Disclaimer I own nothing, with that said carry on!
I want to say the timetable for the academy chapters may be a bit vague, essentially being that this is school life and I want to get through it but don't want to rush it at the same time so sorry if it seems like I'm jumping around a lot.
Some characters will get fleshed out more than others but they will eventually get covered post academy and beyond.
"95...96...97...98...99..100..." A young voice counted out slowly, the strain in their voice indicating some form of heavy physical activity.
Naruto lay sprawled out in the center of his old training field, his chest rapidly rising and falling as he tried to regulate his breathing, and banish the familiar burning sensation in his arms that accompanied his physical.
He still hated pushups with a burning passion.
Taking a few minutes to rest Naruto took a moment to review the pasts six months since he'd joined the Academy. Being totally honest he had barely noticed the time go by at all he was always busy either attending class, training, or reading and it was rather easy to lose track of time.
Not to say he hadn't accomplished anything in that time, far from it in fact he had perhaps taken the two most important steps forward towards his goal within the past few months.
The first being he had finally found a taijutsu style that fit him.
True to his word Iruka had followed up their impromptu sparing matches with both an evaluation of their standing and advice on where to improve. He had received high marks for speed and power, but his lack of proper technique forced him to make unnecessary and high-risk maneuvers, Iruka citied his headbutt that while effective, still left him vulnerable and relied too heavily on his ability to recover faster than his opponents to be useful.
He had been slightly upset at the critique seeing as he had won his match but had to admit if his opponent had been a more experienced fighter he probably would not have gotten so lucky.
That knowledge had made him anxious to see if maybe any of the Academy styles would help refine his fighting, seeing as there were three variations of it to help accommodate for different types of students.
The Iron Oak style for more defensive oriented students who could take a hit and allowed the user to punish openings left by attackers.
The Winding Willow style for speedy students who preferred waiting to evade attacks and retaliating with quick strikes, while weaving in and out of an opponents guard.
Lastly, the Burning Pine style was an all-out aggression style for those who wanted nothing more than overwhelm their opponents with a flurry of attacks never giving them the chance to counter.
His results with the three had been mixed, however...
He had been able to incorporate some moves from each into his brawler/boxer like style giving it a bit more finesse than he'd had before, however, none of the styles truly felt right to him in their full forms, with the Willow style coming closest but it was too passive for his taste, leaving him somewhat out of luck.
So, he decided to do what he always did when he ran into a roadblock.
Go to the library.
Contrary to popular belief one did not actually have to be a Shinobi to gain access to certain areas of the shinobi section of the library. Information on things like chakra control, taijutsu techniques, and jutsu theory was all readily available to the public.
The village wasn't going to hamper its citizens who wanted to learn to defend themselves or civilian children who didn't have ninja relatives to fall back on by keeping everything locked and hidden away.
The only requirements to get into the shinobi section without being a registered ninja were to submit a form to gain a pass, which was more so for security than anything, or...
Be a student attending the Shinobi Academy.
He had heavily abused that newfound knowledge to spend hours going over scrolls and various texts trying to find a proper style for himself.
Within a week he had what he had been looking for.
The Hummingbird style.
The Hummingbird style, at first glance, reminded him of the Winding Willow style, with both placing a high emphasis on speed to engage enemies. The difference that caught his attention was that the Hummingbird style wasn't about pure evasion, but rather using speed to dance around the target using unpredictable movement patterns to confuse the enemy when attacking.
He spent a few days running through the beginner forms detailed in the scroll and felt it immediately click with him. It played to his strengths and had room to be tweaked if he decided he wanted to pick up a weapon in the future as well.
He had spent the next month and a half getting the basics down and was now working on the starting intermediate moves.
The second big event blew even that out of the water though.
He had finally had his Chakra unlocked!
*Flashback*
Naruto sat in a meditative pose, his eyes closed as Iruka's voice softly explained the process of feeling out their locked chakra cores.
Despite all people possessing Chakra, it wasn't inherently active within them from birth, instead, it sort of just sat in the coils, moving slowly almost like sludge through a pipe doing just enough to keep its owner alive but not enough to be used for anything else.
This slow flow allowed for a person's chakra network to stabilize over time before finally settling, at which point the flow would almost completely stop.
Ninja, however, learned to call upon their chakra moving it throughout their bodies and forcing the flow to continue, this had the side effect of expanding their coils and allowing for the production of more chakra, essentially chakra acted like a muscle and through training, it would grow and expand.
The caveat to all this is that the longer someone waited to activate their chakra system the harder it became to get it moving and at a certain point it was near impossible to call upon it at all.
It is why civilians never suddenly dropped their professions to become shinobi.
However, if a person chakra system was activated too early the coils could be damaged which was not a pleasant outcome either so it eventually became standard practice to have children unlock their chakra from the ages of around six to about ten, any later and the odds of them unlocking it fell dramatically.
Iruka spoke again breaking him from his thoughts as he refocused on his sensei's words.
"I will be going around to administer the booster shot that'll jumpstart your chakra systems, don't be afraid of the feeling but instead follow it and try to drag your own chakra with it." He explained.
The booster shot wasn't like the ones a doctor would give, it would be more appropriate to call it a chakra injection.
The process broken down was rather simple someone essentially shot a pulse of chakra through you, the pulse would drag your own chakra speeding up the circulation so that you could feel it and begin moving it on your own.
There was a lot of theory behind it that he wasn't even going to try and understand, he was more focused on finding it first before he worked out how it moved.
"Naruto are you ready?" He heard Iruka ask above him.
"Yes, Sensei!" He replied, immediately perking up eager to begin.
"Alright, remember to try and drag your chakra once you feel it moving inside you," Iruka replied.
Naruto nodded and felt the man place a hand on his back and drew in a breath in preparation...
"Release!" Iruka called out, launching a series of chakra pluses through the boy.
Naruto waited anxiously searching for any feeling whatsoever...
Nothing, he didn't feel any different or even anything unusual.
"Um, Sensei I don't feel anything..." He spoke, confusion and slight fear in his tone as he looked towards his instructor for help.
Iruka was silent for a few moments contemplating this news, he tried shooting a few more pules but the boy remained adamant he couldn't feel anything.
That left Iruka with two possibilities either the boy had a malfunctioning chakra network, or...
He'd already had his chakra unlocked and he didn't know it.
People who already had their chakra unlocked could barely feel the booster shot due to the fact their chakra was already circulating and the change wasn't noticeable enough for them to register it.
"Naruto I want you to try something for me." He said, "I want you to imagine a small blue flame right in the middle of your stomach and focus as hard as you can on it."
Naruto closed his eyes and tried visualized what his instructor had asked, he gradually felt a warm sensation around his lower stomach as slowly a flicker of azure flame appeared in his mind sitting at the center of his body.
"Okay sensei..." He whispered, trying to hold onto the feeling.
"Now try and spread that flame through you." He said.
Naruto took a breath and gave a small mental heave, willed the flame to grow and fill him.
It flickered briefly expanding slightly but remained unmoving.
He tried once more with force, calling out to it and commanding it obey his wishes.
The flame did more than flicker this time, it surged forward consuming Naruto as his mind's eye was suddenly overtaken by a sea of blue fire the warmth flooding his body and his mind succumbing to the feeling of power surging through him.
The reaction on the outside was arguably just as volatile.
The boy's body hummed with visible arcs of blue energy blanketing him in a cloak of raw power, chakra rolled off him in waves and carried enough force to actually create a small gust of wind that sent dust and bits of debris scattering across the wooden floor.
"Naruto that's enough!" The distressed voice of Iruka called out snapping him out of his daze.
"Huh?" He blond blinked slowly temporarily forgetting where he was, having been lost in the seemingly endless expanse of fire and the lingering warmth he felt surging throughout his body, a foreign but at the same time familiar feeling.
Iruka had never seen a child possess that much raw chakra, the boy easily had almost as much if not more than he himself possessed and he wasn't even half his age!
Immediately Iruka's thoughts drew him to perhaps the most obvious conclusion. This wasn't just any ordinary boy, but the container to the beast that had almost flattened the entire village...
Iruka took a few moments to compose himself, he had resolved to give the boy a chance and it wouldn't do to start letting fear influence him unless the boy gave him something to worry about he would be impartial.
"It seems like you'd already unlocked your chakra Naruto, you just had to draw it out." He told the boy.
Naruto's faced scrunched up in confusion, how would his chakra system already be active? As far as he knew no one had started it for him.
Seeing the lost look Iruka was quick to guess the troubled youth's thoughts and offered his own suggestion.
"Its possible for a person's chakra system to be activated while they are under heavy stress, perhaps at one point or another you unintentionally managed to start yours without help." He offered.
Naruto frowned slightly at the explanation, something about it still didn't seem to fit in his mind, barring a few close calls with drunken villagers he couldn't recall anything that would fit that criteria.
It seemed like another question in a long list of concerns he had about his life.
For now, he would move his focus once again to what he could work with, specifically his newly acquired access to chakra!
*Flashback end*
He had been ecstatic at the knowledge that he possed such a large pool and wanted to start trying out jutsu right away the idea of bending the elements to his will being almost too much to resist. He quickly found out, however, that he wouldn't gain access to the ninjutsu section of the library until his third year of the Academy.
Amagi had told him it was done to prevent civilians from getting ahold of dangerous techniques then dropping the program, it was assumed by the third year you were probably going to finish and become a ninja after all the physical and mental investment.
That news had been a rather harsh blow to his newfound excitement.
He had, however, been able to work on his chakra control instead seeing that he had absolutely massive reserves Iruka had helpfully advised him to begin the leaf balancing exercises which entailed sticking leaves to his body with just his chakra.
That was easier said than done because for almost a week and a half he hadn't been able to stick more than two leaves on himself at any given time and even then he could only do it for a few minutes before he lost concentration and they were blasted off forcing him to start again.
He took some small solace in the knowledge that at the very least he'd gotten an early start before his reserves had gotten too big to manage. He would have plenty of time to work on his control while he attended the Academy.
After months of hard work he could now do the exercise with up to about ten leaves without too much trouble though he was still working to improve that, he'd even changed his training around to include chakra control exercises during his breaks just to make sure he didn't neglect it.
His social life had also improved somewhat during this time as well. He stuck to his word and invited Kira to train with him and Hinata which had proved... interesting to say the least.
Kira in a way rounded out their little group with her brash attitude and excitable personality that managed to bring even the ever gentle Hinata out of her shell.
Granted it was usually in a violent manner through teasing and jostling the smaller girl until she snapped and attacked the Inuzuka.
Kira took it in stride though and was always more than happy to spar with the Hyuga heiress and he could tell that despite herself Hinata enjoyed having someone to just let loose on from time to time.
His relationship with her was a lot more straightforward, she had flat out admitted she just enjoyed fighting with him, unlike Hinata's more graceful approach, the way he rougher way he fought was a lot closer to her own family style and apparently that made him the perfect candidate to perfect her own style with.
He had to admit she kept him on his toes, spacing out in the middle of their spars had landed him with a good few cuts from her sharpened nails on more than one occasion.
He'd quickly learned to keep his thoughts off the battlefield unless he wanted to walk around looking like a mummy.
His relations with the rest of his classmates were somewhat mixed being either fairly positive or really negative.
He'd become close with the heirs of the Aburame, Nara, and Akimichi clans and was often seen with one or more of them during lunch or recess, he was not as close as he was with say Hinata or even Kira but he was confident that with time they would grow closer.
On the other hand, he was not at all popular with the Haruno and Yamanaka heirs. Though that had less to do with his personality or even how he treated them.
It was actually because of his none too subtle rivalry with none other than Uchiha Satsuki.
Even thinking of her annoyed him, he'd tried early on to befriend the girl but she had brushed him off with barely a glance like he was beneath her notice.
If that had been the end of it he probably wouldn't have cared but it seemed fate had other plans for the two.
The Uchiha heiress had been more than content to completely ignore him until they had been paired together in a spar a few weeks later with Iruka wanting to see how much he had progressed since their talk especially since he wasn't studying any of the Academy styles.
The fight itself wasn't notable since Iruka still made sure to interfere if anything looked to be going too far and with the aid of his newly found taijutsu style he'd managed to fight her to a draw.
That was saying something as Satsuki was arguably one of the best fighters in their class with only Hinta, Kira, and himself being able to challenge her at all when it came to pure hand to hand combat.
After that, the Uchiha had apparently made it her personal goal to beat him in anything and everything, test scores, weapons throwing, and of course their weekly spars.
She made it a point to always choose him as her sparring partner when the chance presented itself to the point no one besides Hinata and Kira even bothered to pick him anymore!
He'd called her out on it more than once but she only ever responded with vague insults or grunts.
"Your stupid face pisses me off idiot, that's the only reason I need." she sneered at him, arms crossed in her usual aloof pose.
Her apparent distaste of him convinced those who admired her to dislike him too, so Sakura and Ino avoided him when possible being big fans of the girl for whatever reason.
He'd long since given up on understanding them and he had better things to do with his time anyway.
He decided he'd spent enough time sitting around and so he picked himself up and began his treck home, he still had a whole week of homework from before break that he needed to finish and he didn't need another lecture from Iruka like the last time he forgot to do it.
He made a mental note to himself to maybe stop waiting until the last minute to do his assignments...
"You look like crap whiskers." Kira's teased, amusement in her voice as she took in his tired appearance, the boy had small bags under his eyes as he leaned tiredly against his desk.
"Bite me, Kira." He yawned out, he didn't realize just how long it would take to get all of his work done, he had worked well into the night to complete it all.
"Don't think I won't whiskers." She replied with her signature fanged grin, getting a concerned sideways glance from the blond.
She had actually bit him before so he wouldn't put it past her to do so if he pushed her.
"How is it you're more of an animal than Akamaru?" Hinata sighed out shaking her head at her friend's behavior.
"I don't know, how do you sit straight with that stick up your butt princess?" Kira shot back, "When do you plan on taking it out?"
Despite her harsh words, there was no real heat in her voice, having long since grown used to this routine the two were aware everything was said in jest.
Hinata released an unladylike snort at the question.
"Why do you ask? Are you hoping I'll let you use it play fetch perhaps?" She shot back her face the picture of serenity as always.
"Oi! Are You looking for a fight princess?!" The feral girl barked out rising from her seat.
"Why are you three always so noisy..." A tired voice complained from behind them.
Naruto tilted his head back and saw the irate face of Shikari glaring down at them.
Well, as much as a sleepy Nara can glare anyway.
"Heyo, Shika-chan." The blond greeted, not at all phased by her irate gaze offering a small wave to the girl.
"I thought I told you not to call me that you troublesome blond." She complained, resting her cheek in her palm.
"Shika, I'm hurt!" The blond gasped dramatically, " Are you saying you don't like my nickname for you?!"
His response was an eraser hitting him in the face.
"You're so mean to me Shika-chan." He pouted.
"Idiot..." She muttered shaking her head before returning to her nap, her arms acting as a makeshift pillow.
"Ano, you shouldn't tease Shikari so much Naruto, you know she doesn't like it." Choji's voice called out from next to the sleeping girl, the portly boy was happily munching away at his chips as usual.
"Aww, it's fine we all know Shika-chan loves me." He replied with a small grin.
Another eraser smacked into the side of his head.
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE SLEEPING?!" he yelled rounding back on the black haired girl.
She simply flipped him off, not even bothering to raise her head at him. The girl was actually rather vulgar for her age something he'd quickly found out within days of getting to know her.
Amagi had suggested it was due to Nara children maturing a bit quicker than most, they tended to pick up some bad habits early. She reluctantly admitted she had taken to drinking rather early in her teenage years before breaking the habit.
Mostly anyway.
He could hear Hinata and Kira laughing quietly to themselves at his plight, well Hinata was quiet about it, Kira did nothing to hide her amusement and was rocking in her chair with mirth.
"You are all jerks." The blond pouted drawing small circles on his desk with his finger
"I do believe you were warned Naruto-san, you have no one to blame but yourself." A quiet voice spoke out to his far right.
"Thank you for your input Shino, I really appreciate it." The blond said offering a deadpan stare at the bespectacled boy.
Shino was a passive member of their group only occasionally offering his opinions on anything but when he did it was almost always an opinion buried in logic or dry humor at someone's expense, though he swore that latter bit was never his intention.
He didn't believe that one bit.
"I'm detecting a hint of sarcasm in your voice Naruto-san" The boy replied.
Naruto just dropped his head onto his desk, why was he the one being ganged up on damn it he hadn't even started this?!
This morning couldn't possibly get worse.
"You might want to stop doing that I'm not sure you can handle more brain damage, idiot." A smug voice taunted from in front of him.
Kami, you sadistic witch...
"Hi, Satsuki-teme" He sat up looking into the scowling face of his rival/enemy, "Glad you could be bothered to stop glaring at the wall for a few moments to grace us with your unwanted presence."
"Hn, you should be happy I even bother speaking with you at all, thankfully stupid is not contagious or I wouldn't." She said, turning her head away from him.
Naruto just rolled his eyes at her response and put his head back down maybe he could get a few minutes rest before class started...
"Goodmorning everyone! Please pull out your textbooks and open to page 40." Iruka's chipper voice spoke out as he entered the classroom, grabbing his own book as he prepared for the day's lesson.
Naruto could only groan in frustration...
AN. New chapter sorry this took a bit I wanted to step back and take a look at where the story was going and what I wanted to do with everything. Do remember this is my first story so I'm not used to this process at all.
I am trying to somewhat speed through the Academy because it's not going to be that interesting and I'm very much debating one last BIG time skip to get to graduation but I wanted to do a little bit of characterization before I did something like that.
I did get a review in regards to Naruto's taijutsu style and how it would have been nice to give him a real-world style and I actually agreed the problem came with my utter lack of knowledge of real-world martial arts and the desire for flexibility that comes with a made-up style. So I am sorry that I couldn't make that a reality but I went for something somewhat familiar to try and make up for it!
I know I did not introduce Sakura or Ino in this chapter and that's because at the moment they are very minor to this story. I wanted to give a better understanding of characters that I tweaked (Satsuki, Shikari, Shino, Hinata, etc) rather than write characters who will develop more later. I'm not ignoring those characters just to be clear.
The chakra explanation was my sorta my own thing added for world-building, so no need to like "Hey! That's not how it works!". I know and am doing it just to add more to the world and the story overall.
For those who want deeper moments that explain more about characters headspaces like in chapter 3 those will come after graduation when characters face the stress of ninja life, for the moment these are still just kids and so not much is going on.
NOTE: I am also toying with the idea of writing a side story (it won't take precedence over this) where I can explore other types of writing be it fluff, crack, lemons, etc so that may happen
Anywho that's all for now, hope you enjoyed and I'll see you next time!