Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter four is here! ... still a boring name. Yeah, I think we need a better title. If you have any ideas for chapter titles for chapters 3 & 4 feel free to suggest them! The start of the canon material is in this chapter.

RISE AND SHINE, KIT!

Naruto groaned. 'What time is it Kyuubi?'

Uh…10 am?

'You liar.' Naruto looked at his clock. 'AGHH!!! How could you? Waking me up at 2 in the morning?'

Sorry, Kit. I just wanted you to go and do your routine before you started training. You know, with Anko, for kenjutsu. She did say she'd teach you anytime, remember?

'Yeah…alright, I'll do a warm-up before I meet with her.'

His warm-up consisted of holding up an elaborate genjutsu around the area, performing different jutsus, striking logs, and running 4 miles. All at the same time. He was done by 4 am.

'Yatta! Breakfast time!" Naruto went inside to fix his customary meal of ramen.

Anko wasn't joking when she said anytime, but 5 am? Her teammate couldn't be serious. She grabbed her precious katana and went to the meeting spot he had described in his message.

Naruto waited patiently and decided that it probably was a good idea not to use the legendary sword, so he had made his own, which was surprisingly easy for him with the Kyuubi's help and a lot of practice and some handy dandy fire jutsus. It was an excellent sword. The hilt wrapping was the blue of his eyes (suggested by Kyuubi) and the cross guard was a regular rectangle, but with an intricate pattern of feathers and leaves. The blade was surprisingly light and had a very nice balance. All in all, it was a first-rate weapon.

Anko arrived and immediately discovered that her teammates form was terrible. Entirely from-the-book, and predictable.

"Alright. First thing I want you to learn: "from the book" isn't going to work here. You need your own style, which you'll discover after some experience. You need to know your own strengths to exploit and weaknesses to compensate for. Standard isn't going to cut it. Second, I'm a harsh teacher. You don't like it, leave."

Kitsune listened interestedly. He had learned more in her minute of speaking than from all the scrolls he had read on kenjutsu. His response to her last statement was to just stay put and continue his steady gaze at her through his mask.

Anko put Kitsune through his paces, and at the end of the session, he was looking much, much better. Anko was impressed. It usually took a week or two to impress her first statement into her student. Kitsune was different. This was actually going to be productive. 'Yeah! No more incompetent teammates!' cheered Anko on the inside.

Over the next couple of weeks, Kitsune's improvement showed itself clearly from the new way he held his body. His movements were much more graceful and conserving of energy, plus his own style was surprisingly hard to breach. He had even applied what he had learned to wielding his kodachis and was even more deadly with them than with his katanas or ninjatos. Kitsune was satisfied, and after finishing with everything Anko had taught him, his occasional spars with her made his continuous improvement known to her.

2 years later

Naruto bounced along. Kitsune had become extremely successful, and Naruto was fulfilling his role as village idiot and prankster very nicely. He was heading over to the Hokage even now to receive his next mission. 'I wonder what it's going to be this time, Kyuu.'

Hope it's something more interesting. Last couple were a little boring…

'Yeah, well I better hurry up, or I'll be late.' Naruto made it the rest of the way in record time and bounced into the famed office. "Hey, Hokage-jii. What's up?"

The Hokage winced at the nickname but had long ago decided that it was best to just ignore it. "I have something interesting for you this time. Well, you might be a tad bit bored, but I need you to attend the academy again. We need someone in there. There's been some suspicious activity coming from one of the staff and we want you to make sure it's taken care of."

Naruto sighed. How troublesome…

The Hokage noticed his reluctance. "Hey, there is something a little more interesting. Look. This is a list of people in the class you'll be a part of."

Naruto skimmed the list and stopped where the Hokage had his finger at: Uchiha Sasuke. "Oh…"

The Hokage smiled. Mission accomplished. There was no way Naruto could deny this mission now. It was a done deal.

And so it was. Naruto was enrolled into the academy for the incoming class.

First day of Academy

Naruto stood with his ridiculous outfit in the crowd waiting to get in. He had noticed a lot of hostile glares from some of the people. A particularly hard "accidental" shove sent him sprawling to the floor. 'Some things never do change, do they, Kyuu?'

Sorry, Kit.

'No, no. It's not your fault. Just the darn people's way of thinking.' Naruto was so absorbed in the mini-conversation, he didn't notice someone almost trip over him.

"Aren't you going to get up?" an annoyed voice asked. Naruto looked up into a pair of milky white eyes with no pupils, but didn't respond. "…Well, I might as well help you up, seeing as you're blocking my path. Maybe it was fated to happen." Hyuuga Neji sighed. Things like this were so troublesome, but fate was undeniable, so he stuck out his hand for the blonde to take.

Naruto hesitated but took the proffered hand to pick himself back up. However, when he touched the other student's hand, it felt like a strong electrical shock went through both of their arms. Both felt pain in their eyes, but both pretended that nothing had happened.

Neji didn't want to seem like a spastic weirdo. The younger kid couldn't have been able to do anything, and no one else was around them, so he would just look weird if he grabbed his eyes all of a sudden.

Naruto was thinking along the same lines, but actually knew what was going on. He muttered a hasty "Thank you" and "Sorry" before running off and berating himself for being an idiot. 'Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. I knew he was a Hyuuga. I should've remembered about the Byakugan. I'm so stupid, stupid…'

No use repeating yourself over and over again, Kit. It's not your fault, everybody forgets things sometimes. Anyway, he won't know what happened, so it's not too bad. Just get a grip. You'll be fine.

Naruto took some calming breaths. 'Hey. I should try out what I should do with this after school.' At least, now he had something to look forward after the dreaded boredom of repeating the same lessons he had learned years ago.

In the Classroom

"So, hi. Welcome to the Academy! I will be your group's teacher. I am Umino Iruka."

Naruto liked his new teacher. He seemed nice enough, but of course, he was going to have to play the part of class clown and dope. Whatever… it was actually sort of fun. Nobody knew what the real Naruto could do.

The morning progressed well enough. Naruto couldn't help but keep falling asleep as he had had everything drilled into his head years before. He could probably answer the questions while asleep. Which once he did…

Iruka-sensei saw Naruto and Shikamaru asleep again, so he decided to teach Naruto a lesson in paying attention in class. "Alright class. A little pop quiz for what we learned this morning." The whole class groaned. Iruka passed out the tests, which were quite comprehensive, but easy enough if you had paid attention.

He was a little shocked when he saw Naruto pick up a pencil and start writing answers. His eyes were open, but he was still asleep. 'Wow…interesting guy.' Once he was done, Naruto collapsed back on top of the table and kept sleeping.

Iruka graded the tests while the kids had a lunch break. He came to Naruto's paper and smirked, but it faded as he went down the paper and saw that ALL the answers were correct and also contained extra information he had not taught. 'What the heck? He knew the stuff so well he could answer it asleep?' It turned out that Naruto was more interesting than his outside showed.

After Iruka handed back the tests, Naruto's eyes widened. 'Darn. I wasn't careful. I really could answer the questions asleep. This is bad…I don't look like a complete utter dope anymore.'

He noticed that Iruka-sensei was keeping a close eye on him. 'One slip and…I hate this Kyuubi…'

In taijutsu, Naruto made efforts to seem like a klutz, but Iruka sensed something queer. It was as if Naruto was holding back…a lot, and no matter how much Naruto was trying to cover it up, his movements were too smooth and practiced. He didn't look like he belonged in the Academy at all.

Iruka decided that he needed to talk to Naruto.

After school at Naruto's lake

Naruto casted an elaborate genjutsu over the area and tried to master the Byakugan. 'It's SO hard!!!'

Well, we don't exactly have a teacher this time…

'Yeah. And it's not like the Hyuugas will tell me anything either. They'll kill me if they find out I have it. Literally.'

Suddenly, Anko appeared by his side. She had learned of his true identity in an extremely unfortunate situation when Naruto's mask had shattered due to a particularly hard bashing it received from an enemy ninja's club.

His genjutsu normally didn't cover his face, as it would be a waste of chakra, and he had been so surprised, he had dropped the genjutsu covering the rest of him by accident.

Anko had immediately understood why he had wanted to cover up his identity and had given him a spare mask they had carried along. Naruto made her swear not to tell any one and even Yamoto only knew him as Kioshi even now, though he rarely saw him anymore. Naruto was the captain of his own team and Yamoto and Anko had a new team member.

Even though she had understood the gravity of the situation then, she never passed up a chance to tease Naruto about it now, so Naruto wasn't too surprised when she appeared next to him.

He actually enjoyed her company. Kakashi had stopped visiting years ago because of how busy he was, so they had pretty much forgotten about each other.

Anko was annoying, but at least she was someone to talk to and train with. She knew about his ability to absorb kekkai genkais, but even so, she was still surprised when she saw the Hyuuga bloodline in his eyes.

"Wow. Got another one, short stuff?"

"Who are you calling short stuff?" Naruto glared at her and she saw a flash of Kitsune in his eyes. Oops. Guess she had hit a nerve.

Anko smirked. "Whoops. Sorry. Slip of the tongue. So…you got the Byakugan?"

"Yup. It was an accident. Got it off of Neji. He still doesn't know what happened, thankfully."

"The little Hyuuga genius? Wow. Good going. Anyway, I came to tell you training is tomorrow. Meet you at the usual place at 9 am." Anko turned to leave, but was intercepted by Iruka.

"Where is my student going during school hours tomorrow?" Iruka had only heard the last sentence and was curious as to what was going on and why a jounin was visiting a mere academy student.

Naruto/Kitsune intervened. "Ah…well, you see Iruka-sensei. I have a little secret."

Anko's eyes widened. "You're going to tell him?"

"Tell me what?" Iruka was even more intrigued now.

"Ah…Anko-san is in the…Ping Pong Club of Konoha. Yes, that's right. We have a tournament tomorrow! Our team is good."

Iruka raised an eyebrow. "Ping Pong Club." He said disbelievingly.

Anko coughed. "Ah, yes. See. I have a premium ping pong paddle here. She held out a henged kunai, but whipped it away as soon as Iruka had glimpsed it. Iruka still felt something fishy going on. "Well then, I'll call in a sub and watch the tournament to cheer for my student…"

Naruto and Anko sweatdropped. This was not going to be easy…

After Iruka had left, Naruto and Anko had desperately gotten together some people that owed them and made them "Official members of the Konoha Ping Pong Club."

They still had to find a group to play against, so they rallied another group from the rain village to be the "Official members of the Rain Ping Pong Club." They had a few connections there from an earlier mission.

It was the day of the tournament and Naruto and Anko were feeling quite pleased with themselves. They were able to pull together a nice group to cover up everything. Excellent indeed, except. "Uh…Anko…I've never played ping pong before."

"Ooops. Neither have I." They looked at each other, horrified. "What are we going to do?"

"Hmm…I guess we'll just go with the flow. Anyways, it's time for ACTION!"

Naruto turned to the crowd that had gathered to watch the so called official ping pong club tournament. "Welcome ladies and gentleman! We're going to have a great time to today with some great matches. Please welcome the Official Rain Ping Pong Club! And I'd like to say thanks to my teacher, Iruka-sensei for coming to watch."

Everyone turned to look at Iruka who then turned a bright shade of pink from embarrassment. He didn't actually think that Naruto was part of a Ping Pong club, and now he was stuck here for the whole tournament. He sighed, Naruto smirked. 'Serves him right.'

The matches started. First up was Ibiki against someone from the rain team. It had taken a lot of favors pulled in and a bunch of blackmailing from Anko to get him to this once for them. Ibiki won quickly. The crowd cheered.

It continued like this and somehow, the ninja were taking this way too seriously. "Hey, Anko. Look, they're playing so fast, the paddles are almost catching fire." The crowd loved it.

Soon it was Naruto's turn. He gulped nervously. His opponent was a huge, a good 3 feet taller than Naruto.

'Hey, Kyuubi. Put a genjutsu over my eyes.'

Sure.

Kyuubi kept up a jutsu to hide the now activated Sharingan in Naruto's eyes.

"Ok. It's show time. Begin!"

Naruto could have won easily with his 3-tomoe Sharingan, but he put up a good show for the crowd.

"Yatta!" He bowed to the cheering crowd. Many of them could not see Naruto's face clearly which he was glad for, or else the cheers would have turned into boos for the Kyuubi container.

Konoha won the tournament and the Rain team vowed their revenge in the next match.

Naruto and Anko nodded in satisfaction. It had turned out to be an extremely successful endeavor. Many people wanted to join the "club" and Naruto and Anko slipped their names off of the register. Most successful indeed.

Iruka sighed. A happy ramen-slurping Naruto was sitting next to him at Ichiraku Ramen. Iruka had treated him as his congratulations for winning the tournament, but who knew the kid could eat this much? Naruto smirked as he ate, remembering a similar incident with a wolf-masked ANBU years ago. Life was certainly good.

Despite the rocky start to their relationship, Naruto and Iruka became good friends, and the day for the Academy finals and dealing with the traitor amongst the staff was there.

Naruto purposely put too much chakra into his bunshin and it went splat on the floor next to him. He almost wanted to burst out laughing at how funny it looked, but that wouldn't do, no that wouldn't at all.

Later that night, he "stole" the scroll as he had planned and went into the forest. He opened up to pretend to be studying from it. 'Yeesh, I know all of these, Kyuu… How boring.'

Oh, here he comes.

Iruka crashed into the clearing.

"Will you let me graduate now Iruka-sensei? I learned one thing from the scroll!"

Iruka looked confused. "Who told you this?"

"Mizuki-sensei!" Naruto let some confusion leak into his expression, but noticed when he saw Mizuki appear on a tree and throw kunai at him. He was ready to bat them away, but Iruka pushed him aside and took them himself. 'Baka…'

He acted surprised when Mizuki told him that he was a demon fox. 'This situation is actually pretty humorous, Kyuubi.'

Yeah…what an idiot. You would think that someone would notice that it wasn't just them in their mind after about 12 years.

Naruto could have stopped the giant shurikan that Mizuki had hurled at him, but once again, Iruka interfered. 'Darn it. I'll just see how this turns out with Iruka like this. It's not really going to plan, but it'll be interesting to see what happens.'

Naruto ran off into the woods. Mizuki caught up to a figure he recognized as Naruto. He was henged into the appearance of Iruka and told Naruto to give him the scroll. Naruto head butted him to the floor.

"Why—Why Naruto? Why do you know that I" he turned into Mizuki "am not Iruka."

"Because I am." Naruto poofed and turned into Iruka.

"Fine. I was going to deal with you later, but I guess I have no choice." Mizuki unhooked another giant shurikan from his back.

The real Naruto sighed behind a tree. 'I guess break time is over.' He stepped out in front of Iruka. "Don't you dare touch Iruka-sensei. Or else…"

Mizuki smirked. "Or else…?"

"Or else I'll kill you!"

Mizuki laughed. "Yeah…a drop out like you can beat a chunnin like me? Yeah, fat chance!"

"We'll see about that! Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Hundreds of Narutos appeared. Iruka gasped, and Naruto had to suppress a snigger. He had known this technique since he was 4. What was such a big deal?

The Narutos attacked Mizuki, and by the time that sun had risen, Mizuki was unconscious and looking pretty badly on the forest floor. "Oops, I might have over done it a bit…"

Iruka said. "Come here Naruto. I have something to give you." He made Naruo close his eyes, and when he opened them again, Iruka's hitai-ite was sitting on his forehead.

'Oh, boy. I wanted to wear the one I got from the Academy when I was 5, but I want to wear Iruka-sensei's too. What a fix. I'll figure out something later.' For now, he smiled at Iruka-sensei and they headed back to the village towing an unconscious Mizuki behind.

A/N: Ok, I'm still trying to shift all the age and time frame things, but I'm just wondering if anyone knows how long the kids stay in the Academy, and what age they start. Thanks!