A/N: Here's another chapter for you. Hope you enjoy. Got a few things in this chapter that are necessary for the story. Trying not to prolong the filler chapters of the academy days too much. I'm excited to start writing the Genin days. As such, I'm going to combine years three and four into this chapter as each year only has one event worth writing at the moment.
A/N: As always, I do not own Naruto. Just my original plot ideas and possible future OC's. Naruto belongs solely to Kishimoto-Sensei.
Chapter 8: The Academy Days: Year Three and Four
Two months before the start of the third year a tragic event occurred. As Sasuke returned home one night to a nearly dead silent clan compound a feeling of unease rose in the pit of his stomach. Running as quickly as he could to his house he found it dark and empty after checking every room. He rushed out of the house and went to a 'secret' meeting spot below the Uchiha shrine. Not that it was a well kept secret in the clan.
When he got down there he found many clan members laying about in pools of their own blood. They had gruesome cuts and amputated limbs. Bile rose in young Sasuke's throat as he hurled on the spot at the sight and smell. Movement in the corner of the room caught his attention and he focused on the shadows. Out from the shadows stepped the last person he would have guessed.
"Itachi, what happened? Who killed all these people?" Sasuke shouted to his brother. Looking around the room again, he saw a body he really wasn't ready to see. His father lay in the largest pool of blood out of everyone. Sasuke rushed forward and started looking around, happy somewhere in the back of his mind that he couldn't find his mother here. "Itachi-nii?"
"Sasuke, do not follow in our clan's footsteps. It will lead to your destruction." He walked over to Sasuke, activating his Mangekyou Sharingan. When Sasuke looked up and made eye contact he was caught in Itachi's jutsu. "This is the world of Tsukuyomi. In here I have complete control over everything. For the next 72 hours you will witness the folly and downfall of our clan."
And so for three days Sasuke witnessed all of the meetings, all of the plotting. He witnessed the few who stood against the clan being silenced in some way. He witnessed the predicament of Itachi choosing the village over the clan. Sasuke witnessed the massacre of every clan member who supported the plot to over throw Konoha. His only comfort was that his mother was one of the few survivors who were not killed. She was apparently against the conspiracy the whole time.
When the jutsu was finally done, Sasuke passed out from the mental stress of living three days in the matter of three seconds. Itachi nodded to a shadow in the corner as he disappeared in a swirl of leaves. Out of the shadows stepped Mikoto with a solemn look on her face.
"I'm sorry, son. I'm so sorry this had to happen. I'll never forget what you did to maintain the honor of your family." Mikoto knew she would likely never see her first born again. And so with a tear rolling down her face she picked up her youngest and took him to the hospital.
Two Months Later
Sasuke has become withdrawn from the world for the last few months as he tried to cope with what he had seen and learned. His mother had told him that Itachi had decided to save the village by becoming a traitor and that no-one must ever know. Not even his best friends. This weighed heavily on his mind as the three friends had never kept a secret from one another. In the end, he had agreed, if only to honor his brother's wishes. Still, Sasuke grew bitter towards his clan's actions. His only consolation being that the ones who had wrongfully acted had all payed with their lives. As clan heir, he vowed to make sure his clan not only recovered, but prospered in a way that was more beneficial not only to the clan, but to Konoha itself as well.
He met up with his friends on the way to the academy for their first day of class for this year, still somewhat withdrawn from everyone else. But he couldn't bring himself to ignore his best friends. They had been working on cheering him up ever since they learned what happened.
"Good Morning, Sasuke-kun," Hinata greeted with a warm smile.
Naruto just nodded in greeting to the raven-haired boy as he was lost in thought.
"Morning." Sasuke greeted the two.
Not really knowing what to say to the two boys, Hinata just walked along side them in silence as they made their way to class. It was another boring review day as Iruka-sensei went over the highlights of last year. He informed the class that this year would mostly be dedicated to survival training, physical conditioning and kunai/shuriken accuracy.
Naruto, tuning out the class, was deep in thought all day long trying to find a way to learn more about his clans history. He'd been thinking on this ever since the Uchiha massacre. Reason being, his best friend almost lost his whole clan. He figured there may be something in his own clan's history that could potentially help prevent other clans from going through the same. Naruto was very worried something could happen to his adopted family at this point. Luckily this would not come to pass, not that he knew that.
Near the end of class, Iruka made one announcement that perked him up a bit. "Every Friday will be spent as a free class in which students may work on any subjects previously covered in class where you feel you need the most work. I will help you each as much as I can. Class is dismissed for the day."
With that, the class left. Naruto, Sasuke and Hinata all met up outside the building as they waited for Ko. Sasuke was going to be coming over to the Hyuuga compound today to train with the step-siblings. That night's training was their most intense yet. They all agreed that in the fairness of training, they none of them would use doujutsu.
It was a three way battle with Hiashi himself acting as mediator. Naruto vs. Sasuke vs. Hinata in a free-for-all style battle. At the end, Sasuke finally managed to win one of their three-way matches without his Sharingan. He'd been practicing with his mom, who was quite an accomplished kunoichi in her day.
"Good job, Sasuke," Hiashi congratulated him. "Naruto, Hinata, do you know what you did wrong in this match?"
"Hai, Tou-san. I didn't maintain my footing when Sasuke countered a palm strike with a sweep. I lost my footing and was thrown from the ring." Hinata knew exactly how she lost.
"Hai, Hiashi-tousan. I lost focus when Hinata was thrown. I took my eyes off of my opponent and didn't see Sasuke come around to my other side." Naruto said.
Hiashi nodded, at least they knew where they went wrong. That means they will learn from their mistakes. In this world of shinobi, you cannot lose focus. If you do, it will either cost your life, or the life of someone close to you.
The next weekend Naruto helped Hinata continue working on her new style of Jyuuken, which she finally has a name for. She's calling it Jyuho, or Gentle Step. It focuses on quick and flexible movement, high mobility, and her overall graceful movement. It was far from complete, but it was coming along great. Especially with Naruto constantly sparring with her to help her refine it. He didn't use Jyuuken against it, but instead used the academy style in order to make it a fair fight, and so they could both improve. Naruto's Jyuuken was nearly much better than Hinata's. Something about it just worked with him.
Another year or so and Hinata's Jyuho would be done. Or so Naruto thought. Little did he know that hinata would not be satisfied until her Jyuho was good enough for her to go toe to toe with Neji's Jyuuken. Naruto couldn't go against Neji on equal footing.
And so the next two years at the academy passed by mostly uneventful. Minor things here and there. Occasionally the other clan heirs would come to the compound to hang out with their friends, or Naruto and Hinata would visit their clan compounds. Always with Ko as an escort, naturally.
Neji was around a lot less now, as he had graduated a year before Hinata and Naruto would. He was placed on team 9. Also known as team Gai. The only other thing that happened of excitement before graduation was Naruto coming across an interesting book that expained more about his clan. Mostly about his clan's Fuinjutsu. As a result, Naruto expressed interest and started learning the noble art of sealing.
In only a year of practice and training in the art, on top of all the other training he was already doing, he managed to ascend to intermediate sealing formula. He could make anything from storage scrolls to grade 3 explosive tags to chakra suppression seals to even gravity seals. Unfortunately he found out the hard way that gravity seals couldn't be used for training purposes. The human body just wasn't meant to take the additional gravity or something like that. Apparently added gravity isn't like added weight, which the body can adjust to. Instead the added gravity will slowly wear away at the muscle tissue and bone density until your bones break in your own body and rupture your muscles and organs.
The seals did however make excellent traps with potentially lethal results. And so he practiced and improved his skills in the arts. He would always seal the more deadly ones in a storage scroll with a blood seal. Only he or someone closely related to him could open these. But that brought a whole lot more questions that he didn't want to take the time to figure out.
And so the graduation tests came and went with Sasuke and Naruto tying for rookie of the year, and Hinata getting kunoichi of the year with Sakura in a very close second. Two days later they all returned to class to get their team assignments.
Iruka stood in front of the class and spoke, with Pride clearly evident in his voice as his first homeroom class graduated. He knew they would go far. "Okay everyone, here we are. It's the end of the year and you have all made me so proud. I've watched you all learn and grow into great potential Genin. I expect you all to do well. But remember, the ninja world is not an easy place to live and there is always more to learn. You've already made me proud and I know you will all go far. With that being said, the team assignments are as follows:"
And so he read them all off. (A/N: I'm going to skip the civilian teams.)
"Team seven will be Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyuuga. You will be a doujutsu specialist team under the supervision of Kakashi Hatake.
Team eight will be Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame and Sakura Haruno. You will be a tracking and capture specialist team under Kurenai Yuhi.
Team nine is still in rotation, so team ten will be the traditional Ino-Shika-Cho team under the supervision of Asuma Sarutobi. Everyone please remain here until your Jonin sensei arrive."
And so they waited. And waited. And waited, as the other teams filed out with their sensei. Three hours after the last team left, their sensei finally arrived. He's lucky none of his students are vindictive pranksters or he may have ended up on the receiving end of pranks over the next few months. Assuming they pass, of course.
But arrive he did. Finally. He peaked into the room and said, "Follow me team seven." And he immediately left before anyone had a chance to say anything. The team arrived on the roof and Kakashi took a seat, motioning the new graduates to do the same.
"First off," Kakashi said, "I think we should introduce ourselves. My Name is Kakashi Hatake. As for my likes, well I like a lot of things. There aren't really many things I dislike. And as for dreams for the future, I guess I don't really know."
'Wow... that was really informative...' They all thought at once with a very comical sweat-drop on each of their foreheads. "Your turn. Who wants to go first?" Kakashi asked.
Naruto went first. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki. I like training and learning new jutsu and seals. I also like all my friends and adopted family. My favorite food is ramen, though I don't eat it often. (What? I couldn't change that one!) I dislike bullies and people who judge someone they don't know. I have two dreams for the future. The first is to restore the Uzumaki clan here in Konoha. The second is the be the greatest Hokage the village has ever seen, surpassing both Hokage-jiji and my birth father the Yondaime!"
'He's just like his parents. Minato-sensei, you would be proud of your son already.' Kakashi thought.
Hinata went next. "My name is Hinata Hyuuga. I like training with my friends and spending time with my family. My favorite food is cinnamon buns. I dislike my clan politics and the Caged Bird Seal. My dream is to abolish the practice of the seal in my clan and heal the rift between the main and branch family."
'That's ambitions, and dangerous.' Kakashi thought.
Sasuke went last. "I'm Sasuke Uchiha. I don't have many likes besides my two friends and my family. I dislike a lot of things and I don't have a dream for the future. I have a goal that will be reality. I will reform my clan, restoring it to it's former glory for the betterment of both the clan and the village."
Honestly, that's a great goal for him. I was worried he'd be caught up on revenge. He's more mature than I thought he would be.' Kakashi thought. "Well then, tomorrow morning we will meet at training ground three at eight A.M. For a training excersize to determine if I will teach you or not. If you don't pass I will send you back to the academy, no questions asked. You should know, I've never passed a team before." 'Though with this team, I honestly have no choice. Not that they need to know that. Let's just see how things go.'
And before the three new graduates had time to question him, Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves. He left behind three very confused young Genin. And so the three friends left. Sasuke went home to tell his mother who his team mates were while Naruto and Hinata went to tell the same thing to Hiashi.
A/N: I know this is my shortest chapter yet, but I couldn't really help it. There was nothing else I had planned to put into the last two years of the academy and the first chapter as a Genin will more than make up for it. I hope you enjoy. Until next time. Ja ne.