actually know how to relay information in a coherent manner.”
Togawa-jii-san, Naruto discovered, had a lot of opinions about Konoha’s education system — and its slow decline.
Naruto didn’t mind. He actually thought it was kind of interesting. And even if it hadn’t been, Togawa-jii-san was so kind that he probably would’ve listened anyway.
And so, Naruto spent his Sunday afternoon actually doing his homework— and, for the first time, enjoying himself in the process.