Naruto skipped to the Academy, not minding the glares as usual. As usual, she was late.
Oh, well. She didn't really care. She was late and she was having lots of fun, anyway. Kiana had woken her up early to go over some sealing and medical jutsu, Karin wanted an opinion on becoming an iryo-nin, Tayuya wanted to beat the shit out of people, and Naruto just wanted to live her life day by day.
But since her mind was that of an Uzumaki adult, she was even more easily bored out of her freakin' skull than she was before. And her restless spirit, so contained before her week-long coma, had returned in greater strength.
Seriously, it was like the more Uzumaki she was, the more childish she was.
Psychotically so, too.
But she had promised herself to grin and bear it. Uzumakis were psychotic and the only thing in her life that made any sense any more was their psycho ways. She was one of them.
She ignored Ino and Ami and Rei and all her bullies.
But finally, Sakura punched at her head... But her hand was caught in a grip.
Sakura went white as her bones started to crack and the blonde-and-red Uzumaki only eyed her clinically.
"Sakura-san," she said to the foolish girl, "not everything can be solved with fists." Green medical chakra covered her hand as she released Sakura's fist and she healed the hand she'd nearly broken.
She went up to the chuunin instructor. "Iruka-sensei," she said to him, "can I take the test now?"
He directed the eight-and-a-half to another hallway.
"I'll visit when I'm a genin!" the pyscho blonde cheerfully said.
~:~
Hatake Kakashi was the first one to apply to being a specific genin-to-be's instructor.
"You can take three apprentices or two genin," the Hokage deadpanned at Kakashi's request to be two childrens' master while he taught Naruto as her sensei. "Or two apprentices and three genin. I'm sure if faced with you any child would run screaming."
"I want Naruto-kun," Kakashi stubbornly insisted. "If he passes. I want to teach him." Kakashi was respecting Naruto's wish to be known as a guy for her genin experience.
"You're assuming he even really wants to be Hokage, you'll teach him to be Hokage?"
"My sensei taught me a lot," Kakashi said cheerfully. "I promise I won't turn him into a pervert like me. Or to be late like me."
Hiruzen thought about it. "How about you be his official teacher? Pass him to the other instructors so they can get a feel for what he can do."
"...As long as you make certain Gai doesn't give her a green jumpsuit or a bowl cut. He already has one Mini-him."
Both shuddered at the very thought.
However, Kakashi forgot about one thing. Mitarashi Anko was a genin instructor.
As Kakashi forgot about Anko, Hiruzen forgot about the ROOT ANBU watching.
~:~
Naruto summoned about two thousand clones of herself, making her overqualified to be a genin.
Kakashi was the first one to appear.
"You're going to learn from each of the jounin instructors, at least until we can find you a decent fit." He blinked at the rest of the gakis in the classroom waiting for a teacher. "You should all just go home, you're going to fail anyway."
He grabbed his nine-year-old charge, who stuck her tongue out at the civilians childishly.
She wasn't arrogant - they had claimed she'd fall out of the training as soon as it started.
"Your siblings will be apprenticing under me officially," Kakashi chirped at her with a one-eyed smile. "Unofficially, we have a sanctioned mission to go get Tsunade of the Sannin's drunk ass back here to Konoha."
"When?"
"In a couple years. Kiana and Nagato may have been training you, but you are to go to T&I immediately and start your training." He shoved her toward the building and vanished.
Naruto threw up her hands in exasperation.
~:~
She was thrown into a cell with someone who stared at her with amusement.
"A kid?" he laughed. "I won't break because of some kid."
Naruto tilted her head towards him.
"Look, gaki, you can leave me here to rot. I ain't gonna talk."
"They'll kill you if you talk," Naruto surmised.
He smirked at her.
"But we'll do worse." She stayed at her spot and didn't move, head still tilted. "We'll start with peeling the flesh off of your bones." Maybe it was her calm manner, but what she was saying made the guy pause. "We'll take off your (THIS HAS BEEN CENSORED TO NOT GIVE ANYONE NIGHTMARES. NARUTO APOLOGIZES FOR THE SUDDEN INTERRUPTION)... And then we'll do it all over again." Her voice had dropped into a mere whisper, and the guy looked like a walking corpse.
"Okay, I'll talk! Just get her away from me!" the guy screamed.
The cell door opened, and Ino's dad marched in, looking a tad queasy.
"Get out here, Uzumaki," he barked.
She exited the room and noticed almost all were sheet white. The only others who weren't white, throwing up, or looking phased at all was a lady wearing a trench coat and a heavily scarred man.
"Nice job, gaki," the scarred man said, then strode purposefully into the room.
The lady with the trench coat smirked at the young genin.
"Where'd you come up with those kind of tortures?"
Naruto told the truth. "My Aunt Kiana. She likes telling us what Kiri did to their prisoners of war." Or still does, but Naruto didn't mention that.
She thought it best to stay quiet on that.
The woman frowned. "Really? Sounded like you knew what that felt like."
"That was tame compared to anything I've felt before," Naruto replied, thinking of the excruciating pain Mito went through.
Now that was something she never wanted to feel again.
