By the time Naruto had finished his conversation with Hinata they had reached the academy. The academy teacher, the chuunin Iruka-sensei, was standing next to the door with someone unfamiliar to Naruto.

"Well, well, well this is new. Naruto and Hinata coming to school together," implied Iruka-sensei.

Hinata quickly buried her face in her hands but not before everyone could see that her face had turned as red as a beet. Naruto blushed as well but yelled at Iruka-sensei.

"It's not like that Iruka-sensei," said Naruto in his normal exuberant mood.

"Okay, okay," said Iruka-sensei feigning defeat.

"Who's the other guy with you Iruka-sensei?" asked Naruto cocking his head toward the chuunin with the blue-white hair.

"This is Mizuki, he will be helping me with the genin test today," said Iruka-sensei as he filtered through some papers on his clipboard.

Naruto and Hinata walked inside and sat down next to each other in the front of the room. The room began to fill up with the other students from the class. The students that sat in the back were from the lesser known families of the village and usually did not participate that much in class. The others from that sat in the front of the class were from the better known families of the village but they still kept their distance from Naruto. In class Naruto and a group of other kids were known to pull pranks at any given moment in time. Most of the students needed to keep on their guard in order to dodge anything that originated from Naruto. Naruto only pulled these pranks to be noticed though. Anything he could do to get rid of the silence in class he normally would do. He despised how almost all the villagers hated him but he never showed it. He always had a goofy smile on and anyone that saw him would think he was the happiest person in the world. Only Naruto himself knew the smile was faked.

Soon the class was full of students and the two instructors entered the room. The room suddenly went silent. Everyone looked towards the front of the room and noticed Hinata sitting next to Naruto. This was something that was never seen before. No one sat close to Naruto if they could help it and no one expected anyone to willingly sit next to him let alone Hinata who was always really shy and would converse with no one. Just as suddenly as the room went silent it erupted in crazed whispers about Hinata and Naruto.

"Alright that's enough settle down," said Iruka-sensei in a docile tone indicating that he didn't want to be here on a Saturday morning as much as everyone else.

The class once again returned to silence. Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei were shuffling through some papers when Naruto began to fidget.

"Okay we will begin the test with the Henge no Jutsu," said Iruka-sensei as he got out a list of names, "first one up … Hyuuga, Hinata."

Hinata stood up shakily and went up to the front of the room.

"Hey Hinata," Naruto said. Hinata looked back towards Naruto. "Good luck and ganbatte ne."

Hinata was so happy that Naruto wished her luck that she was no longer nervous about the test. She walked into the designated area and awaited instructions for the test.

"Alright Hinata we would like you to do a Henge no Jutsu and transform into either one of us," said Mizuki-sensei.

Hinata nodded and readied the Jutsu. She preformed the necessary hand seal to do the Henge and a puff of smoke erupted around her. When the smoke disappeared an exact replica of Iruka-sensei appeared. Then through another wave of smoke she transformed back into Hinata.

"Very good Hinata," said Iruka-sensei as he and Mizuki-sensei wrote something down in their clipboards. "Now we would like a Bunshin no Jutsu … two copies should do it."

"Hai," said Hinata as she preformed the necessary hand seal for the Bunshin. Suddenly two puffs of smoke erupted near Hinata. Out of these two puffs of smoke came two exact replicas of Hinata.

"Very good again Hinata," said Iruka-sensei as the clones disappeared. Hinata walked back to her seat next to Naruto and sighed as relief washed over her.

"Thank you Naruto," said Hinata as she laid her head down on her desk.

"Don't mention it," said Naruto.

The rest of the class was being called down one after the other, each completing the tasks of the test with minimal alteration in outcome. Soon there was only Naruto left.

"Uzumaki, Naruto," read Mizuki-sensei from the clipboard.

Naruto heard people whispering about him and soon he felt disheartened.

"Naruto-kun," Hinata whispered. Naruto inclined his head toward Hinata, "ganbatte-ne Naruto-kun."

Naruto stopped dead in his tracks and though no one has ever said that to me before. Naruto didn't realize that he had stopped and some people began to laugh at him thinking that he was scared to take the test.

"Naruto it's your turn," said Iruka-sensei.

Naruto snapped out of his stupor and walked the rest of the way towards the testing area.

"Now as with the rest can you perform the Henge no Jutsu?" asked Iruka-sensei.

Naruto performed the hand seal but the product was much less than expected. The image of Iruka-sensei looked as if it was combined with a baboon.

"Now Naruto … is that what you really think I look like?" asked Iruka-sensei while chuckling.

Naruto got a little angry with this, "Fine … I'll show you a better Henge," said Naruto as he flashed a few hand seals and gathered some chakra around his body. "HENGE!" screamed Naruto as his chakra erupted forth a puff of smoke. Everyone waited for Naruto's Jutsu to come out expecting something really stupid. Just then a female version of Naruto came out of the partially cleared smoke. The smoke that was left over covered the private parts of nude female Naruto. "Hi my name is Naruko and I think you're the best," said the female Naruto. Naruko then winked and blew a kiss toward Iruka-sensei. Iruka-sensei looked stunned for a second then a blood rocket erupted from his nose and he fell back in his chair. "HAHA, how do you like my Oiroke No Jutsu," said the now male Naruto as he clutched his gut from laughing so hard. Everyone in the class began to blush from Naruto's invented technique.

"You and your stupid Jutsu Naruto!" screamed Iruka-sensei as he punched Naruto on the head.

Naruto hit the ground hard knocking the entire laugh out of him. He slowly got up and rubbed his head.

"Now enough with your pranks and do the Bunshin no Jutsu," said Iruka-sensei as he wiped the blood from his nose.

Naruto performed the hand seal for the Bunshin no Jutsu. Instead of two clones Naruto could only get a pale and decrepit clone. Naruto looked at the clone with dismay then turned his head towards Iruka-sensei.

"I'm sorry Naruto but with that performance on the Bunshin I can't let you pass," said Iruka-sensei with a sad look on his face. "Congratulations to the rest of you on becoming genin."

Naruto was devastated from this turnout.

"Iruka he did produce a clone can't you let him pass?" asked Mizuki-sensei.

Naruto instantly perked his head up to see if Iruka-sensei could be swayed. He had hope in his eyes that he might still be able to become a genin.

"I can't do that Mizuki, everyone else was able to produce two fully fledged clones … Naruto couldn't even get one to come out right … I can't let him pass," said Iruka-sensei as he laid down the clipboard.

Naruto walked out of the academy and sat on a swing that hung from a nearby tree. He sat there watching the other kids come out of the academy with his or her Konoha shinobi headband. The kids were so happy with their parents. Naruto felt completely empty inside looking at all of the smiling faces. Naruto never had anyone to congratulate him whenever he did something good, or comfort him when he failed at something. Naruto was devastated from the failure and just sat there on his swing with an empty look on his face.

"There's that boy, the one with the d…" whispered a woman who was cut off by her friend.

"Shut up. You know we're not allowed to talk about that," said the first woman's friend.

The first woman glared at Naruto with the most despiteful look he had ever seen in his life, "I'm just glad he didn't graduate. Can you imagine what would have happened if he became a shinobi?"

The other woman nodded to her friend in agreement. Naruto overheard their whispered conversation. He wasn't sure how but he heard their conversation so well it was if they were having it right next to him. Naruto was close to tears now so he grabbed a pair of green goggles from his pocket on his left leg and slid them over his eyes so no one would see. He got off his swing and headed towards his little sanctuary where no one else would be.

Hinata was close enough to hear the conversation without the aid of the mysterious force. She was curious as to why they would say such a thing about her beloved Naruto. She walked up to the two women and asked, "Why don't you want Naruto-kun to graduate and become a shinobi?"

"See Ibara you were too loud!" said the second woman sternly.

"Well if you were closer I wouldn't have had to have been loud Tsubaki," said the first woman apparently named Ibara.

The two women continued to fight with each other and Hinata knew that she wouldn't be able to get any information out of them anytime soon. Instead she headed into the academy to get a better source of information. When she entered the academy she saw Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei going through some papers. She hesitantly walked up to them and cleared her throat to announce her presence.

"Ah Hinata what can I do for you?" asked Iruka-sensei.

"Well … um … It's about … uh … Naruto-kun," said Hinata as her face turned red. She felt a bit skittish talking to someone about Naruto.

"I'm sorry Hinata but I couldn't pass him if he couldn't get both of the techniques right," said Iruka-sensei obviously misinterpreting what Hinata had wanted to say.

"No it's not that," said Hinata, "some people outside were saying they were glad that Naruto-kun had not passed and I wanted to know why someone could think that about someone."

Iruka-sensei looked over at Mizuki-sensei who had a slightly nervous look on his face.

"How could two people be so cruel to someone they don't even know?" asked Hinata as tears began to well up in her eyes.

"I'm sorry Hinata but I can't tell you why they said that," said Iruka-sensei as a saddened look crept over his face. "Some things are just better left explained by the person that it affects the most that way you can get the full and complete story with no lies and no alterations."

Hinata was confused by what Iruka-sensei had said but she accepted it nonetheless. "Arigatou Iruka-sensei," said Hinata as she bowed.

"Gomen Hinata but maybe you will learn why someday," said Iruka-sensei.

Hinata left the academy to go to her favorite spot in the park in order to think about what had just happened. As she was nearing the park she began to hear a rhythmic thumping sound. Hinata knew that there wasn't any construction going on here so it couldn't be machinery. As she got closer to the park the thumping noise got louder. It sounded as if something was hitting a tree. When she entered the park through the tree line she noticed someone was punching a tree. She walked closer and saw that the person was Naruto.

"Naruto-kun … what are you doing?"

Naruto turned around to see who it was. He saw that it was Hinata and that she looked concerned. Naruto quickly dried up the tears on his face and covered up the sad look with a fake smile. After he did this he place his hands behind his back. Hinata noticed that he was crying and decided to try and comfort him.

"Why were you crying Naruto-kun?" asked Hinata as she walked closer to Naruto.

"It's nothing don't worry about it," said Naruto as he tried to brush off the subject by waving his hand.

Hinata noticed that Naruto's hands were covered in blood and were mangled pretty bad. Hinata assumed that they got that way from punching the tree. She looked around and noticed that a lot of the trees had bloody indents on them.

"Naruto you hurt your hands," said Hinata as she grabbed Naruto's hands. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a piece of cloth and began to wipe the blood off of Naruto's hands. She took out a small container marked ointment in kanji and began to rub some of it on Naruto's hands. She then wrapped up Naruto's hands with some bandages that she took out of her other pocket.

"You're really good at this Hinata," said Naruto not thinking to think it instead of saying it.

Hinata instantly froze. She had forgotten that she was with Naruto. She was so focused on a pair of injured hands that she completely forgot about the outside world. "I… was just… gomenasai," stuttered Hinata.

"I should be the one saying sorry," said Naruto as he examined his hands. "I'm the one who wrecked my hands."

"Why would you do that to your hands?" asked Hinata.

"I'm just mad that I couldn't pass the genin exam," said Naruto. He lay down in the grass next to Hinata and stared up at the sky. Hinata looked on with admiration at Naruto. She was so amazed that Naruto could brush off some things so easily. Ever since Hinata could remember she had loved her Naruto-kun but no one in the village even remotely liked Naruto. The grown ups would all take their children away from him when Naruto tried to be included in a game that was being played. It was so sad that Hinata started to cry.

Naruto noticed that Hinata was crying and got up on his elbows. "Hinata what's wrong … why are you crying?" asked Naruto.

"How can you … be so nonchalant about … what happens to you?" asked Hinata through sobs.

Naruto got up and leaned towards Hinata and embraced her in a hug. "Hinata the reason I can do that is because I'm really used to it," said Naruto as he began to rub her back trying to get her to stop crying. "They just don't care about anyone but themselves."

Hinata was shocked that Naruto was hugging her and all she could do was cry. Although she was sad at the moment Naruto's words had a strange power to comfort her. She almost immediately stopped crying.

"There all better now," said Naruto as he gave Hinata his fake smile.

Hinata managed a weak smile for Naruto. Naruto saw this and his fake smile got a little reality boost and began to become a little real itself.

"Are you okay now Hinata-chan?" asked Naruto as he began to think of Hinata as a friend.

Hinata was so happy that Naruto had added the chan title to her name. Hinata knew that Naruto was beginning to like her. I'm finally making progress thought Hinata. "I'm okay now," said Hinata. "Thanks Naruto-kun."

Naruto lay back down in the grass and said, "Don't mention it." He looked up at the sky and a light breeze picked up. Hinata lay down next to Naruto and they both looked up at the sky as the clouds rolled by. Soon the wind picked up a bit more and the trees began to sway in the breeze. The sound of the trees and the wind combined with the view of the sky left both Naruto and Hinata in awe.