Iruka smiled to himself, waving Naruto goodbye, watching the boy leave the classroom. He stared at the spot where his student had been for a few moments before, begrudgingly, pulling his attention back towards the stack of papers surrounding him. He sighed heavily, letting his head fall against his desk, softly smacking it against the wood; he was going to get a headache for sure.
The end of the year had caught up to him much faster than he'd originally anticipated; the past month crept up on him too fast and then, all of the sudden, it was their last Friday of the school year and tests were given out. It was safe to say that the brown-haired academy teacher was struggling to grade all of the written tests, his only saving grace being the full week after exam day to finish grading all his students' tests - both the written and taijutsu tests - and turn in their test scores to the principal for ranking.
Although Iruka had the top marks of his graduating class - being a part of the top when he graduated - he had never liked the ranking system the academy had in place. It pressured students too much, in his opinion at least, and left them working against each other rather than with each other. Jounin teachers had to rewrite genin behavior once students left the academy, having more teamwork-based training than individual ones.
But, unfortunately, Iruka didn't make the rules so he'd have to suck it up.
As for the rankings the academy used, best marks put you at the top and the worst ones at the very bottom - simple, really. And with rankings only changing at the end of every year, it's even easier to understand. The only thing that can change a student's class rank is their end-of-the-year exam scores - if you scored well, your chance of getting a higher rank is almost guaranteed. The two scores from the written and taijutsu test are averaged together to create one, cohesive score.
For someone who was top ten in his class, Iruka was an advocate for students to have an, at least, high average rank. If the average class size is about twenty-five students, he'd suggest being somewhere between the eleventh and fifteenth rank. It's usually best to stay high average rank so you're one, never left him, and two, struggling to understand a lesson. Though it wouldn't even be so terrible to be anything below there either, the consensus being that anything is better than being… a deadlast.
Iruka lifted his head up from his desk. "That word puts a sour taste in my mouth." His mind cooed out without prompting, moving to continue grading tests.
Students with a rank of five or higher - one being the very best - are considered the 'gifted ones' and are praised by Jounin teachers who hope to gain one of these students for their genin teams. Those who are at the bottom, the last rank of the class, are unfortunately known as the 'deadlasts'. It's a shame that they're considered as such but there's not much a teacher can do as these types of students are usually lazy, irate, and never do their work or listen to lessons.
Over the last two years that Iruka had been teaching this specific batch of students, whose tests lie in front of him untouched, the person who's been the deadlast has been Naruto. This year, though?
Iruka picked up his red gel pen, intent on continuing to work on grading the written tests, circling the last wrong answer on the test he'd been working on. He counted once, then recounting two more times. Dark eyes flitted across the page, setting both his pen and the test down, a surprised smile pulling at his features. And then he laughed. He held his stomach as he laughed some more, tears of joy filling his eyes. A passing teacher gave him an odd look but didn't question it.
Once he'd stopped himself, the academy teacher scrambled for the ranking chart sitting innocently on his desk surrounded by a mess of exam paper. Iruka took his red pen, marking off Kiba's name where it had been in the twenty-fourth spot for forever before doing the same to Naruto's name sitting in rank twenty-five. He took only a moment to swap their names, trying to hold his tears back.
Naruto wasn't the deadlast anymore.
It was only by one, single point that set the two apart but it was progress. Sure, Iruka had noticed how hard the exuberant blond had been working the last year or so, hoping to improve on himself, but had he really grown that much to have scored a higher score than Kiba? And, yeah, the Inuzuka kid wasn't that impressive himself, but Iruka had been a little hesitant to believe that Naruto had actually taken his words of encouragement and his advice to heart. If he could kick himself for not believing that that kid could do wonders, he would in a heartbeat.
Iruka was so unbelievably proud of his student for pushing past what no one thought he could.
And, to top it all off, Naruto had even come into the classroom to ask if he could receive some summer tutoring that the academy offered every year after exams were over. It had surprised the brown-haired academy teacher so much so that the man had nearly fallen off his chair, scrambling to the chalkboard to write 'Naruto Uzumaki' hastily down under the 'Summer School' section. It had made the blond laugh heartily before disappearing, exclaiming that he had some training to do.
Iruka reached for another exam to grade - he couldn't rest with there still being work yet to be done - but allowed another softer smile to crawl across his face. This might be the only school year that he'd ever been happy grading dozens of exams.
"So, I just concentrate chakra into this leaf and… hope it burns?" Choji's unsure voice flitted through the forest.
Shikamaru shook his head, a huff of a laugh escaping him, "No, you idiot. You don't hope it burns, it will burn." He paused in his aggravation to realize that he just said the same words Naruto had said to him only a month ago. The boy could have laughed at that but merely shook his head, "Here, let me show you."
The brown-haired boy rolled his eyes, leaning back on his arms, staring incredulously at the other boy, "That's what I was hoping you'd do in the first place, idiot."
Ignoring Choji's words, he picked up one of the leaves that laid in a pile between the two of them, the heirs having picked them off the trees earlier. Shikamaru held the green leaf between his index finger and thumb, eyes squinting in concentration. Any emotion he held left his face, a deep seriousness Choji had never seen in his best friend appearing suddenly. It wasn't even a moment later that it ignited, burning to a crisp before crumbling to dust in his palm. "So, that's how you-" The Nara heir was interrupted by a shriek and a large splash of water coming from the bank.
Both Choji and Shikamaru looked over to the river, watching a blob of blond hair pop out from the water. Naruto sputtered, coughing out any water that was in his throat and some even oozing out of his nose. Both heirs cringed at the sight. Shikamaru cupped his hands around his mouth, amplifying his words across the clearing, "You okay?!" Naruto responded back with a simple thumbs-up before dragging himself out of the water, chakra helping him get a grip on the river's water. He was back on his feet in no time, trying to steady himself with chakra over the slowly calming waters.
The auburn-haired boy tilted his head, "Do you think we should stop him? He's been at it for almost three hours now."
"Oh, there's no stopping Naruto if he's determined enough to accomplish something." Shikamaru chuckled, leaning over his legs, elbows planted into his knees while his hands supported his head. The two watched their blond friend continue to practice water-walking with some success, mostly failure, though. "Don't worry," He started, "He'll be fine. If we think he's drowning, we'll just go after him. It's not like either of us can't swim."
"Even if we can swim, I don't like to." Choji huffed with a smile.
"Neither do I." Shikamaru countered. They both snorted, amused.
"So, back to this leaf-burning thing." The other heir motioned to the pile of leaves in between them again, "How long have you known about this?"
"Um, a couple of months I think? Naruto was the one to mention it to me." The eight-year-old motioned to said blond just as he fell into the water again. They paused in their conversation, anticipation settling deep into their chests as they watched the water. Even if they could see that Naruto had some luck with water-walking, they still liked to make sure that he got out of the water okay. When he did, giving the two a thumbs up once more, Shikamaru began again, "I was able to learn it pretty fast, I mean, after everything Dad taught me, it was a no-brainer exercise."
"And the tree-walking?"
"Yeah, that too. It wasn't too troublesome either - got it in under an hour." The boy shrugged as if the feat itself was nothing too interesting.
Choji pulled out a bag of BBQ chips from his backpack, motioning with his head at the river, "What about what blond-bimbo is doing over there?" He held out the bag for his friend to have some.
"He's not a bimbo, Choji." Shikamaru chuckled lowly, grabbing for a chip before pausing, "No, I haven't been able to master it yet - actually, I'm not even far enough to just stand on the water as Naruto can. I get too frustrated every time I fall through the water and I hate swimming."
"That's a double negative, meaning that I'm positive that you'll get it eventually." He laughed, mouth full of chips.
"Did you just make a math joke?" The black-haired boy deadpanned, shaking his head, chuckling to himself, "But, yeah, you're right. If I keep hanging out with Naruto while he's training, I'll probably learn how to water-walk by just watching him."
"I doubt that-"
"Shikamaru! Choji! Look at me!" The blond-haired academy student suddenly called out, both of the heirs' heads whipping towards the river where Naruto stood proudly on top of the calm waters. Once he had their full attention, the boy started running across the water, making a mad dash from one side of the river to the other.
Choji jumped up from his seat, "Holy shit! He actually did it!" He took a moment to wipe his hands down the front of his shirt, getting rid of some crumbs that had gotten on him.
"Well, looks like I got to learn how to water-walk now…" Shikamaru mumbled out, a soft smile on his face, "Way to be a show-off, troublesome brat."
Naruto raced off the water, jumping onto the grass before slowing down to a jog as he reached the two, "I did it!" He raised his arms in the air, excited energy pouring off him. He whooped loudly for a couple of seconds, letting the adrenaline get to him a bit. "I don't know why the academy doesn't teach tree or water-walking chakra control exercise - it's so useful!" He exclaimed.
"Well, they probably don't want to be sued if one of their students accidentally breaks something from falling from a tree or drowning." The Nara heir huffed out, watching the soaking wet boy go lie in a sunbeam, trying to dry off, "Not everyone is as resilient as you, brat."
"Oh, yeah." He blinked, looking at his two friends, "You guys should try water-walking out."
Choji reached for his chips again as he sat down once more, "I think I'll skip out on that one. I'm not the best swimmer and I don't have the same kind of energy for it."
Shikamaru raised a hand, "I'm not cut out for water-walking."
"That's because you're a lazy prick." The Akimichi heir scoffed.
"You should probably practice chakra control at some point. Iruka mentioned in one of the summer lessons that when the students get back from a summer break that there was going to be a two-week lesson about chakra control." Naruto rolled his eyes at the black-haired boy still sitting cross-legged, "He's going to give us a test within the first month that we're back in school and it's all about chakra control!"
"Why didn't you just say that in the first place?" He groaned, palming his forehead, "So troublesome..."
Choji looked at the blond-haired boy, "Is this why you showed Shikamaru, so he could be ahead in class?" He wasn't mad at all, just curious.
"Ah, well, somewhat. I had just wanted help with my chakra control exercises because I wasn't able to do it at first. I went to Shikamaru for advice mostly, but I lent him my chakra control exercise book I got from Jiji and here we are." The academy student beamed, still positively vibrant from his success earlier, "But you both seem interested in it now so you've got time before we go back to school."
"Yeah, I suppose." The Akimichi heir agreed.
Shikamaru let out a deep sigh, moving to lie on his back, looking up at the clouds, "Well, looks like I'm going to be preoccupied for a while."
The blonde scoffed, crossing his legs while sitting on the grass, "You make it sound like it's a bad thing."
"No, just too troublesome." He shrugged.
"So lazy." Both Naruto and Choji tsked in tandem. They looked at each other before laughing, having thought the same thing.
"Ugh…" The Nara groaned.
"You know, Shikamaru, being that lazy can have some serious side effects and it seems that you are completely unaware of them." The blond-haired academy student started, smiling softly.
He gave the other boy a sideways glance from where he laid, "Side effects? Sounds fake."
"Oh, but it's not." He nodded to himself, being offered some chips by Choji, "Oh, thank you!" Naruto allowed himself to munch on the BBQ flavored chips before continuing, "Being lazy can cause side effects that can rust away from your creativity, destroy your motivation and make your long ambitions remain that of a distant dream instead of reality. You'll begin to feel physical stagnation in certain activities and there'll be significant negative effects on your personal and professional life. In general, you'll begin to experience unproductiveness and see yourself being late to important events. The list goes on and on, though, so I won't bore you too much."
"Why are you just describing my clan?" Shikamaru blinked with a bored expression on his face, "Those aren't side effects, that's just who we are."
Choji laughed out loud, pausing only to cough loudly as he had a mouthful of chips. He silently choked as tears filled his eyes, his body convulsing in laughter. "Holy s-shit…" He coughed once more before huffing out a laugh, "That was the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. I'm totally telling your mom and dad that." He poked his best friend, mirth in his eyes.
The Nara heir sneered, "You better not."
Naruto shook his head in exasperation, standing up and reaching for his shirt and pants that he took off before he'd begun his water-walking training. "Well, this was fun and all but I've got to head out." Both heirs groaned, almost silently begging him to stay. "I have some late-night studying that I want to do before bed."
"That's so boring," Choji commented, throwing his empty BBQ chip bag back into his backpack.
"I know." He chuckled, "See you later, Choji. And good luck with your chronic laziness, Shikamaru!"
The black-haired academy student waved, shaking his head, "Thanks, Naruto. See you later." There was a pause between the two heirs before Choji scoffed. "Don't." He warned.
"I'm never letting you live that down, you know that, right?" Choji commented.
"Shut up."
Naruto sat up in his bed, notebooks surrounding him as he continued to further his research. His eyes looked towards his bookshelves, the four medical revival scrolls that were gifted by Noboru sitting untouched for over a couple of months. The blond-haired academy student hadn't messed around with the scrolls yet, heeding Hiruzen's words carefully: "...I just ask that you take your time with chakra control. It could help you in the end."
He had mastered the tree-walking chakra control exercise as well as finally getting the water-walking one down, but was he ready to take on a medical revival scroll? Naruto wasn't sure yet. All of his research told him that the final step in becoming a medic is to, well, medically revive something, anything really. The scrolls are for training a person's chakra to take on a less volatile blue and turn itself into a calm green. This soft green hue that was always described in his books was medical chakra.
It's almost scary to think that Naruto is this close to learning how to utilize medical ninjutsu; had he really come this far in less than a year?
He shook himself out of his thoughts, tearing his eyes away from the scrolls - they would have to wait, he mused, getting up off his bed and pulling out a book from one of the shelves. The blond-haired boy made his way back to his bed, flipping to where he last left off. Over the last week, Naruto had been trying to make progress in this beefy book - he had gotten through nearly half of it by this point.
He had been given this book by Iruka during his first summer course, his teacher saying that there was most likely some interesting material inside that he thought Naruto could potentially use in his medical ninjutsu studies. Speaking of the extra courses, you could only imagine the blond's surprise at being the only student there for the first day of summer school. Iruka sheepishly apologized to him, mentioning that, while summer courses were always available for students' use, not many chose to continue furthering their education.
In Iruka's words, "Who would want to keep going to school when you could have a three-month vacation instead?"
To which Naruto responded, "I guess only I would wish that." They had a good laugh out of that before starting their first lesson.
The eight-year-old smiled to himself at the thought, searching the page in front of him for the last paragraph he ended on last night. The section he was currently on was merely just theories surrounding different aspects of using medical ninjutsu. The only one that's been confirmed so far by doctors and specialists is that medical ninjutsu cannot only be used in healing but can now be used in combat. The concept was established by, you guessed it, Tsunade Senju - one of the greatest medics in the world - who used her medical prowess to fight.
While it was certainly unorthodox, Naruto had especially wanted to learn about using his medical knowledge for fighting purposes.
The words 'combat medic' come to mind when thinking about being a medic who can fight. However, a combat medic notoriously is just a medic who hangs around on the front lines. They don't contribute to a fight, taking down targets and whatnot. A combat medic's main objective is just to be there for when an ally gets injured, pulling this person back into safety, heal them and send them back into the fight. That's not what Naruto wanted, not at all.
What's the point in keeping a fight going if your only medic is just there to watch and heal? Doesn't that just make them sitting ducks, more prone to attack from enemies? The first person that should be eliminated from a fight is the medic as they're the ones who keep a team up and running. Why don't medics just help in the fight, work with your allies so that any injury sustained is more preventable? Naruto didn't understand it.
He's getting distracted again.
Naruto pulled out his new notebook, flipping to a new empty page as he started reading. After about an hour, he came across a section of one of the other Sannin, a man by the name of Orochimaru. He wrote the man's name, drawing a line underneath it and jotting down some information underneath it.
The Sannin used ninjutsu similar to that of the medical variety. It was more for scientific purposes rather than healing but, nonetheless, it was his medical skills that allowed him to progress in the science community. Orochimaru used poisons in his combat, the noxious attribute a key part of his kit. It's suspected that he had laboratories all across Konohagakure hidden underneath the ground to create these poisons. Though, as Naruto flipped the page, he found out what horrid secrets the man held:
Human experimentation.
Experimenting on people is wrong, broke all humane laws, but Naruto would be a fool to deny the fact that the poisons Orochimaru had made were crucial to medics looking to find a way to fight. The book even explicitly said that the man had sold some of his recipes and designs to Sunagakure, one of the most well-known poison-using villages out there. Relations between Konoha and Suna haven't been all that great over the last few years, as Naruto had heard in passing on the streets, making the thought that Orochimaru's poisons were now being used by the Village Hidden in the Sand terrifying.
Was the Third Hokage aware of this? Of course, he had to have been - Orochimaru was his student after all. Such traitorous things like human experimentation would not have gone unnoticed by the Hokage. That's probably why Naruto's never heard of Orochimaru's achievements up until now; they probably tried to erase the Snake Sannin from all history books…
All except this one.
Naruto looked the book over. The forbidden stuff that that man used in his time in Konohagakure such as experimenting on comrades and kidnapping orphan children for his own sick tests was wrong. The book talks about the Sannin in present tense meaning that he's still alive meaning that he's still out there, Naruto mused to himself rather bitterly, most likely hurting people and continuing his tests. If Orochimaru ever decided to seek revenge on Konoha, then that meant that he would use all his abilities as well as his poisons, something only Hiruzen would know, being the man's former teacher.
Only a medic can combat poisons; he would be that medic.
The section on Orochimaru was short but Naruto got what he needed from it, flipping to a new section on meditation. It was a much-needed change from the heartbreaking things he'd learned about the Snake Sannin. His eyes flitted across the page, reading an interesting section about meditation:
"Doctors and medics in the field use a form of serenity to clear and ease their minds. When healing someone or something, a medical specialist needs to have a calm mind to successfully do their job - freaking out is not going to help anyone!
The form they use to achieve this is called meditation. Meditation has been a useful calming agent for many decades, being used in multiple forms of ninjutsu to achieve a maximum amount of serenity. Doctors and medics especially need meditation to greatly increase the amount of healing they can do at once and calm themselves to save lives. Studies have found that it can also help a medical specialist in controlling their chakra tenfold."
Naruto read over the section again before narrowing his eyes in wonderment, "Meditation helps to calm medics?" He looked at the pictures underneath the paragraphs, seeing multiple depictions of a person in a meditating pose with a few tips beside it:
"Close your eyes, clear your mind. Think of nothing or everything. Fill your mind with nothing but memories that calm your soul. Slow your breathing down, fill yourself with tranquility. Maintain the serenity for as long as desired."
The blond-haired academy student set the book down, sitting up from his hunched position. His back cracked unpleasantly from being in such a position for so long. Following the pictures in the book, Naruto started to sit so that he was mimicking the meditative position himself. "I hope I'm doing this right…" He whispered to himself before shutting his eyes, letting out a deep breath.
It was easy to slow his breathing, a no-brainer for him, achieving such a small feat easily. Though the part about clearing his mind was quite difficult for him, still thinking about Orochimaru and his human experiments, and 'fill himself with tranquility'. So, he thought of everything - the book said nothing or everything so, why not?
Naruto thought of Iruka first, the gifter of the book still lying in front of him. He thought of how the man had always backed him up, proud of every small achievement the blond presented. His academy teacher was constantly smiling, a bright beacon of hope whenever things turned sour in the blond's research. Naruto knew he could always rely on the man for anything, something he would have never said about Iruka two years ago when they met.
He thought that Iruka was like everyone else, another person in the crowd who hated him for no reason.
His mind drifted naturally but, surprisingly, instead of following the thoughts of those who hated him, he found himself thinking of Shikamaru. The Nara heir had always been friendly with him but they'd never really hung out or thought of each other as friends until that lone game of Speed. It was that day that everything changed for Naruto but, in all honesty, he's glad that Shikamaru has stuck with all the changes the blond was going through. The Nara was both an aid in keeping Naruto on track but also a welcomed addition in day-to-day life.
No longer was Naruto's days filled with wondering when his next meal would be and how he'd have to avoid the larger streets in fear of having unwanted, hateful attention fallen upon him. Now, though, it was filled with wondering if Shikamaru wanted to go to unoccupied training grounds to hang out, begging the Nara heir to teach him how to play Shogi. It was filled with sharing snacks with Choji in class, letting each other try the other's favorite flavor of chips, and speaking highly of ramen. His days were filled with laughing with Iruka and keeping up with the class, learning medical ninjutsu during that time.
And he was happy. For once in his lonely life, Naruto was completely and utterly happy.
Within minutes, everything seemed to slow down. The blond could hear things surrounding him in a muddied kind-of-way, the way people were still on the streets talking amongst themselves, and the gradual sound of crickets outside his window. It was the sound of his soft breathing and his neighbor's air conditioner that he realized how calm everything seemed.
Naruto smiled, meditating quietly into the night. He did it again.
A/N - And I finally finished the chapter! Geez, that took nearly half a month to finish. I don't know why I was struggling with this chapter so much. I guess it's just going to be one of those chapters that give me some problems, I suppose. I was doing so good releasing chapter after chapters roughly a week or two after the previous one. Maybe once this chapter is posted, the next one will come relatively soon since we're getting into some of my favorite parts of the early chapters. Well, that's all from me.
Until next time!