(EDITED: 3rd of May 2020) AN: Thanks for the support to those of you who've followed, favourited and reviewed, that stuff means a lot. anyway, this chapter is another jump in the story.

Also Takezou is pretty tall mostly up to his mothers family and his fathers genes, so if I had to give it a number I'd say around the time he leaves the academy he's 5'5ft(168cm) if not ever so slightly taller. Where as from what I could find out looking around at official heights he's a head and shoulders taller than everyone from his academy class, cause Naruto is 4'7ft(145cm) when he leaves the academy from what I've read says. though this is mostly just for context and description- though I'm still unsure how tall he'll end up I've been thinking something like 6'3ft(192cm) just because that seems reasonably enough. I'm pretty sure his dad is that tall to from the info card I wrote up about all the characters back when I was planning the early chapters.

Arc 1 end
Chapter Title: Whats next then?

It was finally here, our final year at the academy. We were a week away from the final exam or test thingy, the class had obviously been told ahead of time, so they could prepare and get ready for it like make sure they could perform basic Jutsu, they didn't tell us which one they were testing for until the day. I had been spending the weekend before our final week getting my arse thrashed into the next life by Ume because she said, "There's no way you won't make Genin so I'm going to stop holding back, at least for the most part in our training so you're forced to get used to it, then hopefully you'll be able to beat me." She had said something similar six or so months ago, but it was more about her taking the training wheels off and she held back less and less until now where she still eviscerated me, but I was slowly catching up. Her 'Beat you at full force until you adapt' training was going well I'd say, considering it lent me to be able to spar confidently with Uncle Toyo even if he held back some.

Dad had taken up training me and helping me set up a proper regimen for it instead of just going off and training with whoever or even blowing off the academy for it, I got scolded a fair few times because of that, unless Ume was responsible then I got to watch her laugh at Mum and Dad as they yelled at her for trying to further my apprenticeship. Right now, though I was with Dad after a morning of jogging around the village, he said that there was this guy who he used to see going around yelling about youth who inspired the idea of us doing the jog, they sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. Dad was sitting on a tree stump cigarette in hand while he waited for me to catch my breath and drink from my water bottle.

"You're making good time Take-chan" he breathed smoke out after he spoke.

"Thanks… you know Dad I know you're retired from being a Jonin, but smoking is gonna kill you, lung cancer and all that." I said as I began doing some stretches.

He rolled his eyes "That might be true but I'm looking to at least see sixty to sixty-five, I'll be fine-" he started to cough.

I gave him an arched eyebrow "I'm sure, what about Akatsuki though?" just mentioning my black and silvery haired sister seemed to catch him.

He gave a sigh and spat the cigarette onto the dirt crushing it under his sandal "Fine you're right, your mother would drag me from the Shinigami's grasp to kill me herself if smoking got me before our little red dawn turned five." He stood up stretching before scratching the back of his head.

"If you've got it in you to give me solid and logical life advice then you've got enough to do another lap or two." He started jogging from our spot on the Hokage monument.

I gave in and went off behind him seeing him occasionally look back at me to make sure I was still alive, which was fair we had just spent two or three hours jogging around the village as you might be able to imagine the village is very large, to say the least. Working our way through the outskirts we ended up going through the villages resident ghost town, the Uchiha Clan compound, it was dead and no that's not a pun its just the only way to describe how sad the air felt as we passed through it. I think I saw Dads face contort with sadness for a moment, which was something I'd never even considered, he had Uchiha friends, I can't believe I didn't think about that! Shit! No fucking wonder he was super sad that week it wasn't a coincidence it was because he lost his friends.

Gods, I feel like a bloody moron for not connecting the dots, we were passing through the Hashirama tree forest when I started truly feeling how sore my muscles were, I tripped and slammed into a tree. Dad stopped and came back for me, he looked at me for a moment then at his right arm or rather lack thereof and sighed before disappearing in a whirl of leaves. He came back about five minutes later with someone dressed in the generic Chuunin stuff, he had a bandana style Hitai-ate with a part of his hair covering the right side of his face.

"Thanks for helping Izumo," Dad said.

"It's nothing Sir, I'd take helping you over gate duty any day, Kotetsu and I get stuck with that damn near every shift," He said lifting me up onto his back.

"None of that 'Sir' stuff alright? I'm retired" after that they started the run back home.

"Sorry to be a bother," I said from the Chuunin's back.

"Don't sweat it, kid, your Dad is pretty well known and respected, so this doesn't bother me none." He gave me a smile.

Mum was playing with Akatsuki outside the front of the house when we showed up, Izumo promptly dropped me and started clicking his back, the poor guy, I was nearly as tall as him, so it mustn't have been a cakewalk. Probably still better than gate shifts though, Mum took Akatsuki's small hands and waved them to us as we walked into the yard, I made it a few feet before collapsing onto my face and rolling over. Izumo left and Dad dropped my water bottle on me, Akatsuki started clambering over me and using me as her jungle gym, I heard her giggles as I felt her small hands pulling on my singlet before she moved to my hair.

I didn't have the heart to stop her she was just so cute, she was about one year old now or maybe a little older I wasn't sure, her eyes were blue and what there was of her hair it was black with those same silvery streaks Mum gave me, her skin wasn't nearly as dark as mine and Mums, hers was kind of like a lightly tanned colour. After ten or so minutes of climbing on me Akatsuki decidedly curled up on me to sleep, I slowly moved allowing her into my lap when Mum shuffled over on her knees and hugged us tightly, I almost wish it lasted longer I was always a sucker for hugs they were easily my favourite thing in the last life and this one. Nothing could beat a good hug.

Whilst holding us in her embrace Mum whispered: "I love seeing you two like this its adorable" she pulled us in somewhat tighter for a moment before letting us go, she picked up Akatsuki and headed inside I followed suit.

[Scene Break]

I spent the rest of the day resting and looking after Akatsuki for Mum and Dad, I had since taken over most basic house duties for Mum like cleaning, doing dishes, cooking and doing the laundry which left her with a lot of time and she spent that with Dad or with me and Akatsuki. I had plans to do something this afternoon though, I wanted to go find Naruto because I remember him saying he had problems with a certain Jutsu and I wanted to try to help the kid out, I wasn't sure where he'd be but I'm sure he would either be at that ramen stand or off pulling pranks and making a nuisance of himself to the general public spouting about being the Hokage.

I left the house just after one o'clock and headed to Ichiraku's to look for my blonde-haired companion, the sky was light with a few fluffy clouds wandering it as I walked the roads of the village to the street the stand was on. I saw a few Ninja taking the high road also known as the roofs while I strolled along at an 'old lady's pace' as I was once told by an old lady, I liked to walk slowly because I enjoyed taking everything in and listening to the world as it passed me by, the streets weren't all that populated though I chalked that up to it being early afternoon on a Tuesday. Were we meant to be at the academy? Yes definitely, but I didn't care, we had the week off to practice the Jutsu, well that and Iruka knows about our newest family member causing me to stay home often to help out. I was still not great at math, but I was better at the speed I understood what a kanji meant, which was nice. Not taking several months to read a book instead of the week or two improved my mood.

I went in under the banner and Naruto was downing the broth of the ramen he had, he turned to me in the middle of slurping it down with bright eyes and gave me a wave.

"What can I do for you?" Teuchi asked as I came to stand behind Naruto.

"Er… I'm not here for food today I ate earlier, I'm here for Naruto." Said boy gave me a confused look.

"Whaddya need Takezou?" he asked wiping his mouth on his shirt.

"You know how you said you were having trouble with that Jutsu? I wanted to see if I could help 'cause I had trouble with the basic three as well and was hoping I can share my knowledge." I lifted the banner and motioned for him to follow me out.

I walked with him in tandem through the streets ignoring the people scowling at him, we went to Aunty Ume's house to train there, it was the only place I could think of going that wouldn't have us interrupted for not having a booked it or for being academy students. My Uncle was the one that answered the door when we showed up and he asked us the all-important question, one we had yet to be asked today.

"Aren't you kids meant to be at school?" he said looking at the both of us with an arched eyebrow.

"Heyya Uncle Matsuda! Could we use the yard and dojo to train?" I asked ignoring the question.

He clicked his tongue and shrugged going back inside "Sure just don't get too rowdy, we just managed to get Irisu to sleep after a night of her crying. Oh! And your aunt might actually skin you for waking her as well" he disappeared, and we walked through the house quietly out to the yard.

"Are you sure it's okay to be here? Your uncle didn't seem to be thrilled." Naruto said standing across from me while we were in the circle, he was fidgeting and looked fairly nervous.

"Eh," I shrugged "I'm sure it'll be fine just try not to yell 'cause like he said my aunt will skin us if we wake her and my niece," I said scratching my chin. "Anyway, what Jutsu do you need to work on? Show me by doing it that should be easier." I said waiting for him.

He did the clone Jutsu and two deformed and discoloured collapsed genjutsu clones were on the ground holding their throats as they seemingly choked to death, it was pretty violent to watch honestly. After a minute of them slowly choking out and Naruto standing there with his mouth agape appalled at his own efforts, I just watched with a disgusted fascination, kinda like a car crash. I let the awkward silence drag on for a few minutes, Naruto started squirming.

"How the fuck did you manage that?!" I said in English. "Mother of fuck Naruto, how in the name of the gods did you manage to make them choke to death on air?!" I continued in my native language.

"You're speaking gibberish again Takezou!" he said loudly.

Eyes wide I damn near jumped on him covering his mouth I made 'shush' gesture at him, with a fierce look. He shut up immediately "You'll be quiet if I take my hand off you right?" I whispered to him, I waited for him to nod before getting off the small blonde.

I sighed for a moment "Alright, so I have no idea how you managed to make your clone choke to death." I stated flatly. "You know how to channel chakra for the Jutsu don't you?" I asked him.

He stared blankly at me for a minute slightly confused before saying "What's Chakra?"

If it hadn't been for the fact that Ume would cut me in two if I woke her I might have yelled at that point, but instead I spent the next hour giving him a small crash course on Chakra and some small exercises.

I arrived home by myself half an hour after finishing up with Naruto, I walked straight through and past our living room into the kitchen and started on dinner, Mum was sleeping on one of the couches with Akatsuki in her crib and Dad reading. I whipped up dinner in about an hour and a half, I made rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables and fish, I brought it out to the table in the living room and served Mum and Dad theirs before my own and settled to eat. It was good, I'm glad I took up cooking when Mum taught me, she's a great cook, it's always fun to learn from her with stuff like that. She taught me how to stitch and repair tears in my clothing as well, there were a lot of small things she went out of her way to teach me, I couldn't list them off but there's just so many. It's so easy to say I love her, after all, she's done, I don't think she could possibly do anything that would stop me from loving her.

Afterwards, Dad took to doing the dishes on his own letting me relax in my room for the night, I went through my closet and draws when I got in my room to look through what I had and what I wanted to make my 'Ninja outfit'. I wanted something that left me with manoeuvrability, that was light and held itself well and covered as much as it could, so I could avoid immediate damage to my skin where possible, I'd probably try to stick to something similar with what I've been wearing the last few years.

After going through my stuff I decided on keeping it simple, mesh armour with a dark grey singlet or long-sleeved shirt over that, navy blue shozoku esc pants, black shin-high shinobi sandals and lastly a crimson haori with Aunty Ume's dojo emblem in black on the back that I may or may not have been given by my Aunt when she was drunk and didn't realise what it was, aside from all that I had a kunai pouch on my left thigh and a shuriken one on my right thigh. I'd probably buy some forearm guards and other armour at some point when I had money. I'd probably keep the haori to missions as well otherwise it'd be flailing around a lot.

I went to sleep not too long after that.

[Scene Break]

Today was the day we did our 'Genin Exam' I was looking forward to it and what it held, I arrived early a bit of my old self leftover in that, I was always anal about time because I feared not making it on time so showing up early was always preferable. I just sat around at my desk and started a reread of Jiraiya's first book, it was still easily one of my favourites so far that I had read since getting here, every time I read it made me want to meet him more just to talk with him really that's all I want. He sounds like an interesting guy despite the whole 'Icha icha' series of which I would never touch, smut just isn't my cup of tea.

After twenty-odd minutes of sitting around reading the rest of the class started filing in and taking their seats, everyone was sat with a one-person gap between them so if they tried to cheat for answers it would be obvious. When all was said and done, Iruka and Mizuki-Sensei had arrived with the written portion of the exam we began, it wasn't particularly hard, and they didn't need me to show how I got any of my maths answers so that was a plus. When I finished it there was still five minutes left of our allotted forty-five minutes for it, I looked around and noticed Naruto was struggling which sucked to see but, it was for the best for him to fail so he got fooled into learning the shadow clone jutsu, he wouldn't be him if he didn't have his staple jutsu.

"Alright, that's time!" Mizuki called.

"All of you bring your tests up here for marking and then we'll move onto the practical test," Iruka stated standing from their desk.

Everyone came down to the area in front of the desks and lined up in wait for their name to be called to perform the Jutsu.

"Alright, Shino do a Henge of the Hokage." Iruka started listing people off, all of the civilian kids that didn't seem to have much in the way of chakra flopped the test, except for Sakura she did it perfectly.

"Kiba make a clone" the dog wielding Inuzuka did "You pass."

"Shikamaru do a Henge of me or Mizuki Sensei" he lazily performed it "You pass"

"Takezou do a Henge of the Hokage" I channelled the chakra doing the jutsu "you pass" I walked back and sat at my desk with the Hitai-ate in hand.

"Naruto make a clone please" Naruto's clone didn't choke to death immediately so it was a start, then it suddenly choked out "You Fail Naruto."

"WHAT!?" the blonde yelled making everyone wince, I tuned it out as Mizuki tried to sway Iruka.

Not too long after that Iruka spoke to us all "Now for those of you that passed you need to be here tomorrow to find out who you're Jonin Sensei is, don't be late." He left the class as everyone dashed out in exciting spells of happiness holding their Hitai-ate.

I went straight home to show Mum and Dad then off to Aunty Ume's to challenge her for the Nodachi.

[Scene Break]

She was fully kitted out in her grey uwagi, black hakama and white haori with Samurai esc bracers, greaves and breastplate, she sat with her infamous 'Kuroi Sabato' in its sheath in front of where she was kneeling with her eyes closed, she had her raven black hair tied up in a high ponytail with her Hitai-ate over her forehead. It was really intimidating because I was only wearing my 'Ninja outfit' but had a hoodie instead of the haori and had no weapon to speak of, didn't help that all her other students were standing around us in the dueling circle just outside the dojo, Matsuda was watching the house with Irisu in hand keeping my niece from having an episode.

"Don't go getting cold feet now nephew" My Aunt said opening her eyes to see me.

"I-I didn't expect y-you to have all of your students watch, I just thought it would be me, you and Uncle watching from the side-lines." I stuttered out.

"Now where would the honour of my dojo be if, in the graduation ceremony we didn't make a spectacle of it, after all, it's a joyous occasion, my dear Take-chan." She stood up the pieces of armour clinking.

She picked up her sword and clipped it onto her left hip next her wakizashi, she motioned for one of the students that was behind her to come forth, he came over with a Katana in its sheath. She took it from him, my fellow pupil bowed to her as he did so, she turned and tossed the Katana to me, she pulled the wakizashi out holding it in front of her while I strapped the sheath to my left hip and readied the sword with the tip pointed at her.

"You know the rules and so do I, let's make this interesting kiddo, I'll be using this little knife to make things fair" she waved the wakizashi around for a moment.

All I could think while one of the students came out to signal the match was 'We're no strangers to Love! You know the rules! and so do I!' Damn she got me good, even here I get rickrolled, this is fucked. A hand-cut through the air and within milliseconds Ume was forcing me to retreat.

She was… insane… she moved like the armour and clothing had no effect on her whatsoever and that's not counting the fact that she was pregnant only four or five months ago, it was like trying to fend off a rhino or elephant, the pressure was nuts. Our swords clashed in the briefest of exchanges, she met my flurry of blows with simple extremely fast heavy swings that I couldn't match. We traded so many strikes that the small beautiful spark that flared as the swords connected came ever time I blinked, it was hard to keep this up and I think it was starting to ware on Ume as well because she backed off for a moment before taking a moment to breath, I did so as well relishing in the moment before we were at it again moving all over the arena in flashes of speed and showers of sparks.

"Shit!" we both said in unison as our swords connected with our skin and blood sprayed out on the ground, we backed away again, I put my hand over where the fabric of my hoodie I had worn instead of the Haori, it was torn open showing a cut that had crimson coming out of it. Ume rubbed her arm for a moment moving it around before turning back to me.

"If that little bit of blood and pain is too much for you we can stop!" she said with a toothy grin.

I rolled my eyes "You and I both know it's until there's an obvious winner, we're unable to go on or someone goes unconscious." I breathed a heavily as she came for me.

'This is it! This is my moment to get her with it!' I thought as within the space of seconds I moved unlike I ever had done in front of her and in a stunning beat of silence everyone watched as her wakizashi was flung upward into the sky out of her hands spinning at an amazing speed as it started falling back to the earth and landed with the blade in the dirt. Ume stared at me with wide amber eyes while everyone else cheered for me and clapped. Ume just continued to stand there with her mouth open, confused, stunned and just generally lost for words.

I sheathed the sword in my hand and breathed a sigh 'Gods I'm so fucking glad that worked she could have crushed me if that didn't work.' I walked over to my Aunt and she just looked at me for a moment recovering from what happened then suddenly she pulled me into the tightest hug I'd ever experienced, it was bone-crushingly strong as she wore and amazed proud smile and laughed.

"That was amazing Takezou! Holy shit! That's just so… fucking awesome!" she basically yelled in my ear setting me back down from the hug. "I'm so proud to have you as my student! I'll gladly hand you my Nodachi if that's what your sword skills are like! What was that anyway? It can't possibly be yours unless you've been working on it for years? Does it have a name yet!" Ume said happily questioning me.

"I- er… It's my own move…" I said faltering "I was thinking of naming it 'Mikage' or 'Betana' but I wasn't sure, as for how long I've been learning to do it after coming up with it, it's probably been five years, it was something I thought of super early on but this is the first time I've field-tested it." I said unsurely.

"Damn, I need you to teach me that its an amazing move." She said before she suddenly disappeared into the dojo and came out with the Nodachi and handed it to me.

"It brings me great pleasure to say here that Takezou Rakurai has graduated from my dojo, For now at least, and had one of my swords passed onto him" she patted me on the shoulder with a big smile as I unsheathed the big sword slightly to see its black metal before closing it.

I was now legally an adult by ninja law and owned a 'big fuck off sword', so did that mean I could drink? because things didn't seem like they were going to get much better, more like it was about to all go downhill seeing as who I was pretty sure I may end up teamed with.

AN: Kuroi Sabato's translation is 'Black Sabbath' btw