Evenings were for Kenjutsu training. He knew weapons though required extra training but having an extra ace was never a mistake.
Day 3
The late afternoon sun was a hazy orange disc over the Konoha training grounds as Naruto stood in his secluded clearing. In his hands was a bokken, a dull, heavy piece of wood, noticeably thicker than the standard practice swords he'd seen. It was dusty, ignored, and pulled from a forgotten corner of the Academy's weapons rack. No one had noticed it was gone, just as no one ever notice him.
"No one is going to teach me anything," he muttered, flexing his scarred hands around the unfamiliar grip. "So I'll teach myself."
He started with the bare minimum stiff-legged stances, wide, clumsy swings, and textbook-perfect guard positions he'd only half-paid attention to in class. The bokken was not an extension of his will it was extra weight, an uncooperative stick that threw his whole body off balance. He sighed, the sound heavy with frustration, and immediately conjured ten clones.
"Alright, you guys know the drill," Naruto instructed, rubbing his sore shoulder. "Diversify, one for wide slashes, one for thrusts. You two, focus on the kata flow. And you," he pointed to a clone, "just balance it. Find the perfect balance."
He watched his clones and copied their movements and failed, though he tried again. A clone ran through the slow, exaggerated movements of a strike, its eyes tracking the arc and posture, searching for the point where the elbow locked or the shoulder tensed. Naruto mirrored the slow drill, his muscles protesting the unnatural strain.
By the time the sun dipped below the distant treeline, painting the sky in crimson, his palms had a map of raw blisters. But when he lifted the bokken for one last, weary swing, it felt good. His grip was firmer, his wrist less prone to wobble.
The sword felt… less foreign. It was still a burden, but it was no longer an absolute stranger.
Day 4
The following morning, one of Naruto's shadowy assistants was dispatched to Training Ground 12, with a discrete task to observe a group of older Genin sparring with their wooden blades.
The clone poofed hours later, the memory of their movements sharp and clean returning to the original. Their deflection, parry, counter, pivot all of it moved in a smooth process. Back at his own clearing, Naruto and the assembled clones replayed the footage, dissecting every angle.
"Step back on the deflection," he grunted, mimicking a retreating block. "Twist with the block, and keep the edge aligned."
He couldn't get it right. His practice blade wobbled and bounced off the clones' blocks sometimes his defense was late and other times his strikes were either too slow or wildly overshot the target. He cursed, loudly, fiercely kicking up a cloud of dust in the process.
But he didn't stop. He pushed them harder, sparring until his arms felt like jelly. That night, two clones became chalk artists. They used bits of charcoal and white chalk to diagram every failed movement onto walls. Each figure was marked with a correction: the proper elbow angle, the correct foot placement, where to release shoulder tension.
Naruto studied the makeshift blueprints under the fading light of a nearly full moon.
"This is how you fight with a blade," he muttered, tracing a line on the bark with a sweaty finger. "Not swinging like a fool."
Day 5
Today's objective was integration. The bokken couldn't just be a tool, it had to become an extension of his own body. A new limb. He tied a cloth around his off-hand, limiting its movement and forcing the focus entirely onto the sword. He ran basic Taijutsu routines, substituting every punch, every defensive stance, with an arc of the blade. Slashes had to flow with the economy of a jab and thrusts had to follow the seamless pivot of his foot.
The clones were no longer just sparring partners, they were merciless feedback units.
"You drop your guard after every swing!"
"You're over committing, pull the elbow in!"
One clone forced the issue, fighting him with a shorter, lighter practice knife, constantly forcing Naruto to adjust his reach and timing on the fly. He began to grasp the core principle. Kenjutsu wasn't about raw strength. It was about pressure, distance and control.
By night, his clothes were soaked with sweat, but a tired smile touched his lips. In their final spar, he managed to land three clean, deliberate strikes before his opponent disarmed him.
Not perfect, far from it. But the difference was staggering. The bokken no longer dragged him down.
Day 6
The final day was silent. Naruto moved through a complex kata under the golden light of the sunset. Twelve swords, twelve clones, moved in perfect synchronization. No sound but the soft rustle of leaves and the low thud of wood meeting wood.
Later, he began mixing his Kenjutsu into his Taijutsu spars. Clones attacked him with punches and kicks, and he responded with parries, controlled blade-taps to pressure points, and angled strikes that redirected momentum.
He was no longer just reacting but adapting. Feinting a slash to draw a defensive kick. Twisting his torso to let a blow graze past. He even found himself using the flat of the blade not to wound, but to control an opponent's movement.
"The sword isn't just for killing," the thought emerged, clear in his mind. "It's for control over every opponent."
When the last clone finally dispersed in a puff of smoke, Naruto stood panting, arms shaking, the heavily chipped bokken still raised in a perfect guard. He looked down at the battered wood. Then, he let out a short, tired laugh, a genuine, quiet smile settling on his face.
"Still rough," he admitted to the quiet clearing. "But it's mine now."
He decided to use night to study for his lacking knowledge including History, Geography and Shinobi Tactics
Night 3
The small, lonely apartment was silent, the air thick with the smell of old paper. Naruto sat hunched at his desk, a single candle burning low, casting flickering shadows over a collection of old academy scrolls he had silently borrowed. They were thick with dust and clearly hadn't been touched in years.
He opened the first,The Founding of the Hidden Villages.
His lips moved as he sounded out the words, reading slowly but stubbornly. "Uzumaki were seal masters… allied with the Senju…" He squinted, piecing together the timeline of the Warring States Period, the bloody, endless cycles of clan warfare. He read of how Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha united, and how that union inevitably shattered.
Naruto paused, his eyes lingering on the name."Madara... traitor or visionary?"
It was a question that new Academy textbooks never mentioned, preferring a neat and simple syllabus nowadays. He didn't know the truth of his ancestors either, but he carefully wrote the question down in the margins of an old math notebook he was now using.
That night, he slept late, his mind no longer cluttered with fear and self-pity, but swimming with the complex and murky stories no one had ever bothered to tell him.
Night 4
The next night, his table was cleared and replaced by a treasure, a worn-out, meticulously detailed map of the Elemental Nations, held flat by four kunai placed on the corners.
A clone circled key landmarks in vivid red, the Hidden Villages, the treacherous mountain passes, the great rivers that served as natural fortifications. Another clone meticulously labeled the trade routes, volatile border zones, and the grounds of known historical battles.
Naruto traced the distance between Konoha and the Land of Waves with his finger. "A shinobi's strength means nothing," he recited from the scroll he'd read, "if they don't know where they stand."
He learned which countries bordered with Land of Fire, the reputations of their allies, and where the scars of old wars still stained the land. He began to see the world in terms of chokepoints, supply lines, natural ambush zones, and vulnerable coastlines.
The mess of names and places began to transform. The world was not a simple globe, it was a board. A living, complex battlefield, by midnight, he could redraw the Fire Country's southern border from memory.
Night 5 – Tactics of War and Shadows
The scroll for the evening was intimidating: Shinobi Tactics: Foundational Doctrines.
"Read it aloud, I'll take notes," Naruto directed one clone. The room was filled with quiet, focused voices as Naruto absorbed the teachings he should have learned years ago.
1. "Avoid conflict where victory is uncertain."
2. "Ambush is the art of time and terrain."
3. "A lone ninja cannot win a war, but they can end one."
He learned about pincer formations, bait strategies, false retreats, and the critical power of misinformation. He studied how specialized shinobi squads medics, taijustu specialist, and ninjutsu types formed synergy. The realization hit him so many missions went wrong because of poor planning or arrogant overconfidence.
He picked up his journal and wrote with a focused, serious script: "I want strength, but I need intelligence to use it." At dawn, he tested his own ambush layout using five clones and a drawn map of the forest. Two clones "died," but three succeeded in their objective.
"Needs better fallback timing," he muttered, adjusting the markers on the makeshift battlefield.
Night 6
The final scroll was heavy with silence: The Third War: Losses and Legacy.
He read names, hundreds of them. Shinobi who had died in missions, battles, and ambushes. He didn't know most of the faces, but every name was followed by a rank, a cause of death, and a mission classification. A devastating pattern emerged, many Genin die on their first C-rank missions due to poor intel, poor preparation or extreme confidence. He stared at the dry, official records.
"The village protects its secrets. Not its soldiers," one clone whispered, his voice quiet but grim. Naruto stared at the final, chilling implication, in simple words it meant expendable. He let the cold reality of his world settle over him. He closed the scroll, turned to a fresh, clean page in his notebook, and titled it, My Mission Doctrine.
1. Always scout, never assume.
2. Plan with the worst-case in mind.
3. A dead hero helps no one.
4. Clones are tools, use them without ego.
5. Never fight fair unless the opponent is already dead.
He leaned back, his gaze sweeping over the walls now covered with maps, tactic diagrams, clan names, and battle notes. His small apartment felt smaller than ever. But his world had finally grown, stretching far beyond the walls of the village.