6 months passed since she started her training in fuinjutsu, making Fuji 3, and 3 months.
Fuji became more advanced as the time had passed, thanks to her princess training, she now uses her spare time to be thinking of new concepts that will not only be of use to her, but to others around her as well.
Fuji doesn't have any friends outside of her cousins to play with, since no one her age, understands her the way she would like and she doesn't quite understand them.
The older kids of the lower branches of the clan don't like playing with someone younger than them, they're also wary of playing with the royals, so they always politely decline when she asks them, but they play with her older sister, so she's good with that, but she doesn't quite understand since Kushina too, is apart of the royal family, oh well at least Kushina has friends, not very honest ones, but still, she's glad.
Kushina is the black sheep of the royal family as she's able to play with the others without them minding her status, even the elders of their clan don't mind Kushina goofing off more than the others, when her cousins ask about it the answers is always the same, let Kushina be and enjoy her time in Uzushio.
It doesn't make all that much sense to Fuji since well, Kushina is going to be in Uzushiogakure until when they're older and if she decides to leave, which is doubtful, that'll be the only time she'll be gone.
So she doesn't understand but knows not to ask any questions on the subject as they always try to change it.
...
Fuji can't change the fact that the younger kids or the kids her age think she's weird, not that they'll say it to her face, of course, or that the older kids think of her as a baby, so since she doesn't have anyone to play with, inside her clan, besides her cousins who deal with the same problems, she'd rather just play in her usual hideout and swim with her fish friends, or cook with Hyousuke, talk to her maids, train with Yasuda, or sometimes just stay inside all day to practice her calligraphy or read the new books that her ma had given her.
...
Fuji learned all of the kanji Hotoru assigned her, and now she's learning how to put chakra into seals without having any sort of leakage, it's to help with perfect chakra control, something Uzumaki's aren't exactly capable of, but something her granny insists she has to have and something Yasuda rather enforces as well.
The Second Shinobi war is still ongoing and since we Uzumaki are allied to Konohagakure, we have to join the fighting or else there will be political problems that we can't afford, or so she's read.
Her family is doing well, but her father recently got deployed back into the war, so she rarely sees him anymore.
Her sister is still in the academy, Kushina's also learning her granny's dances now, something she complains about and also something she's not quite good at yet, but Fuji knows that Kushina will get there...
Eventually.
Her mother is somewhere within the village, busy keeping up the village's seals, and barrier, also creating new crazy tactics that somehow work, and taking care of the forces coming home. She's a busy woman, with being the head of Intelligence and now partially in charge of the hospital, she had her hands full, she might as well have been outside of the village with how little Fuji or Kushina has seen her, except for dinner, that's the only time Hotoru is with them and that she insists on attending
Hotoru also decided that it was best that at least one day a month or so that both parents should be within the village, and then that they'd all spend a day together as a family, before her father gets drafted again.
While it was a good plan, she'll admit, it didn't really change anything, other than the fact she now see's her father more than the first 2 years of her life, with the added bonus of feeling her mothers chakra withing the village, and seeing her for dinner. It's just even though her ma was there it was as if her mind was elsewhere and that she was only hanging out with her and Kushina out of obligation.
So she and Kushina were still often left in the care of their grandparents, and with their grandfather being the head of uzushiogakure he's always too busy for them, and she's never met the man personally but has seen him around at least once or twice. Plus with their granny teaching advanced classes during day, and with Kushina in school it's just her and Hyousuke that are together for most of the day, Yasuda too since he doesn't get drafted out as much as her father even though he's a part of his unit.
...
The training with her granny has gotten intense, everyday it feels like she's running from death itself, no longer is it just chakra control or just mental training but now it's also physical, her grams also has no problems using excessive force either.
Her training schedule with both her grams and Yasuda consists of medium to advanced gymnastics stretches, chakra control, harnessing her chakra sensing abilities to make them even sharper, so that she can pinpoint the very spot of wherever it is she's looking for with only the tiniest amount of detail easily, her sense of smell, and hearing, so even if her chakra sensing abilities don't work one day, she'll still be able to sense from very far away using her sight, smell, and or even using touch.
She still has some ways to go before she's able to do that though, but that's what training is for.
...
Fuji's sensing abilities have always been naturally good for as long as she could remember. So far she could hear up to 10ft away with her eyes blindfolded, the dodging games Yasuda contained after her father left, became a lot harder as well, instead of using paper-like her dad used to, Yasuda used Senbon, and they aren't all that fun.
Yasuda just wants her sensing abilities to be top-notch, the best, to the point where even her instincts will take control using her muscle memory when she's not paying attention, or when something doesn't have chakra in it for her to sense, she'll still be able to see or hear it coming
He wants her to be able to dodge a kunai that soars towards her from many miles away, to where she'll be able to hear it from exactly where it's been thrown, and that her body would just move away on its own, without her realizing what's happened, something Yasuda says could not only save her life one day, but is an excellent way to slowly build-up experience dodging different speeds of projectiles being thrown at her or deflecting them.
As for the walking technique, to hide and be able to escape quickly and quietly from Yasuda during their training, playing cat and mouse, she being the mouse, and Yasuda being the cat.
Fuji had to learn to quickly step away, dodge, and be able to quiet the noise her footsteps make when she leaps or pounces, to the point of almost nonexistent, or else she'll be gifted with a new bruise to accompany the others.
Usually, when Fuji trains with her grams, there are other kids from the village there as well, but her training is different from the other kids.
They take dance classes under granny to develop their flexibility, elegance, and their flow for their style of fighting.
She gets to join them for the stretches, but she only gets to watch them do the rest of their workout, she can't join them just yet, since her body size is too small to do what they're doing. She'll be able to join them when she turns 4.
She found out that her granny is water natured, and her sister is as well, she though, she's lightning but has a secondary nature for water, her granny was the one who put a seal on Fuji to check what she is, she hadn't broken the promise she made her ma by experimenting with it before she turned 3, and now that she is of age, she'll has Yasuda or even sometimes Hyousuke help her out with her experiments, as Hyousuke is a retired shinobi with a bad leg, he knows a thing or two.
Right now, she's about to start her training with her granny, luckily today is a day where the class is closed meaning Fuji will be able to get individual attention.
...
"Alrighty then dear, let's get started shall we?" Mai asked
Fuji nodded, already getting started on her stretches
"When you're done, I want you to place a seal on each your arm and leg, and one on your torso," Mai declared while pointing at the paper seals on the table
After Fuji finished her warmup stretches, she went to the table and grabbed a seal and wrapped it like a bracelet around each of her arm, she repeated the process on her legs and when she was completed, she grabbed the last paper seal placing it vertically on her torso and waited for further instructions
"All done? Good, so what's gonna happen is, you're gonna add only a little bit of chakra in those seals ya here? those seals there, are weights, they won't affect your growth or nu'n because it's not actual weight that'll be dragging you down, it's just a seal mimicking, when your older though, we'll place real weights on ya and than additional levels of the seals on top to make em heavier." Mai explained
Doing what her granny says, Fuji added a small amount of chakra into each seal, she could feel the pressure pulling her down, she has no idea what her granny meant by the weight isn't real and it's only a mimicking seal, because what she's feeling sure feels like she's carrying an additional 25 pounds of bagged rice on each of her limbs.
"Feel that burn? I want you to do the rest of your routine with those activated, they're waterproof so you could even swim in em and do what you do if you wanted, inactivate em when you go to bed, it'll give your body the rest it needs for it to be fully"
Nodding, she went on to do the rest of her exercises, and boy was she was tired, she could barely even run one lap across the usual trail she does! What kind of crap is that!? Sweating and panting, she finally made it back to where she started, she flopped down soaked in her sweat.
"All done already? Alrighty then, come on we're heading home, I forgot the shogi board there and how're we to play without it? But now we'll be able to drink some tea while you will be able to catch a break." Mai said, already walking to her house, not even looking behind her to see if Fuji is following her.
Fuji laid there for a few minutes trying to even out her breath before she forced herself to get up, dragging herself from her spot she went her way to her granny's house.
The people around the marketplace stared at her, whispering their opinions about her appearance, asking why such a little girl, especially in the royal family, is doing dirty work, comparing her to Kushina's grace in movements to the walk that they see Fuji doing now, which is just trudging, which is an embarrassment to the Royal families name, being the daughter of Hotoru, the finest one there was, she moved smoothly like water flowing down a small stream, why can't she e like her sister? Or so they are saying, how annoying.
She sighed, which sounded more like a wheeze in reality but oh well.
Lately, people around Uzu have offhandedly been saying how much better Kushina is than her in the ways that matter, how Kushina is the more open, social, and fun one, playing with their children like a saint, some of the kids will come up to Fuji just to tell her how she should act more like Kushina and maybe than they'd be her friends because they think she acts like she's a stuck up who thinks she's better than everyone else.
After all, she's just a baby who reads too much and is too boring to understand, that's what the kids say at least but it's getting annoying to hear.
While she loves her sister, being constantly compared to her, in the things that she can't control makes her upset.
Especially when all she's trying to do is train like she's been told to, and to make friends to play with.
...
"Thank-you for your patronage!" The owner of the shop yelled to Fuji on her way out of the store.
On her way to her granny's house Fuji accidentally snuck up on so many people and scared them so bad they flew up into the air, her appearance probably didn't help either, and after their scare, they would tell her that they didn't see her or that she's such a quiet child, so she got tired of their screams and hopping around that she went to the store to buy something to help.
Some woman just right before she purchased some earring bells had told her, after she had scared the living daylights out of her, that it was a good thing she was buying them so that people could hear her when she's near so she wouldn't scare them, Fuji gave a polite smile and a fake laugh nodding along before she left the premises.
Feeling bad about scaring so many people on accident, Fuji had bought these bell earrings, so that they could ring to notify the people around her of her presence. It was her choice, but hearing that lady say it in the way she did, felt belittling.
Putting them on, she took her first step making the bells ring in a beautiful charm.
The thing is though, Fuji's seal needed a new tune-up since the growth of her body has greatly enhanced her senses, as well as the training she did to keep up with it, well lets just say her body didn't like the sound of the bell so close to her ears, it had made them hurt very badly.
So badly, that she almost passed out in the middle of the street, dry heaving the air feeling like she's going to throw up. After what felt like an eternity, her body finally gave up on her, her eyes rolling to the back of her head and she surrendered to the pain that her head was feeling.
...
"Hey, you awake?" A blurry figure whispered to her, which she was immensely grateful for.
"Yeah" she croaked, her throat feeling soar. "I'm awake"
"That's good!" The boy whisper yelled, before whispering "I took you to my hidden spot, it's really quiet here so no one's gonna bother us."
"Ah, Thankyou", her mannerism training kicking in, still dizzy, she goes up to bow to the boy but was stopped midway when the boy put his hand on her shoulder. She looked at him confused, vision still recovering.
"You don't gotta do that! Your the princess aren't ya? I'm supposed to be kneeling to you! Not the other way around" the boy waved his arms panicking, 'because no way was the princess supposed to bow to other people! That just wasn't right!' The boy had thought
Fuji was shocked, she was told that a princess should only bow when they felt a great respect to a person, and that people in return felt honored when a royal bowed down to them because it showed respect, and to some it made them feel proud of whatever accomplishment, that's what her granny says at least.
"What's your name anyway? All I know about you is that your the quiet princess that's like super smart or something" the boy looked away from Fuji while blushing, embarrassed from his outburst.
Fuji smiled and slowly sat back down, she touched for her ears to find that her bell earrings weren't there anymore
"I took em off you, they looked like they hurt you a lot so I put em away in this so they can't make any noise"
"Thank you..." she stared at the boy that was handing her a bag before she slowly reached for it, now able to see him clearly, she continued
"I'm Fuji, Fuji Uzumaki," she said while grabbing the cloth bag from him.
"I'm Kento, Kento Hamasaki-Uzumaki, from the lower branch." the boy now known as Kento replied
"It's nice to meet you Kento-san, thank you for your help" Fuji said with honesty
"Of course! What type of knight would I be if I don't save the princess?!" Kent asked as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing
"Knight?" Fuji asked with some hesitancy
"Yeah! I come from the knight branch, my family trains to serve the noble or royals, the royals being the very top, we can choose who we want to serve or even do something else but we gotta go through special trainin', but it's our honor to serve the royal family. So right now I'm training so I could be your knight in shining armor!" he finished off his rant with a bright smile, obviously very passionate about what his family does
Fuji looked at the boy in awe, "you want to be my knight?" this boy, Kento, that she had just met, inadvertently told her that she'll be the queen that he'll gladly serve, usually the kids in their clan choose Kushina, maybe he doesn't understand what his words mean, but to her it meant everything.
Kento nodded enthusiastically
She smiled and said, "I'll be happy to have you on my guard"
Later that day when she was finally at her granny's house, she had skipped out on playing shogi as she was late, and was now eating dinner with her sister, mother, and granny, Fuji had excitedly told them all about her new friend that she made. Her very first friend.
Kento Hamasaki-Uzumaki
...
The next day, Yasuda had took her out to train.
"I want you to start the next phase of track training, your dad should be the one to teach you this but I'll have to do okay?" Yasuda instructed Fuji
"Yes, Yasuda-san" Fuji replied.
"Good, I planted seals all around the civilian outposts, they all have the same smell, it's this cloth here that you got to remember the smell of, but each has a different difficulty to them okay? Every time you find my seal, you add some of your chakra into it and it'll activate the next one for you to find got it?" Yasuda explained
"Yes, I understand," Fuji said while giving a small nod
"Good, now go on! You have till sunset to find all of them! Or else no dinner for you tonight!" Yasuda said jokingly, while giving her a seal to activate the first one that's planted in the outposts along with the scented cloth, but Fuji took it as fact.
She hurriedly made her way to the civilian outposts while activating the seal in her hand and smelling the cloth Yasuda gave her, the outposts were way on the far side of the village from where she's at right now, it's about a 40-minute jog, 25 if she runs and she only has 4 hours left till sunset.
Wait, the damn weights, oh no...
There's no way! Did Yasuda know about what granny had her put on? If he did then she is so going to get back at him!!
She has to finish this or else there will be no delicious cooking made by Hyousuke for her tonight, and there's no way she's going to miss that! she almost cried.
Holding back her tears, she rubbed her eyes and continued with her assignment, she's more determined now than she has ever been
"For Hyousuke!!" She yelled, making the villagers wonder what was going on, but they went on about their day not bothering to check things out as they thought it might be a new prank and they didn't want to get caught in the middle of that
'This was going to take forever...'