Naruto One Man Team by Ackdam

Chapter 3: An Unpleasant Day

As Naruto walked down the hall to his little retreat he once again found himself recalling the afternoons events. Aside from the event with Kiba outside of Ichiraku's, the day went great. Hinata was slightly surprised that Naruto had taken her to an actual restaurant, and though they were a little under dressed for the place it didn't really matter. After all this was a ninja village so while it was rare to see people dress as ninja in such a restaurant, it wasn't unheard of. Thankfully it had been a newer place that had little to no knowledge of his reputation. They got a seat in a booth that was out of sight of most of the floor, and Naruto took the seat that was the least visible. It wasn't that he was embarrassed to be seen on a date, quite the opposite, but he didn't want to subject Hinata to the discrimination that he was so used to getting.

The meal was perfect and they ate in silence. Hinata showed her well practiced manners while she ate with grace and perfection. Naruto showed that he was capable of at least above average table etiquette, slightly surprising Hinata as thoughts of him eating with her and her family became more of a possibility. Well, at least a little more then just a dream anyhow. After dinner, which he paid for after letting her know that he had already taken on some missions so he had a little money to spend, they went through a walk through the darkening streets of Konoha. He was sure to keep an eye out for unfavorable reactions as they went so he could avoid confrontations if possible. His actions proved unnecessary though as he only saw some glares but no hostile actions. At least for now. Most likely they would wait until he didn't have a member of such a prestigious clan with him. That was fine though. He was an official ninja now, and there were more laws that came into the light once he officially graduated. Specifically ones that kept villagers from attacking shinobi. Which meant he could retaliate and, while it wouldn't allow him to kill them, he was allowed to detain them and turn them in. Sure it wouldn't mean much right away, but eventually they would come to realize that there were now consequences. He wasn't stupid enough to expect more then a night in custody at most, but anything was better then the nod of approval they got from the civilian council as they did in the past.

Opening the door to his own personal vault he saw his clones still hard at work. He was pleased to notice that the ones he gave reading material to, now were looking through more scrolls then what he had given them. One close by was just finishing a scroll on one handed seals. Before it got up to grab another scroll Naruto had it dispel. The effect was not immediate as he had believed it would be, but the knowledge did come. Not only that but it seemed it spread to the other clones as well when he noticed some of the clones practicing jutsu were incorporating the one handed seals in their training as the knowledge came. Smiling at the progress he began dispelling clones as they finished up their current projects, getting a slight headache when he dispelled multiple clones at once. After soaking up their knowledge he practiced a few of the jutsu himself using both one and two handed seals. He soon found that two handed seals gave a little more power to any jutsu that he chose, but could easily see where one handed seals could be useful should one of his hands be injured or occupied, say by his sword. Oddly enough the scroll that had listed the one handed seals was the only one he'd found and it had still been in the packaging. He wasn't sure why someone would toss out something so useful, but he wasn't about to complain.

He did a few more tests to see just how many of his theories on clone usage worked. Knowledge was an obvious gain as he was steadily gaining the experiences of his clones. He learned that earlier as they were dispelling after completing their missions. A few kunai tosses didn't really produce much, but that wasn't all his clones had practiced throwing, so setting the kunai aside he pulled out one of his less proficient weapons, a hand ax. It wasn't really a ninja weapon especially this one which had a previous life as a wood chopping hatchet. He made a new handle for it though and it was at least passable for its former job. Now though he was using it for throwing practice. Drawing his arm back he threw the ax at one of his targets hitting it a bit low and to the right. Not enough to be considered accurate, but after a few more throws he found he was consistent. Definitely more so then he had be on previous attempts as the gouges in the floor and wall could attest to. Next he did a quick lap around the ceiling to check his control. Again like the kunai practice there wasn't much to see, but he would keep it up regardless as it couldn't hurt and may show its results over time. After all it isn't like his chakra control was horrid, and there is only so far you can improve before it is no longer in leaps and bounds.