A/N
It is time for the time skip! Woo. I have noticed a severe mistake in my writing, thanks to Anariel Phoenix Blade for name suggestion and JarodR1979 who pointed out my mistake.
Hope you enjoy the chapter.
Naruto grinned widely. Today was the graduation day from the ninja academy. He was going to become what Iwa refused him, a genin. The blonde grinned widely as he opened the door across the hall. "'Suke!" He shouted out. The raven haired boy opened his eyes groggily. "'Ruto? Its five am… leave me alone. We weren't supposed to train today remember." Sasuke said as he laid back down on the pillow.
"But 'Suke! I'm excited!" The blonde shouted happily. The two boys shared a laugh. "Take a jog or something." Sasuke proposed as he fell back into his dreams. Naruto sighed as he left the room.
After a long run around Konoha, Naruto finally found his way back into his house. Minato and Kushina was finally awake and the red headed woman was preparing breakfast. Minato was reading the newspaper, were the headline was clearly imprinted.
It was a year since the Uchiha massacre, which never was supposed to happen. Minato had found out about the coup the Uchiha were planning, and he had hoped that he had stopped it when he executed Fugaku Uchiha for treason and the others high in the plans imprisonment.
He never foresaw what happened a week later.
Itachi was a sweet child, and a loving older brother. The young man had become ANBU captain at thirteen, a feat for every ninja.
The accident wasn't officially announced to the other villages, but some of them knew of it anyway. Minato had figured that if the entire Uchiha clan was killed right after they had gotten their punishment, it would seem as if they had planned for the Uchiha name to be tarnished before killing them all of, except of one to keep the bloodline.
Sasuke didn't know about all the details. It was one of the reasons that he had such a ranting session right after Fugaku had been executed. It took Minato, Kushina, Mikoto and Itachi to calm him down.
Speaking of Itachi once again. The talented boy had apparently killed of his entire clan except Sasuke in one night, some said it was to test his prowess, other said it was because he felt the other Uchiha's were a disgrace and the boy was a close son to his father, and knew about the coup.
Minato knew that Itachi wasn't in the coup, after all, they had a Yamanaka search every single Uchiha to file out the traitors, and Itachi was clean.
The reason for the murder of his clan? Minato did not know.
Naruto sat down by the table. While this time they didn't have such a big breakfast as Naruto would have hoped for, a toast was enough for him. Sasuke came down not soon after.
The two brothers shared a laugh as they reminded each other of that morning's events. "So you're excited 'Ruto?" Sasuke said. Naruto swelled out in pride. "Of course, I got to be rookie of the year of course." He said. Sasuke scoffed. "I'll be rookie of the year, you had a head start in training, but I've caught up with you."
Sasuke's words weren't empty. The two boys had gotten a training regime that made them even stronger than the average chuunin, close to low jonin level.
In the morning, they actually had the time off, but they had a taijutsu spar and practiced different chakra exercises they could come up with. Then they went to the academy.
When they got home they had a meal before taking a jog out to the training ground on the other side of the village, coincidently being training ground 7 to Kakashi and Minato's amusement.
There Kakashi and Jiraiya were waiting for them, Minato was there when Jiraiya had to leave Konoha for his spy network. The reason was that after Naruto returned from Iwa, Jiraiya had made it possible for his contacts to communicate him at an outpost not far away from Konoha, where Minato would flash to for the reports they would leave.
This lead to much less travel time for Jiraiya, but the old man didn't mind as he got to train his godson instead.
Jiraiya and Kakashi would train Naruto and Sasuke respectively. Jiraiya let Naruto sign the toad summoning contract and helped the blonde to coordinate and use combined jutsu with the amphibians. Naruto also learned a lot about the spy network, since Jiraiya expected him to take over it after the sannin.
Kakashi taught Sasuke different jutsu to widen his reservoir. Sasuke also was allowed by Minato to take one of the summoning contracts that were collected from the Uchiha clan, who gathered bird summons. This was proven by Itachi's crow summoning.
Sasuke found the Hawk summoning contract, and after negotiating with them for a year he finally was allowed to sign. This turned the raven head into the only hawk summoner. Sasuke also took a liking to kenjutsu, so after his training with Kakashi he was assign a tutor in the art, Gekko Hayate. Naruto swore to never get to close to him because he was convinced that all coughing led to sickness, and Hayate never stopped.
Naruto got training from Asuma occasionally on these sessions, both of them being wind nature users. Asuma taught Naruto how to correctly channel his chakra into different chakra conductive weapons.
After that they went home, eating dinner and then went back into the basement to do whatever. Sasuke mostly practiced different ways to do his jutsu and Naruto was studying fuinjutsu.
The boys was competing for rookie of the year at every single occasion, but both showed what had been proved in their first match. They were completely equal; the other lacked what the other had.
The soon to be genin ate their breakfast with haste since the clock was dawning upon them, and they had to be at the academy earlier today than usual.
Once finished they left their plates on the table to Kushina's chagrin. The two of them jumped out of the window swiftly and made their way to the academy.
They still arrived ten minutes early and the two sat down at their seats. Hinata arrived not soon after. "Hello Naruto-kun, Sasuke-san." She said politely as she sat down on the other side of Naruto.
Naruto and Hinata had gotten along quite well, and Sasuke had seen after accompanying them on several occasions when the clan heirs and Sakura got together.
It had been obvious that Hinata had fallen for Naruto, the blushing, the admiring and the occasional fainting.
Naruto was a bit more complicated. While it was obvious he cared for Hinata deeply, the blonde itself was sure it was friendship, while not even married people cared for their husbands or wives as much he for Hinata.
Sasuke found it incredibly funny and stupid at the same time.
He thought the two fit together, make an amazing couple. With Naruto's advanced healing bloodline and Hinata's byakugan, it would be an amazing combo. Though it was mostly because the two teens literally acted like married people who weren't kissing so often.
Sasuke himself wasn't that much into love. He cared more for finding the truth behind the massacre and his brother. He had read the newspaper, it only told them to remind the great tragedy, no facts.
He had also made a good friend out of Hinata though, and also found a rival in Hyuuga Neji, Hinata's cousin. The older boy had graduated the year before them, and he had 'a large telephone pole in his ass with barbed wires on it' as Naruto put it nicely.
After Neji and Naruto had spared, and Neij found himself outclassed by the talented academy student, he had taken to speaking with Sasuke, trying to find Naruto's weakness through his brother.
It failed miserably, but led to a somewhat friendship between the two boys.
Naruto met Neji's teammate Rock Lee, and to Sasuke's prevail, the two energic boys had started training together when they had time. That, was an intense training session he could say without breaking a sweat or thought.
Naruto had endless stamina, and Lee refused to stop whenever he could. It led to several competitions between them, Kakashi and Gai had even joined them once in a while, as the competition between the 'eternal rivals' as Gai dubbed it.
The other clan heads were filing into the room, all of them arriving a little ahead of the actual time.
Once all the students who had made it to the sixth year was in the classroom, the ball rang. Iruka came in with Mizuki and Minato who were there to observe the genin hopefuls
"First there will be a written test, you will have thirty minutes on it. Afterwards you'll perform the basic three in the room next to this. Then you'll be graded in the special study you took. In the end there will be an accuracy test and a taijutsu spar between you and Mizuki." Iruka said as he placed the exams on the students' desks.
After the thirty minutes had come and went, they were called in alphabetical order into the next room.
Naruto stepped inside the extra classroom. Were the teacher's desk used to be was a long table where his father, Iruka and Mizuki sat. "Okay Naruto, perform the transformation, substitution and a clone technique." Iruka said.
Naruto smiled as he performed the first two flawlessly. If it had just been the clone technique, the exam would have been a lot harder for him. Minato had put an end to that after seeing there were more students who had more chakra, which made it harder to control. Mostly in Naruto's case though.
Therefor all students just had to create a clone, it was simply so many different ones you could choose between at the library. Some of them was higher ranked than others depending on the chakra cost.
Naruto crossed his hands in a familiar sign. "Shadow clone jutsu." He exclaimed. The room was filled with white smoke before several Narutos was in the room.
Iruka smiled to himself as he checked off Naruto.
The blonde went to his appointed classroom where his special class members were seated. Naruto had taken the weaponry class, specializing in the art of using the three pronged kunai set his father had given to him. He worked with chakra conductive metal and learned how to correctly control his wind chakra and how to direct the kunai while in air. This also gave Naruto the idea of controlled falling, which was a major ace in the hole during battle.
Naruto smiled brightly as Sasuke entered the room, having been told by his kenjutsu teacher that all weaponry class students were to gather in the same room.
Before they had been separated between short – mid – long range weapons, and since Sasuke had chosen a larger version of the chokuto which fell quite naturally to him. After he began training lightning based ninjutsu he was able to electrify the sword he bought and extend its length and usefulness during battle.
Naruto and Sasuke was indeed a strong duo, but what Naruto and Sasuke feared the most was the team elections. They knew for once there was a chance they got into the same team, after all, they had great teamwork and knew of each other's strength and weaknesses better than anyone.
Though there were many downsides.
For one, they were brothers, which could lead to the "do not have too familiar contact with your team." As it could hinder the mission. They also were both top of the class, which could make their third teammate feel like the third wheel, being weaker than the two. They were also both political masterpieces, both having positions that promised them lot of power.
It would be easy to tell them that they had to balance out the teams, so they put the strong with the weak like they had done before. While Naruto found that tradition stupid and swore never to do something like that when he became hokage, they did not know what Minato thought about it.
After having spars with all kinds of ranges, the special class test ended and they went outside the academy. Iruka and Minato were sitting behind a desk that was placed out there, and Mizuki stood inside a ring.
"Okay, first we'll do the accuracy test, five kunai and five shuriken, ten targets. Bullseye is one point, a hit close enough to it will also count. Further away will be 0.5 points, and a miss or a close miss will be zero points." Iruka called out.
The children nodded and lined up. Shino got a good 7.5 points, followed by Choji who got 7 points. Sakura got 6 with a close call to 5.5. Hinata got 9 points, being really close to 9.5. Kiba got 8.5 points, as he had worked with his accuracy since the last accuracy test, where he got a 6.5 and was so embarrassed his mother had to wash him behind his ears. Shikamaru got 7 points.
Sasuke came up with 9.5 points, and Naruto too barely missed and got himself a 9.6, being a little closer than Sasuke so they decided to give him a little point more to even out who won or not.
Iruka was actually really tired of their competition, but it made them work harder so it was good enough for now.
Ino scored a 6.5, which she said was good enough for now.
Mizuki's turn came up, and he motioned them to stand around the ring. "We'll have a taijutsu spar here, where the judges will grade you on your every move. There are no points here, though you get better if you manage to either knock me out of the ring or if you manage, knock me out completely.
Alphabetical order line once again. Naruto groaned. He always had to wait longer for his turn. He was second to last all the time, and he wanted to show how good he was to everyone, not just embarrass Ino who never trained enough so she seemed even worse after him.
Not that Naruto was bragging.
Sasuke did well against Mizuki, but the chuunin was still worthy of his rank, barely. The older man also had the experience to back it up. Sasuke frowned at himself. He could hold himself against Naruto, but they had the no killing or seriously harming limit. Naruto probably held back. He was, as the tsuchikage had wanted him to, trained to kill.
When Naruto stepped into the ring, he thought he should impress the judges a little. He gathered some of the kyuubi's chakra into his system. Making his eyes red and slit, his whisker marks more pronounced and his senses heightened.
What surprised him was the amount of killer intent Mizuki directed at him. It was almost like back then. Naruto pondered what to do. When the match started it seemed like the chuunin still held back, but his punches and kicks were more accurate and stronger.
Naruto immediately decided to get more serious. He sprang to action as he got behind Mizuki, kicking a roundhouse kick to Mizuki's side, not wanting to injure the man.
Mizuki growled lowly at him. The two went into a flurry of attacks, before Naruto used a hard punch, not a chakra infused one, into Mizuki's chest, knocking the air out of the man. Mizuki stepped out from the circle, but the teacher sneered at him as he charged again. Naruto got out a seal he had in his pocket and threw it onto Mizuki.
It didn't work at once, but the moment Mizuki appeared before him, the teacher fell to the ground. Minato and Iruka immediately appeared beside him, wanting an explanation.
"He already stepped outside the circle." Naruto explained. "When he charged at me again I felt his intent to harm me. I threw a paralyzing seal on him." Naruto said. Minato patted Naruto on the shoulder and he looked at Ino. "Why don't you take a spar against Naruto Ino? I'm sure he isn't tired and can replace Mizuki for now." Minato suggested as he looked at Iruka, who nodded in approval.
Ino looked at Naruto, the boy was a genius and she was supposed to spar with him? The girl nodded weakly and stepped into the circle. Naruto only used mediocre moves to block and counter Ino's for a while. Then he slowly went onto offensive to show his father and Iruka both sides of Ino's taijutsu, offence and defense.
Naruto managed to extend his fist a little too far, which had given Ino the chance to grab him and throw him off balance I she wasn't so focused on dodging it. She bent to far back and fell on her back. In a normal battle Naruto would have been able to kill her several times. He extended his hand to the blonde.
"Ino. I'm not saying this to belittle you, but you and Sakura should take your training more seriously." He said. Ino looked angered on both her and Sakura's part, but Naruto hushed her as he bent to her ear.
"Sasuke likes strong girls, and I guess he would pay more attention to you if you both became strong kunoichi. Try some fitness training, don't bother with the diet and most of all, do not fangirl over him. He despises it, he wants you to grab his attention by not trying, and he sees what you do not show. Take advantage of that and better all of your good and bad parts. Good luck." Naruto whispered and stepped out of the circle.
Ino smiled gratefully at Naruto. "Okay boys and girls." Minato said. "We are going to calculate your results, wait in the classroom for the meanwhile, we'll be there soon." Minato finished and smiled at them.
Naruto, Sasuke and Hinata discussed several things about the test, Naruto was a bit less detailed about the Mizuki match than Sasuke and Hinata were used to, but decided they should ask later, after all, Naruto loved to keep the secrets between them and not let anyone listen in on them.
They waited in the classroom until Minato came out with Iruka carrying several headbands. There were some other bands that none of them recognized in several colors.
Minato smiled at them all.
"Congratulations, all fifteen members of this class has passed! This is the first time in at least years, if not the first of all, were all has passed. It is truly a promising generation. To second that surprise, Hinata hyuuga has ranked the highest female in the class, gaining rank two in the genderless ranks." Minato said.
Naruto and Sasuke shared a look, there was only one spot for Rookie of the Year. "And for our Rookie of the year, Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze-" Naruto gave out a loud shout of joy. "And Uchiha Uzumaki Namikaze Sasuke." Naruto deflated a little, but both boys shared grins. Iruka came up after finishing to give out all the headbands.
"This is my last day as you guys teacher. It has been a most pleasant experience, and I know all of you will become aspiring ninjas. Good luck and we'll see each other every once in a while." Iruka said smiling. He had some tears in his eyes, but no one noticed, except Naruto, who shared those small crystal tears.
Iruka was the first teacher Naruto had had except from Roshi, Han, Jiraiya and Kakashi, who were more like family, who actually cared for his wellbeing. It felt Naruto with pride to know such a man.
"Meet here in three days at three o' clock. You'll be assigned into teams and get a jonin sensei." Iruka finished as he dismissed them. Naruto immediately ran up hand gave Iruka a quick hug. "Thanks Iruka-sensei." He said quickly before he, Minato, Sasuke and Hinata walked outside.
The lavender haired girl spoke up. "I have to tell my father that I passed and got rank three and top female student. I'll see you guys later!" She said as she was met with a branch member escort. Naruto frowned at the sight. Another thing he had to deal with when he became hokage.
Naruto and Sasuke had tried to bribe Minato into telling the teams they would be in. The father only responded with that it wasn't completely decided yet, but they had some idea what to do about it.
The two brother groaned.
"You have to see for yourself in three days. By the way Naruto, Konohamaru, Moegi and Udon needs someone to watch over them tomorrow. If you could pick them up and bring them here after their academy lessons so you and Sasuke can watch over them. You have the day off after all." Minato said smiling.
Naruto sighed. "So that's why he told us not to bother asking for the teams. He wanted to give us a reason to watch those kids." Sasuke nodded. "While I understand the importance they pose to some villagers, I find it highly unsuited that they are being watched by you." He said. Naruto nodded before he glared at Sasuke. "What the hell do you mean by that?" He shouted.
Kushina suddenly appeared behind them. "Remember that we're also going shopping the day after tomorrow. You guys need more appropriate outfits and new equipment now that you're going to become genin."
Sasuke gave her a questionable look. "What do you mean by become? We already have the headbands." He said. Kushina looked away. "Oh look, Ichiraku ramen!" She shouted. Naruto immediately turned towards there and grabbed Sasuke by the arm as he ran towards the ramen bar.
Sasuke forgot who he was dealing with. Kushina knew how to turn Naruto's attention elsewhere with just three words. "Ichiraku Ramen, there." And of course, Naruto would always drag Sasuke with him.
They met up with Hinata at the park later, Naruto giving the details of Mizuki's behavior during the spar. "It's too suspicious." Naruto said as he gobbled on an apple. "He was so full of malice I found it weird no one else noticed." He continued. "I mean, that was to hardcore for an exam match, I think that if I had dropped my guard down when he stepped out of the circle, he would have gotten me hospitalized." The blonde gave a grimace.
"And I wasted my seal on him."
Hinata and Sasuke laughed. The blonde always cared about the little things. "I think Minato has noticed, he knew the look you had on your face. I bet Ibiki's got Mizuki by now." Sasuke said as he took a tomato out from his bag, eyeing the red food before taking a bite.
Hinata nodded. "A-and if something were to happen, I saw that Minato-san placed a seal on Mizuki's neck, if he runs Minato-san will be there in a second." The girl said as she smiled at Naruto, who blushed a little but shook it off.
"Man, it would be great if we got on a team together, but I mean, when was the last time they put the top three in one team? Unless dad has changed the traditions I'll be stuck with Kiba or something." Naruto said. Sasuke laughed. "Or me."
Both of them ha similar grimaces and Hinata giggled at them. "I think I'll be in the team with one of you at least, occasionally they put the top female student with top male, and a mediocre student. Also we're getting those second bands at the third day, I overheard Iruka and Minato talk about it when I we were leaving the grounds." Hinata said smiling.
Naruto grinned at her. "I sure hope I'll be in a team with you Hinata! I can live without Sasuke, but you, I don't think I would be able to live with myself. You're my girl—best friend after all." Naruto said.
Sasuke laughed. "You're so weird little brother." He said mockingly. "That's okay, junior. I'm still your senior in battle." Naruto replied. The two gave a mocking glare at each other before laughing.
After the trio had spent a couple of hours just being together, they split up. Hinata was picked up by another escort to take her home, while Sasuke and Naruto just walked back to their house.
The two brothers ate dinner with their family as they chatted and commented on the test, still trying to slightly get a hint about their team.
"But dad, can't you at least tell us if you changed put the rookie of the year with the dead last tradition?" Naruto asked. Minato shook his head. "What fun would that be? You guys are so anxious that I cannot help to keep it for myself." The older blonde said laughing.
"You'll be fine anyway Naruto. I know you will." Minato said.
A/N
Okay, so that is the ninth chapter! I'm going to work on the dead last of the future fic this weekend, since I'm having a special occasion for it. I might update a new chapter tomorrow or the day after, depending on my mood.
Speaking of the teams, I am not sure which I want to use and would love to hear your opinion on it, so far it is:
Team 7: Naruto, Sasuke & Hinata (Because they already have good teamwork)
Team 8: Kiba, Sakura & Shino (They have a good strategy/backup/scouting)
Team 10: Ino, Shikamaru & Choji (InoShikaCho, It's in their blood to be amaze)
Or
Team 7: Naruto, Shikamaru & Hinata (A good all-rounder team)
Team 8: Sakura, Sasuke, Kiba (Attack/support team)
Team 9: Choji, Ino & Shino. (A good intelligence gathering/attack team)
R&R, or contact me elsewhere.
