A/N: I want to thank everyone that added this story to their favourites and follows as well as everyone that reviewed the last chapter.

At six, there was only one other person that Naruto longed to get the approval of and that was her teacher in the Academy. Hiraoka Sabura. That was his name. He was her very first teacher in the Academy and teachers were people that children should be able to trust. Teachers cared about children and listened to their problems.

Naruto saw the way their teacher comforted Sakura after Ami bullies her for having a large forehead. It isn't even that big. She thinks of several insults that can be used to describe about the bully. Sakura was pretty and she was not stupid like Ami. Of course Naruto doesn't know how to tell Sakura what she thinks. The thought of approaching Sakura makes her feel funny and she doesn't like that funny feeling.

She thinks their teacher was kind and nice, so maybe he might be nice to her. It was why Naruto spends most of the night doing the science worksheet that he assigned them to do. She spent hours doing it, checking and double checking for any errors because sometimes Hiraoka-sensei will say that her answer wasn't there. It was correct. But Sensei was really strict when it came to marking her worksheets.

He never gives her full marks but Naruto thinks that maybe she didn't word it properly. She makes excuses for him because Hiraoka-sensei was nice to Sakura and all the other kids that were being bullied. It never crosses her mind that maybe he was being unjust to her…because teachers were supposed to be fair. She only understands the truth when Ami grabs her worksheet from her desk.

She sat right beside Sasuke and smiled happily at her worksheet. Most of their classmates didn't arrive yet and wouldn't arrive until five minutes before class starts. Only three people comes to class this early: Naruto, Sasuke and Ami. Ami always stares at Sasuke with weird eyes and her classmate either ignores her or looks at Naruto. Sometimes, she catches her classmate staring at her hair.

He was just as strange as his fangirls.

Ami walked in through the class and instead of going to her usual spot right beside Sasuke, she makes a beeline to Naruto. I don't wanna be her friend. It had to be the only reason Ami would come to her. She wanted to become friends with her, but Naruto doesn't want it. She doesn't like bullies; they were mean to everyone and don't actually have any friends. Naruto wants to make friends. Actual friends.

She doesn't want fake friends like Ami did.

Ami smirked and grabbed the worksheet from her table. Naruto froze and just watched in horror as her classmate took out her eraser and removed Naruto's name from the worksheet. She doesn't know why it took her so long to act out. All she knew was that her classmate took her work. The work she spent hours doing was taken away from her.

"Give it back!" Naruto yells and charges straight at the purple-haired girl. Her blue eyes flared with anger and the purple-haired girl froze before bolting from her spot. Sasuke just kept quiet, didn't even try to stop Ami even when Naruto turned to him and silently begged him to help her with his crazy fangirl.

Ami would listen to him because she loves him, which is kind of silly when she thinks about it. Naruto doesn't know how Ami can love him. They were only six and boys were icky if you asked her.

"It is mine!" Naruto screams as the girl continued to run circles around her. Bitch. She wanted to say the word so badly but the Hokage scolded her when she called his secretary that word. We don't use foul language, Naruto. She doesn't want to be scolded by Hiraoka-sensei.

She was about to spring on the girl, only to blink when Hiraoka-sensei walks into the classroom with an irritated look. Time seemed to freeze and there was only one thought going through Naruto's mind. Ami is going to get into trouble. She opens her mouth to tell him that Ami was trying to pass off the work that Naruto worked so hard on, as hers.

"What is happening here?" Hiraoka-sensei asked. He took the science worksheet from Ami's hand and the girl hunched her back, looking almost frightful for what their sensei was going to say.

Naruto points at Ami and answered. "She stole my homework! She wants to pass it off as her own!"

Their teacher didn't scold Ami and Naruto frowned. She knitted her eyebrows together as the man looked at the worksheet and then to the purple-haired girl, who was slowly growing more and more confident as the seconds passed. Why isn't he scolding her? It is obviously my work! Ami isn't hard-working or smart enough to answer those questions. It was her handwriting on that worksheet.

Anyone with a brain could see that.

"You are a liar Naruto," Hiraoka-sensei declared. "This has Ami's name on it."

"Because she erased my name! That is my work! That has my handwriting!" Naruto yells at him. She wanted to cry so badly. How could he say that? Naruto didn't lie. The Hokage told her about how bad it was to lie to the adults and Naruto didn't want to be seen as a bad person. She was smart. She could answer all those questions even when their teacher sent her out of the classroom for talking in school.

Naruto swirled her head to Sasuke and silently pleads for him to back her up. They talked sometimes and he was her friend, wasn't he? They played together and everything. So why was he keeping quiet? He knew the truth so why did he keep quiet? She hunched her back.

"You are not smart enough to make this score," Hiraoka-sensei said. "You stole the worksheet from Ami."

You are a liar, Hiraoka-sensei. Naruto wanted to scream those words out loud and to cry about the unfairness of the whole thing, but something stops her. If she cried then nothing would change. Crying never fixed her problems, it only make things worse. So she keeps quiet and stares at the smiling teacher with a scowl on her face.

What did she do to deserve this?

Naruto studies so hard for his tests and works so hard on his homework. She makes notes even though all Naruto wanted to do was skip class and go somewhere else. She was nothing like most of the girls in their class. They daydream about the boy right beside her. She did her work on time and studies her heart out. She saw no point of cheating on the worksheet when she knew the answer. Ami never did any of those things, so how could Hiraoka-sensei take her side?

That was the day Naruto learnt that there was no point for her to try so hard in the Academy. The day where she learnt that there was no point for her to show she was smart, because what was the point? No one wanted to recognise it.

The lack of dust and the clear organisation of Uzumaki's apartment worried Aizawa. The whole apartment was clean, cleaner than he would expect a fifteen-year-old girl was capable of doing when she didn't have parents to teach her about the importance of cleaning an apartment. It also showed just how much time his student spent on keeping her apartment clean, because his own reflection stared back at him.

He glanced at the kitchen and frowned at the sight of his student making coffee. The white-haired girl clung to Uzumaki's pants, looking almost so frightful as if his student might just disappear from her. What happened to her? This kind of behaviour worried him. It was not healthy for that little girl or for his student, because Uzumaki was not emotionally stable enough for the girl.

He tore his eyes away from that little scene and looked at the shelf. There were only two photos on the shelf and it spoke volumes about the life that his student had before she came to Japan. The first photo was of a ten-year-old Uzumaki smiling widely with an elderly man for the camera. Love shone through their eyes but there was something about the posture that worried him.

He just didn't know what it was.

The second photo was of Naruto with two other kids and a silver-haired man. His student had her arms folded against her chest, a scowl playing on her lips and a black-haired boy also had a scowl on his face. There was also just a tiny side glance to Uzumaki. There was a pink-haired girl with a smile on her face. The silver-haired man smiled, looking faintly amused, and had both his hands on Uzumaki and the boy's head.

In both of the photos, Uzumaki seemed to be just a little bit happier than she was now.

"Eri-chan, I want you to meet my teacher: Aizawa-sensei and Aizawa-sensei meet Eri-chan," his student said. She placed a tray of coffee on the table and took a seat on the couch. Eri looked at him with curious eyes but made no attempt to talk to him. Instead she just stared at him and clung even harder to Uzumaki.

He frowned and observed the little girl. The fear, the clinginess and those bandages around her arms and legs told Aizawa that the girl was in a similar boat to his student. Just like Uzumaki, the girl must have been abused by someone close to her. The only question was how did she come to live with his student?

"Uzumaki, please explain me why do you have a child with you?"

The blond-haired girl shrugged her shoulders and just combed her fingers against Eri's hair. She kept her blue eyes fixed on the clingy girl, not allowing Aizawa to see what was going through her young mind.

Finally, Uzumaki answered. "It is none of your business."

Aizawa pressed his lips into a thin line at the answer. None of my business? He clasped his hands together, pressing the locked hands against his chin, and frowned at his irritated student. It was his business because Uzumaki was his student. She skipped school for this girl and was clearly trying to act like a parent to the girl. He didn't want this for either of them.

"You are my student and anything that makes you skip school, is my business."

Uzumaki folded her hands against her chest and puffed her cheeks. "You aren't my Dad!"

Don't lose your temper, Aizawa. The temptation to lash out was great because Aizawa wasn't even old enough to be her father. He doubt that if the girl had a proper father figure in her life then his student would never behave like this. If he lashed out or say anything then the girl would take it as an indication that he didn't actually care about her.

He was not going to give her that satisfaction.

"I know I'm not your Dad but I don't want you to waste your future, Uzumaki." Aizawa took a deep breath and flickered his eyes to Eri. The little girl blinked and looked almost confused at what was happening. "You have got so much potential but you will ruin your potential if you don't go to class."

Uzumaki kept quiet and balled her hands into a tight fist. Aizawa frowned even more when the girl took several deep breaths and flashed him a smile. Those blue eyes looked at him with mistrust, fake happiness but the most prominent emotion was surprise. Why was she surprised? Hasn't anyone ever tell her about her potential? It was clear from the very beginning that Uzumaki had a lot of potential.

"You are only saying it because you will get into trouble if Yuuei High finds out that I have been skipping class."

Aizawa raised his eyebrow at the logic. "You will be the one that gets into trouble for skipping class. This doesn't affect me but I don't want you to ruin your future."

"And I'm not ruining my future!" Uzumaki declare. She took several deep breaths and looked at him with so much fury that Aizawa felt himself becoming slightly relax. He wanted some emotions coming out of the girl. Any emotion except for the fake happiness was an improvement. It showed him that Uzumaki was really capable of showing real emotions.

The white-haired girl kept quiet and shifted closer to Uzumaki. Her red eyes flashed with so much fear and Aizawa frowned. If he wanted to continue this conversation then Eri would need to go somewhere else. This conversation was not a conversation that a young child should hear, not with her kind of background.

"Uzumaki, can you make a clone?" His student frowned and darted her eyes to Eri. Blue eyes grew wide and the girl stiffly nodded her head, placed her fingers together and a white cloud of smoke appeared. He winced at the loudness. I don't think Eri would like it. A child with a history of abuse probably would get scared when it came to her clones.

"Eri-chan, I want you to go and play with my clone while I talk to Aizawa-sensei." Uzumaki said softly, patting her clone and flashing a reassuring smile at the girl. The clone flashed a smile and offered her hand, but Eri stared at it with mistrust. "She is just like me."

Only more open with showing her emotions.

Aizawa kept that information to himself and watched as the little girl took the clone's offered hand. They waited till the two of them were in the bedroom and the doors were firmly closed, before resuming their conversation. It would do neither of them any good if Eri became upset.

"You are going to be overworking yourself to make sure that you can provide for her," Aizawa said. He was going to paint a very clear picture to the stubborn girl about what her future would be. "You won't be able to have a life if you spend your whole time taking care of her. You won't be able to focus on your schoolwork if you take care of her. This isn't the life that you deserve."

"And what about Eri-chan? You think she deserves to be taken away from me and be put in some crappy orphanage! That is even worse!" Naruto snarled, slamming her hands on the coffee table. The coffee table cracked under the pressure, splitting neatly in half and crashing down on the floor.

He kept his expression completely blank as Uzumaki glared at him. So much anger and resentment poured out of her eyes, speaking volumes of how much she hated the idea of an orphanage. If he didn't choose his words wisely then Uzumaki might just close up. She would never open up if he said the wrong thing. He decided to ask her just one question:

"What is wrong with orphanages? Give me an argument on why you think Eri shouldn't go to an orphanage."

Uzumaki chewed on her bottom lip and stared out at the window, where the sound of happy children could be heard. Is she going to give me her own experience? Or am I going to hear some logical explanation? He wanted to see if the girl was going to open up to him, just even slightly about why she doesn't like the idea of an orphanage. Aizawa had been lucky growing up. He had a loving mother and somewhat distant father, which was better than what some kids had.

"Because the kids in the orphanages are bullies and the carer in the orphanage won't care about her," Uzumaki said quietly. "It is a world where she will have to constantly fight to survive. The carer would just ignore her and might even hit her if she did anything wrong. They will say hurtful things and that is the last thing she needs. The person, who took care of Eri-chan, hurt her and I know his boss wants her…I just don't know why."

The whole speech gave Aizawa a lot of information to work with. Eri was not just an abused child but a child that was important to some criminal, which meant that Uzumaki saved her. It made sense why Eri clung to Uzumaki since she saw her as her saviour. The argument for the orphanage told him more about Uzumaki's background. The bitterness in her words told him that the disadvantage was with her own experience.

He knew he had to be wise with his words and decision.

"Then how about we come to a compromise?" Uzumaki blinked and Aizawa took a deep breath. I am probably going to regret this. The things he would do to make sure that his student trusted him. "I will take care of Eri with the help of the school since her original guardian might want to take her back. We can protect her from those people and you will be able to visit her."

Uzumaki stared at him, looked almost taken back by his offer and waited for him to say something. He just took the cup of tea and took a sip out of the cup, keeping his eyes fixated on his student. Maybe the other adults in her life would have taken back the offer on such a big responsibility, but Aizawa wanted to show her that he was serious about the whole thing.

"Why are you going this far to make sure that I am going to come to school? My clones are me."

"Because I am worried for both you and Eri-chan," Aizawa tells her. The words coming out of his mouth was the truth because Uzumaki deserved to hear this. She deserved to know that he wasn't lying to her. "I don't know what happened to you as a little girl, but we can talk about it. If you don't want to talk to me then we can find someone that you will…"

His student frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Uzumaki, are you really fine?" He asked slowly. Aizawa kept his eyes locked on his student, lips pressed against his cup of tea as he waited for his student to say something. It would surprise him if she admitted that she wasn't fine. People were always in denial about the life that they had.

"Of course I am fine!" His student replied with a fake smile plastered on her face. There was a slight waver in her smile and those blue eyes shone with mistrust. The girl balled her hands into a tight ball of fist, the smile was tight and Aizawa knew that his student was still hurting about her past. That she still needed to be rescue from whatever that was hurting her. He was going to be there for her. He does care for her because she was his student.

He would listen to her.

"Uzumaki, you don't have to put on that smile," Aizawa said softly. "You don't have to pretend to be happy. It is okay…"

His student snorted. "You don't actually care about me. No one cares about me."

"I came here, didn't I?" He reminded her. Aizawa felt like cursing the people that took care of Uzumaki as a child. How could they allow a child to grow up thinking like this? It was not healthy for her mental state. What if the girl cracked one day? It took only one bad day for someone to snap. "A teacher that doesn't care, wouldn't confront you about the use of your clones. If I didn't care then I wouldn't have left school early to come here. I want to be there for you, Uzumaki."

"Aizawa-sensei, you are just…"

It seemed like he needed to pull out the big guns.

"Uzumaki, do you know what is Pistanthrophobia ?" He kept his voice low and eyes focused on his student. The girl frowned, tilted her head for a good couple of seconds, and furiously shook her head. He took a deep breath and focused on keeping his tone quiet and calm.

"It is the fear of trust," he explained to her. "I don't know what happened to you during your developing years, but I can guess that someone or something hurt you and that experience caused you to stop trusting people and their intentions."

Uzumaki kept quiet and just stared at him with a tight smile. She did not even try to deny about her fear or offered to tell him about where it started. He didn't expect her to tell him from the very beginning, but there was an improvement. She wasn't trying to lash out or deny him. Uzumaki seemed willing to listen and Aizawa was going to take advantage of it.

Aizawa kept his eyes focused on her.

"You are a very strong girl, Uzumaki and we both know that you are very intelligent," he tells her. "Your scores in the Entrance Exam and your battle against Kaminari and Jirou shows it. I will help you find a good therapist and if you don't feel comfortable then I will go with you. I won't be in the actual therapy session but I will be in the waiting room to support you."

His student stared at him and quietly asked. "Why are you willing to go this far?"

Aizawa stared at the young girl. There was something about the question that made it seem like she was testing him, and he doesn't know what was the correct answer to her question. He just knew his student had been hurt. He could guess that she never had someone to show her some form of care. Those adults in her life might have ignored her silent cries for help and for a child…it was the worst thing they could ever do.

"Because you deserve to have someone care for you."

Uzumaki gulped and forced a smile on her lips. "Okay. I will give the therapy thing a go, Aizawa-sensei."

Aizawa knew his student expected him to not be there for her but Aizawa was going to show her that he was very much different from the adults in her life.

"Pistanthrophobia."

The word sounded strange even though Naruto repeated the words so many times after Aizawa-sensei left the apartment with her clone and Eri-chan. She disliked how the man convinced her to let Eri go, but she knew she had no right to argue against him. The fact he allowed her to visit Eri-chan and was willing to compromise had been a better option then allowing Eri-chan to go to the orphanage.

She only agreed because Aizawa-sensei had only laid out two options to her: the orphanage or he took care of Eri-chan in her place. The first option was terrible and the second option was slightly better. At least with Aizawa-sensei, she could be reassured that he could protect her and there was a chance for him to focus on Eri-chan.

At least Eri-chan wouldn't be alone.

Pistanthrophobia ? She doesn't have a fear of trusting people. If she was afraid of trusting people then how could she work in the café? Or interact with her customers? There had to be a level of trust between them. She did trust people. She really did trust people. It just wasn't her fault that she never hangs out with her classmate. She just worked a lot. Bills had to be paid after all.

The door to her apartment slammed open and her clone burst in with a guilty smile playing on her lips. Naruto felt her temper rise at the sight of the guilty smile. She folded her arms against her chest and glared at her guilty clone.

"You only had one job! How could you allow me to get caught by Aizawa-sensei?" She yelled at the clone.

Her clone flinched, blinked and hung her head. Eri-chan was taken away because you gave a way the fact that you were a clone. She took deep breaths and wanted to scream even more. This probably would have never happened if she just went to school herself, leaving this clone with Eri. But Naruto had been afraid it would pop and Eri-chan would have gotten so scared.

Now this was much worse.

"Aizawa-sensei too?" her clone finally squeaked.

Naruto swirled her head and growled. "Who else knows about you being a copy?"

"Pretty Boy." Her clone flushed red and laughed nervously as the blonde gawked at her. Who the hell was Pretty Boy? She wished that there was a way for her to know everything that her clone experienced. But shadow clones didn't work that way…she thinks. Naruto furiously shook her head at the thought.

"Pretty Boy? Who the hell…" Naruto trailed off as a face popped into her mind. There was only one classmate that she considered to be a pretty boy. Pretty Boy had to be Todoroki Shouto. Out of all the boys in her class, Todoroki was the only one she considered to be pretty. Bakugou was good-looking but there was something about him that makes her think it was wrong to think of him in that way.

Todoroki was also prettier looking than Sasuke and Naruto knew all too well of how good-looking her teammate had been.

"And how did Todoroki figure out that you were a clone?"

Her clone flinched and flushed a shade of red that would have put Hinata's blushing to shame. Now I know what it looks like if I blush and…why the hell is she blushing? Naruto wanted to tug her braid and slapped her clone silly for whatever she had done to make Todoroki realized that she was a clone. Her reputation was going to be ruined because of her stupid clone.

"I think it is because I kept calling him Pretty Boy."

He got all that from a nickname? Naruto didn't know whether to be impressed at how he figured it out from a single clue or be furious with her clone for saying something like that. It was one thing to dub him in her mind as the Pretty Boy but for her to say those words meant a lot of things.

"Why would you do that?" She snarled.

"You have the same thoughts! I am you!" Her clone yelled right back. "I am just more willing to show my nicer side to people!"

It feels weird to argue with my clone. She knew this whole conversation was weird but Naruto just didn't know what to do now. Aizawa-sensei wanted her to go for therapy which was stupid, because she was healthy. Eri-chan had been taken away because her teacher clearly thought she wasn't capable of taking care of Eri-chan. Now, her clone just told an asshole that he was the Pretty Boy.

Todoroki was going to get an even bigger head and Naruto would have to figure out how to explain to him that she didn't like him at all.

"Did you tell him that you were a clone?"

If she did then that would make things easier.

"Yes," her clone admitted shamelessly. "He asked where you were."

Naruto frowned. "Why would he care about where I was? You are me."

I really don't understand Todoroki. He looked like an asshole with a stick up his ass and seemed like he didn't give a shit about what people thought of him. Then the next day he asked about where she was. There had to be a story behind this. The two of them weren't friends. They had only been classmates for three days now, not enough time for him to care.

No, there had to be a reason that Todoroki asked about her.

"Aizawa-sensei assigned us as partners for a history project," her clone admitted and she wiggled her eyebrows. "You know I think we can make some history with him."

Her clone was shameless or was Naruto shameless?

"Is there anything else that I need to know?"

"I might have told Todoroki that our parents are dead." Her clone admitted. Naruto shrugged and just rubbed the sides of her head. I don't care that he knows I am an orphan. It had never been a secret in Konoha and Naruto would never lie about having parents if anyone asked about them. As long as Todoroki didn't look at her with pity or taunt her about her lack of parents, then Naruto was fine with this knowledge.

"And anything else?"

Her clone smiled hesitantly. "I think Todoroki might want to talk to you about where you guys should do the project since the project is due on Monday. You guys have to do a poster presentation and well we spent more time talking about where you were, instead of getting any work done."

"We can't do it in his house?"

Her clone frowned. "He refused."

In the back of her mind, Naruto wondered why Todoroki refused to let her see his house for them to do their work. But then she asked herself why did she even care? He wasn't the first person to not invite her to his house. If she continued to wonder then it meant she cared. It meant that she wanted to get to know him and Naruto didn't have the time to get to know her classmates.

She was not going to get to know an asshole that wanted to hide her from his family even though the two of them was just going to do a project.

Todoroki was just like every asshole that she knew.

A/N: What do you think about this chapter? What do you think of the conversation between Naruto and Aizawa? Does it seem realistic? And what do you think of the flashback?