An orange bundle lying on a small pile of rags shifted, eventually sitting up and rubbing at his eyes, as sunlight filtered through the hole in the wall which was apparently a window. Slowly, he trudged through a dusty doorway to his kitchen, instantly heading to the fridge where he kept all of his ramen. Naruto wasn't even completely conscious yet, the action of preparing instant ramen for breakfast had become second nature for him. Still lost in thought, he started to collect water from the tap attached to the side of his wall, turning away slightly from the glare of the sunlight.
'Wait… Glare?'
"OH MY GOD I'M LATE!"
Naruto quickly rushed out of his small apartment, for once, forgetting his precious ramen cup which still sat on his table. At that present time, all he could think of, was first, how he would never become Hokage if this kept up, and second, how Iruka-sensei was going to KILL HIM! But even as he ran as fast as his legs would carry him, fate seemed to try and stand in his way, as he came to a skidding halt, looking in horror at the mass of villagers in front of him.
'Oh crap… I forgot about them…'
The usual villagers who seemed to have taken a liking to throwing things at him, were now amassed in their usual place. Except now, it was later in the day… Which meant that there were more now…
'Just calm down… You can get through this… OW! No I can't, no I can't!'
Attempting to cover his head with his head as much as possible, he began running again.
As expected, when the blonde finally dragged himself into the classroom, Iruka had absolutely lost it, although most of the anger was at his lecture being disrupted. It wasn't until Naruto began to walk to his seat that the Chuunin teacher stopped, noticing the trail of blood that seemed to be following the boy's feet. Apparently, parts of the class noticed this too, as a portion of the fan girls stopped giving starry-eyed gazes to Sasuke, and instead, widened their eyes in shock or disgust. Hinata, who had been looking rather down at the sight of the empty seat beside her, looked up and smiled, before the expression abruptly left her face at the sight of him.
"Um… N-naruto… W-what happened to you?" she asked the boy as he took his seat beside her, the numerous scratches and cuts evident on his clothing and skin. Her pale eyes widened when he turned around, as she took in the sight of a fresh bruise forming around his left cheek, steadily getting darker.
'Why does he keep appearing in class like this…'
Naruto felt as if he'd been hit by the fourth Hokage's head from the Hokage monument. Every one of his steps had felt excessively heavy, and it had been a hard fought battle to open the door, step in, and shuffle to his seat whilst enduring the 'interrupted-lecture rage' of his sensei. He'd almost grinned at the collective gasps of the class, but was a little surprised when he heard a much smaller, more timid sounding gasp, coming from his left. He looked to see Hinata looking straight at him, or rather, the injuries on him, a look of concern on her face. But what shocked him most, was the single tear that gathered at the corner of her eye, and slowly rolled down her skin, dropping to the table surface. Just as Naruto was about to ask what was wrong, she spoke up, in a rather shaky voice.
"W-why… Why do y-you keep coming to c-class with these injuries?"
The blonde began to sweat nervously, he didn't want anybody, especially not his only friend, to know what was hapenning.
"Uh… it's nothing really… I just trip over things and crash into stuff a lot… yea…"
Looking at her expression, she clearly wasn't convinced, and Naruto hoped that she would just drop the subject, so he wouldn't have to talk about it. His hopes were dashed quickly.
"No, really Naruto. What's causing all of these?" she asked, gesturing vaguely to his numerous injuries, speaking with a strange conviction – even her stuttering was temporarily gone! The boy could see that he had no choice, and began to explain.
"Well… the villagers kind of –"
"NARUTO AND HINATA! STOP TALKING AND PAY ATTENTION TO THIS EXPLANATION OF CHAKRA CONTROL!"
With a sudden strange enthusiasm, the blonde snapped his attention quickly to the front, focusing extremely intently on what Iruka-sensei had to say. Sighing, Hinata also faced the front, once again taking note of the various techniques the Chuunin was describing. Of course, now that she didn't have some sort of determination to make sure that the boy beside her was ok, her normal routine, which consisted of casting occasional glances at him, and blushing, resumed…
Naruto was practically falling asleep as Iruka neared the end of his lecture, snapping out of his sleep-like state instantly as soon as he heard the words "practical activity for chakra control." Eagerly, he followed the rest of the class out into the training grounds, where multiple wooden 'walls' had been erected fro the practice.
"Alright class, your job for the rest of the day is to try and climb up these walls." Iruka said, pointing to the smooth wooden surfaces.
"They are vertical, with no handholds, which means it will be impossible for you to do without using your chakra. In this case, you focus chakra to your fingers and hands, as well as your feet, too allow you to stick to the surface, like this!"
The entire class stood with their mouths agape (except for precious little Sasuke of course, who simply stood there with an unimpressed expression), as their sensei clung like a spider onto the wood, and began pulling himself up, using only his fingers and toes as points of contact.
"Ok you've gotten your instructions, now begin!"
The brown haired Chuunin watched as his students attempted to climb up the three metre tall walls, some trying a running start to get higher, others simply scrabbling hopelessly whilst still on the ground. Sasuke, who'd clearly received prior training before the Uchiha clan massacre, was already sitting on the top, in his usual brooding pose, ignoring the squeals and promises of love from the fan girls who had grouped around his wall. But he noticed, that as he continued observing the students, that he couldn't see Naruto or Hinata anywhere.
"Um… Sensei…"
A soft voice spoke up, and he turned to see Hinata with Naruto.
"Do y-you really t-think that Naruto s-should be taking part in t-this exercise?" she asked, gesturing to his torn clothes, and undoubtedly, the injuries underneath them. Behind her, Naruto violently shook his head at his sensei, and Iruka, knowing of Naruto's healing ability, tried to convince the Hyuuga girl that the boy would be fine.
"Naruto's a tough one, he'll be fine. Right Naruto?"
The blonde quickly nodded in agreement, and raced off, grabbing Hinata's hand and practically dragging her to one of the vacant wooden walls in his eagerness to get started. Iruka instantly took note of the red shade that had suddenly sprung up in the shy girl's cheeks the moment Naruto had touched her hand. Turning away, he smiled knowingly to nobody in particular.
'Those two are going to get together for sure when they're older…"
A loud SMASH sound, followed by the audible noise of wooden splinters hitting the ground, brought his attention back to the blonde.
Naruto had been about halfway up the wall when it'd happened. Before trying to begin the climb, he had entered the horse stance, formed a hand sign, and focused to see whether he could actually call up his chakra. He was almost delighted, when he saw that his chakra network, as Iruka had called it, seemed to have a boundless supply. It almost felt like there was a second source of it somewhere… not that the current one wasn't large enough! Grinning, he'd directed a large portion to his hands and feet, and started to climb, only for the wooden surface to shatter as soon as he put his second foot on.
"! Iruka-sensei, the wall exploded!"
The Chuunin walked over, looking at the pieces of wood lying all over the ground, then at the sheepish looking blonde, who was now rubbing the back of his head, a nervous grin on his face.
"It's alright Naruto, that tends to happen when you put too much chakra, and the wood isn't strong enough to channel it all. Try again on another wall."
The boy obliged, and put his hands up to it, only to have it instantly shatter, with no time to even start climbing.
"What the hell…" he muttered to himself, as he went over what he'd felt his chakra system do. The first amount he'd put in was normal, he was sure of that. But as he'd put his hands to the wall, Naruto had felt it suddenly increase, a boost from that 'second' chakra source he'd found before. When he voiced these concerns to Iruka, they were dismissed as 'not very important, and was advised to work on controlling the second source to try and prevent it from putting in any excess chakra. Confused as to how to do this, he decided to take a break, instead, standing under Hinata as she tried, in case she fell. However, there was clearly no need for this, and Naruto could only watch in awe (and happiness, she was his only friend after all!) as the shy, blue-haired girl slowly made her way up, until she reached the top, where she now sat with a gleeful expression.
Ironically, Naruto was the one stuttering now.
"B-but… you… how… first time…!"
The girl just giggled, and prepared to climb down, swinging her feet back onto the wall, when her hands suddenly seemed to lose their grip on the slippery wooden surface.
"AHH!"
Naruto stared in shock as she fell, headfirst, towards the ground. In an attempt to catch her, he quickly rushed under Hinata. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground, a terrible pain in his head, and something heavy on his body.
"Ow…"
Gathering his bearings, he tried to get up, only to find that the heavy weight on him was preventing him from doing so. Craning his neck forward to see what it was, he saw that he'd partially succeeded in helping Hinata – even though he'd failed quite remarkably at catching her, he'd provided a landing spot so she wouldn't be hurt.
'Wish it wasn't this painful though…'
Feeling the bundle on him stir slightly, he smiled, glad that she was alright.
"Hey Hinata, glad you joined us again," he said with a smile. The reaction he got however, was completely unexpected. The blue haired girl stiffened up suddenly, at the sound of his voice, took a few moments looking at his clothing, as if registering that it were orange, and that it was Naruto she was on, before her face suddenly flushed multiple shades of red that couldn't be healthy. It also didn't help that she'd fainted, still on him, as he was now stuck.
"Uh… Iruka-sensei help!"
When the Chuunin saw the position Naruto was in, his eyes goggled out, and for a moment, he was at a loss for words at what he thought was happening before him.
"NARUTO WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING WITH HINATA?"
Iruka glared down at the boy as he sputtered and tried to explain.
"N- No! Honest I wasn't doing anything! I just tried to catch her when she fell!" Seeing his sensei's unconvinced glare, he felt it was necessary to put in a more convincing argument.
"I SWEAR I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING LIKE THAT! NOW HELP ME GET BACK UP!"
'There. That should convince him.'
As the brown-haired instructor lifted the girl gently off him so that he could stand up again, Naruto began questioning Iruka as to why Hinata kept fainting.
"… and she keeps going red all the time, as if some sort of really fast fever keeps hitting her. Then she just faints. She's not sick or something is she?" he asked, a face of innocent concern put up. That expression changed to shock as he watched his sensei suddenly face vault into the ground, legs sticking up at a peculiar, unnatural looking angle, occasionally twitching slightly.
"?"
With a helpless shrug to nobody in particular, he turned back to the wall to resume the practice. Once again he raised a hand up, focusing some energy into it. Surprisingly, a small blue glow appeared, forming a three dimensional shape close to his hand. Naruto wasn't sure whether this was meant to happen or not, but decided to try it out anyway. Reaching out, he touched his hand to the wall. Without so much a second of contact, it shattered.
'…'
He tried with the rest of the walls, with little change to the results. Before long, a very annoyed class was looking at him, as he sheepishly walked out of a large pile of wooden pieces.
'I guess they're not too happy that I kinda blew up their practice wall after asking to borrow it for a bit…'
Whilst attempting to think a way out of his sure to be impending doom, he suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion.
'Man I'm tired… why wha-…'
Unable to even consciously think any further, he collapsed, the only signs for the cause of this being the chakra burns on his hands, which even now, were disappearing, glowing with a strange red light as they did…