chapter:6 iruka

Ah c'mon sensei! I'm fine, honest." Finally feeling like he was catching up, the attention starved boy didn't want to slow down now.

"I'm not going to tell you to stop training, but no more all nighters. You need to be in bed by 10 and you can't be at the training ground before 7 unless it's for a mission. Got it?"

Seeing the boy give a dejected nod, he continued, "You have to give your body and your mind time to rest and heal.

You won't make good progress if you don't.

Also, after missions and training with the team, you need to give yourself at least 2 hours of downtime before starting up your evening training, got it? You need more than just ninja training in your life."

That was a lesson Kakashi had learned to late, but he could pass on that bit of life lesson to the boy.

"Fine fine, I'll tone it down. Anything else?"

"I'm glad you asked!" Opening a storage seal behind his back, Kakashi presented a basket full of fruits and vegetables, "With the amount of training you're doing, ramen isn't enough, we need to balance out your diet.

I know you haven't had someone to explain nutrition to you, but you're going to be a shorty forever if you don't start eating better.

Plus, you'll never put on any muscle either, get it?"

Even more dejected but willing to listen to his sensei that actually seemed to be trying for once, Naruto nodded one last time.

" Okay, I'll start eating better. Trying to at least."

He hadn't said ramen was out, just that he needed to eat other stuff to.

"Good, now off you go. I don't want to see you back here for at least 2 hours." Plus, Kakashi figured, it'd irritate his other two students to see Naruto late as well. They needed to relax some.

Ignoring his sensei as he pulled free his pervy book and disappeared into the trees, Naruto himself made a half ram sign and disappeared into a swirl of leaves, basket in hand.

Not more than a few moments later Naruto was walking through his front door with a yawn and a frown, "Guess I gotta eat some cruddy rabbit food and take a quick nap before heading back."

His stomach deciding to grumble loudly in that moment, he would admit that he was hungry enough to ignore the fact that what he had wasn't ramen.

That didn't mean he couldn't grab a quick snack on the way back to the team meeting. Thought in mind Naruto set about putting his basket of groceries on the table before heading to his room to shower and change. It wouldn't do to show back up smelling like one of the Inuzuka dogs after all.

After cleaning up and changing into a new outfit, he was back to making a quick breakfast of eggs and toast, with some added vegetables from what his sensei had graciously given him.

Complain he would but he wouldn't waste food, ever.

Carefully folding his eggs into a neat omelette, he placed everything on a plate on his table before putting the dirty pan back on the stove. Not as carefully as he should have as some hot oil splashed out and into the still going flame.

Shutting the flame off and patting out the small fire with his jacket, Naruto had to groan at the singed sleeve of his coat.

Already knowing he wasn't about to put his dirty jacket back on, he ripped this one off and decided today was a t-shirt day.

Putting the rest of his gifted groceries away in his fridge and scarfing down his quickly made breakfast, it wasn't even an hour later before he was headed back out of the door and towards the Ichiraku's stand, a spare black jacket now over his shoulders and open, showing his black t shirt with red Uzumaki swirl on the front.