DISCLAIMER: I do not claim to be the creator of the Naruto manga or anime series. I had absolutely no part in any creation of the series, and I'm just a dedicated fan of this series who has taken my time to create this fanfiction.

Author Notes: This is a semi-self-insert fiction of what I think would happen if Minato had two teammates who would not only challenge him to do better but could keep up. I hope you enjoy it. This is rated M, because of possible language, and violence. At no time will there be a pairing between any of the three teammates. Not that there won't be pairings outside their team, just not inside it.

I am trying to pull most of my resources on timeline from the manga, but I am only human so if any of my readers have any insight that I have missed on the timeline do drop me a message.

"Speech"

"Inner thoughts and speech"

"INNER YELLING"

I will add more if/when they become needed

Chapter 4 - The Academy

I was glad my Dad took today off to accompany me to the clan leaders. Mommy got me all dressed up which consisted of a dark blue kimono dress with the Uchiha symbol on the front and a black obi tied around my waist. She also fancied up my hair in a style that was both elegant and sturdy, so I could be prepared for everything. I was so nervous; What if they think I'm not ready to enter but Iroha is deemed ready by her clan? I don't think I can go without her... The nervousness must have shown. My father placed his calming hand on one shoulder as he smiled down at me.

As we approached the clan hall, I saw a handful of other fathers with their young sons who were all about my age. It looked like I was the only girl here. As if I didn't need another reason to be nervous. We entered the queue in silence. After looking around some more, I began to wish I had brought a book or a scroll or something. Waiting in line is awful. As I stood there, trying my damndest not to rock back and forth on my heels, I saw a few of the kids who were there at the park the day they were bullying Iroha. As soon as they saw me, they hid behind their dads or turned their faces away from my glare. That's right, cower. But there was Jetti, smiling at me and I waved back. Jetti hadn't been there that day, so he was still good in my books. I had invited him over a few times since then and once, I had asked him if he knew anything about it. From his reaction I could tell he was shocked that they hated Iroha and couldn't believe that they had hurt her so badly. I had so few friends, so not losing him meant more than I cared to admit. When it was his turn to go in, I gave him a small wave and thumbs up. He smiled and nodded back.

God, the waiting is unbearable, I thought. I tried my best to keep my feet from tapping. After more waiting, he came back out with his parents with a giant grin on his face. He gave me a thumbs up as he passed us. It was now my turn. We entered the council hall and I was stunned at how open it was. Facing us was a trio of older men sitting in the traditional style with what looked like the clan leader in the middle. As we approached, my dad whispered, "Remember to address him as Hiroto-sama."

We both bowed and the man to the left of Hiroto-sama motioned for me to sit and for my father to sit on the side. I took my seat and dad moved to sit on the side of the room. I felt very exposed, which probably exactly what they wanted, so I sat there trying to exude confidence and waited to be addressed.

"And why have you come before us today?" Hiroto-sama demanded looking down his nose at me.

Internally, I hated him for asking it like I was inconveniencing him, or that he had no clue as to why we were here, but I breathed in and let my frustration dissipate as I breathed out. I answered him saying, "I am here to request permission to enter the Ninja Academy early," and with a slight pause and with a tiny bit of afterthought, "Hiroto-sama." I bowed my head respectfully and kept it bowed.

The man to his left said, "For an Uchiha, entering the academy is a privilege, not a right. You must convince us that you will uphold the honor and reputation of the Uchiha name."

The man to the right continued, "You must show us that you are ready, in mind and in body, to face the challenges ahead."

For the next twenty minutes, they drilled me with questions about the clan and the basics of jutsu and chakra. Then, they asked about the rumor of me unlocking the Sharingan while having never been in combat of any sort. As my father coached me last night, it is wise to not lie to them, but you don't have to reveal all the facts. In fact, a good ninja often tells half-truths.

"I have unlocked the first stage of the Sharingan, and I know that the Sharingan can allow one to see chakra, as well as can read lips from a distance, and mimic movements with it," I stated plainly. "Would you like to see it active for yourself?" I asked, grinning to myself.

"Yes, please do," the man to the left said with a look that said "if you can" more clearly than words could have.

I stood up and closed my eyes briefly. As I opened them, I focused on my eyes while thinking about seeing every single detail in my vision. My vision became crystal clear, and not that I knew it at the time, but the tomoe spun a few times as I permanently imprinted the shocked look on all three of the clan leaders' faces that they failed in hiding.

-Scene Change-

I proudly walked out of the clan hall holding the slip with all three of their signatures on it for early admission to the academy. My dad and I walked home, but I was practically skipping. I was holding off until I got home as to not seem too, how did those old farts put it? Oh yeah, childish.

Once we got home, my daddy lifted me up and spun me around, while saying, "Congratulations, my little sweetie. I knew you could do it. You've made me and your mother very proud."

That night we had a great huge, by normal standards, meal. Mom is a great cook, I had yet to eat a meal that I didn't love. After dinner, I was told that I needed to get some sleep. The next few days would be long as I prepared for the academy, but I knew that it would all be more than worth it.

-Scene Change-

I had two weeks until classes started, so the following day my mom took me out shopping for some new clothes, shoes, and some basic supplies I would need for classes, like a backpack, and pencils, and scrolls, and all sorts of things. While out, I ran into Jetti while in the store getting the pack and pencils. We congratulated each other and playfully swore that each of us would be better than the other. Then, when we went for the clothes, I ran into Iroha. I ran up to her and grasped her hand tightly as I asked her if she had gotten in too.

Iroha laughed quietly with a grin, and responded with, "As if there was ever any doubt."

We then continued to shop for our respective clothes for this up and coming adventure that we both would be sharing, our matching smiles making my mother smile too.

-Scene Change-

Those two weeks went by so fast; the next thing I knew, I was standing in front of the academy, my hands held by my mom and dad for my first day. God why am I so nervous? I've been homeschooled in two different states, been put into public school, and had to learn to make new friends both in my previous life as well as this one. I should be a pro at this! Okay, Kamiko, breathe. In and out... There were a lot more kids here than I expected, but then again, I have only really interacted with Iroha, and the bullies from the Uchiha clan.

The sensei filed us into a large auditorium. My mom and dad squeezed my hand reassuringly as they left to join the adults that lined the walls as the sensei ushered us kids to the seats. As much as my mind was pretty much that of a young adult, at this point, I was still glad that my new parents were within view. I gave them a tiny wave as I was ushered to a row. A low hum of chatter filled the air as all the seats were filled. It didn't take too long. A quick glance told me that while the auditorium wasn't filled to capacity, it was rather full.

Has this place ever been completely full? There's still plenty of room...

A older man, I would have guessed maybe in his early-to-mid-forties, walked up onto the stage. The dull roar of inane chatting and gossipping died off immediately and I automatically sat up a little straighter in my chair. From where I sat, I could see the words Third Hokage written across the back of his robes. The hairs on the back of my neck lifted and I shuddered at the aura of power that he was just causally giving off. Despite the awe-inspiring power that oozed from his every pore, the way that his eyes sparkled as he looked at all of us struck me as very Dumbledore-esque. I smiled slightly as both relief and inspiration flooded my system and my back finally touched the back of my chair.

After a few moments of surveying us, he leaned forward and spoke in a low voice that nevertheless echoed about the hall with very little effort. I briefly wondered if it was just projection or a subtle jutsu.

"Each, and every one of you, are here to learn the fine arts of being a ninja, or a kunoichi. I wish to see each of you succeed brilliantly, so I hope that each of you will soak up what the educators here will teach you with respect and a thirst to know more." He continued going on about the Will of Fire, and that we all will add our strength and our skills to what makes this village great, even if we didn't become a ninja. He gave us all a final reassuring smile, and with a deft nod, he left the stage. My hands raised automatically to applaud, but I quickly caught myself. Everyone else was sitting in silence. I quickly sat on my hands. Traitors! Four other ninja came up onto the stage, and they started calling out names for their classes. I guess that it would be hard to teach all of us in one class. I only hoped that Iroha was put into my class, or at least Jetti! He would be fun to have in class.

As fast as my heart soared with a sensei calling out my name, it sank just as fast as Iroha's name was called by a different sensei. Tears bit at the corners of my eyes, but I quickly blinked them away. Maybe they just don't want to put different clans together yet? Classes might get condensed later anyway...and I can still see her after school. At least Jetti's name was called out by my sensei. That was enough to banish my tears and stomach butterflies. After all of the names were called, our sensei ordered us to follow them to our classrooms. The auditorium emptied much more slowly than it had filled, with kids elbowing each other out of the way and tripping over themselves to find their new sensei. As soon as we were all sorted by class, the sensei began to lead us out. As I followed my new teacher, I smiled at my parents as they gave me a encouraging nod.

My teacher was a young woman who I would guess was in her mid twenties, though it was hard to guess. From my observations, it seemed that everyone in this village had very good genetics, and looked younger than I would expect for their age—until the wear and tear of life and being ninja got to them, anyway. There were some that I had seen that had very old eyes in very young faces. My new teacher didn't look like that. Yet.

My excitement was rather quickly dashed. Classes were boring! My sensei went over a lot of things I already knew about Chakra, and how the body replenishes it at a given rate that takes years to get used to.

Some kid I didn't recognize interrupted her lecture impatiently. "So when are you gonna teach us some cool techniques?"

My ears perked up at that, but quickly drooped again at her reply. "You're way too young to start learning techniques." Over the complains and groans, she continued. "Your chakra coils are still developing; trying to draw out chakra at this point would strain them, and possibly stunt your potential growth. Believe me, as soon as we think you are ready to handle it, you'll be learning how to use ninjutsu."

Loudmouth piped up again, "How soon is that?"

"When you're ready." She smiled gently to take some of the sting out of her words. "Trust your sensei, we won't hold you back unnecessarily."

While Chakra Theory class was boring, History was rather more interesting. It captured my undivided attention while the rest of the class almost fell asleep. I was eager to soak up all the history of this new world that I could. Sadly, while it was interesting, the reliable written accounts dated back only a hundred years or so. As it turned out, that was only because Konoha was that old, and the concept of a ninja village hadn't existed before then. Some clans were thought to have older records, but as those were kept secret, they weren't available to the class. This surprised me greatly, as it looked like the village had been here for a long time.

Of course, my favorite class was PE. I hadn't enjoyed it too much in my previous life, but here, in this body I had the ability and the desire to excel at it. I nearly squealed with excitement as the other classes joined us out on the athletic track and Iroha waved at me from her group. The sensei mostly had us running laps. I quickly discovered that, if I focused on each step I took, I seemed to pull ahead of the main group. Yet, every time I stopped focusing, I could only keep pace with the rest. After experimenting with that a few more times, it suddenly occurred to me that I was probably actively channeling my chakra into my muscles while the rest of the class only did passive channeling. While I could chose to keep channeling my chakra, I quickly chose to work on my actual muscles. If I had stronger muscles, the channeling would probably have a much more noticeable effect. I kept this discovery to myself; my sensei didn't seem to approve of chakra experimenting at our age. Still, I whispered about my findings to Jetti and Iroha after school when we were safely in my backyard. They agreed that this would be an awesome secret weapon to use if things got serious. Jetti wanted to start using it all the time, but when Iroha and I pointed out that training without it would mean a bigger boost, he agreed to hold off on it "unless it's super-important".

-Time Skip-

-First Year Graduation Test-

When the day of the test finally came, my stomach butterflies were back. While I was confident in my own abilities, I was nervous for Jetti. He had been having a rough time with the physical side of our classes. I had tried to help him on it, running and doing other exercises and such in my backyard with Iroha, but no matter what we did or how hard we worked, Iroha and I kept pulling ahead of him. Our sensei had told us a few weeks ago that there were three tests; two written exams with a physical exam in-between. We had tried to get Jetti up to our level, but no matter how hard he tried, it just wasn't happening. I couldn't help my worry; what if he couldn't pass? He seemed more nervous than I was in the exam room. His face was pale and he kept fidgeting with his thumbs.

I shot him a smile and an encouraging thumbs up as the first test was passed out. It was on Chakra Theory. I actually struggled a little on parts of it. I guess I hadn't studied as well as I should have. Still, as she gathered up our papers, I felt that I had still done fairly well. But next? Next...the PE test.

It was in two parts. First, they wanted us to do sprints up and back, and then, do endurance runs. They had us running one at a time. Talk about embarrassing! When it was my turn to do the sprints and endurance run, and I had a difficult decision to make. If I went all out, pushing my chakra through my muscles, I'd be going much faster than I ever had in the class. However, if I didn't push my chakra, it'd be my muscles alone. As much as I knew that my muscles were perfectly adequate and would get me where I wanted to go… I grinned a little savagely to myself as I decided to push my chakra. The only ones who had seen me with chakra-enhanced physicality was Iroha and Jetti. This would be a surprise to everyone. God, they're all going to hate me. Still, the looks on their faces will be worth it!

"Are you ready, Uchiha Kamiko?" A chuunin-sensei asked as I got up to the line for the sprints.

I nodded, and assumed the starting position. When the sensei signaled for me to go, I practically exploded from the starting position and flew down field and back, beating the previous best time by a good five seconds. The sensei's eyebrows were nearly up into his hairline; he had been there for all the PE classes so he knew how fast I usually went. After he wrote down the time on his board, he sent me to another sensei for the endurance run. As I left, he motioned Jetti up to the start line, as I passed him I gave him thumbs up and smiled at him. He tried to smile back, but his face twisted in a sort of grimace instead. Then I couldn't watch him anymore.

My endurance test was a breeze. Eventually, the sensei had to call for me to stop, as I had passed over the limits for distance and time. As he wrote everything down on his clipboard, I heard him mutter something about "Damn kids these days... First a Hyūga, now an Uchiha." I giggled to myself as I hurried away, grinning like a fool.

After we were done, we were told that it was time for lunch. Thankfully, our teacher had us bring our packs down with us in anticipation for this, so I rushed over to "our" spot under a tree where I usually met up with Iroha and Jetti for lunches. I had already dug into my bento when Iroha, then Jetti joined me under the tree's shade.

"So, how did you two do?" I asked excited around a mouthful of rice.

Iroha replied first, happy and bubbly in that weirdly-subdued Hyūga way, "I did wonderfully. The sensei were a little annoyed at how well I did with the endurance test, but I wasn't about to stop short." A cocky smirk worked its way onto her face as she continued. "It's hardly our fault if their test can't handle our brilliance and as your mom says, we must do our best"

"I did okay... Probably not nearly as good as you two. Like usual," Jetti said a little sadly, poking at his onigiri, "but I probably passed. I noticed a lot of the others were struggling more than I was with that endurance test. I'm really glad I trained with you two these last few months." He took a big bite. "That probably helped."

After lunch, we had to split up once more to go to our classroom for the final test. As we entered, we were handed some test papers. Since we couldn't start the test until we told to do so, Jetti and I wandered to our normal spot near the back, and plopped down in our chairs, exhausted.

"I hope this test is over quickly, I'm tired," I murmured to Jetti as he nodded back half-heartedly. A quick glare from our sensei and we quickly stopped talking.

After what seemed to be an eternity, our sensei told us that we had forty minutes to complete the test. I flipped the test over, my mind flashing back to standardized tests back in my old life, I skimmed the whole test. I answered any easy questions first, then went back to the harder ones. This test was on history and geography, so I felt much more at ease than with our first test. The questions were like, "Who is the current ruler of fire country?" or "What are the countries that border ours?" I found them to be very easy. I was done in about twenty-five minutes. After a minute break, I went over my answers twice more to make sure they were right, and I hasn't screwed any of them up. By the time I finished, it was almost thirty-five minutes into the exam. I shrugged and with my test in my hand, I walked up to the front and handed it in. My sensei glanced up from the test that she was grading already to give me a quick nod. I was the fourth to finish, so I went back to my seat. With nothing else to do, I folded my arms on my desk, put my head down, and took a quick rest. I tried to not go completely asleep, but I was quickly losing the battle.

Five minutes later, my sensei called the end of the test, but we were to stay in our seats until she had finished grading them so we could learn our results from the day's testing. It felt like it took forever, but in reality, it must've only taken another forty minutes. She began to fill envelopes and seal them. Only once she had finished with that, did she say that we could file up and get our test results as we left. I clutched my envelope tightly in my hands, rushing out to the yard after we got out of our classroom. I ripped it open, and rifled through the papers, heart pounding madly. My Chakra Theory test, B, my History and Geography test, A+, and my physical test, S with a note that I placed first in all three classes. I froze, reading and re-reading the note. First?! I came in first?! I quickly looked up and scanned the yard for my friends. I spotted them under our tree. I ran over as quickly as I could, waving my results in the air. As soon as I reached them, we compared our results. Iroha had done about the same but a little better at Chakra theory, and a little worse on the History and Geography, but on the physical, she had placed first, too. Jetti, of course, had aced Chakra Theory, as well as the History and Geography. On the physical exam, he had gotten a low B. He laughed and said he was just embarrassed he couldn't have caught up with us. I was so happy with our results that I didn't notice the annoyed looks on the other Uchiha kids, glaring at our group from the edges of the yard.

-Author Note- Sorry for re-posting but there were a few changes that I had to make and I feel these changes are for the better. I hope you enjoy

Hope everyone enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I also wish to give thanks to frodoschick and Halbyrd on co-writing specifically with the grammar and conversation writing.