Chapter 9
[Timeskip 1 year]
Konoha Academy
Today was the ninja graduation exam at the academy and a lot has occurred in the past year. After izumi showed up at his door, he did not attend the academy for a week opting instead to take care of her. He cooked, cleaned and cared for her the entire time. She was an emotional wreck. She would suddenly start screaming where he just took her in his arms as she slowly fell asleep. He recalled what happened at the end of that week
Flashback
Naruto cooked breakfast as izumi was still asleep in bed. He made some eggs and bacon with some toast and brought some strawberry milkshake that she liked when she visited those cafes. Hearing footsteps, he turned ti see izumi leaning on the counter and smiled. "Good morning Izumi," he said in his usual voice.
Half-heartedly she replied "good morning naruto."
He went back to serving breakfast and they began to eat. They ate in comfortable silence and when they finished, naruto took the dishes to the sink to wash them. Hearing something behind him, he turned to see izumi standing there looking down and shiffling her feet and he knew she wanted something.
"What's up izumi?" he asked
"Why?" she asked in a whisper but he heard it loud and clear. Tilting his head to the side in confusion.
"Why aren't you afraid of me? Why do you let me stay here when I was the one who killed my family? Why do you continue to look after me? Why don't you see me as a demon…."
SLAP
Her sentence was cut short as she felt that stinging pain on her face. Raising her head, she saw a furious expression on his face. Hearing the word demon made naruto lose any self control he had. Her eyes widened as she saw tears roll down his cheeks. He never cried, she knew this. So why was he doing so now. Her thoughts were cut short again as he began to speak.
"A demon you say… a demon has no regrets about killing his prey. He kills for fun or for no reason at all. He is not remorseful as you have been all week. He goes out looking for his next prey."
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her with him, dragging her along as he made his way to the top of the hokage monument. She quietly alowed herself to be pulled along as they made their way to their destination. Staring into the village, he began to speak.
"Look down there, see those people? Those people….. instead of being locked in a civil war where most of them would be afraid to even leave their homes, they are moving about happily. The children can play on the streets without fear. You are responsible for their happiness, their freedom, their peace. You are a hero to these people." He turned around and embraced her as she began to sob uncontrollably. He soothed her while saying, " never say that you are a demon, I know you better than everyone else and you are no demon. Never think otherwise."
At this, she threw her arms around his neck and continued sobbing in his chest.
Flashback End
After that day, izumi returned to her former state a bit and giggled at his pranks. She laughed loudly when he painted the hokage monument in broad daylight and no one except her had noticed… and only because he told her to look to the monument at a certain time the day before.
People started to notice after he screamed out that uzumaki naruto has claimed the hokage monument dattebayo! She laughed until her stomach ached as she watched him evade his pursuers, some of them from the anbu for over three hours until iruka finally caught him.
In the village, people had begun to treat her more gently thinking she would break of they touched her. After the old man made his announcement, many villagers sympathized with her due to her choices and difficult task that she carried out. She turned colder to the public but this inadvertently increased her popularity and the amount of her fanboys increased. Sometimes, naruto would have to use a henge to rid her of them. They despised him for spending so much time with her and the population's dislike of him increased but he didn't care for their opinions and just ignored them.
They had been given permission to live together as the old man thought that it would be good for the both of them. However, the council (the civillian side especially) did not want the village princess to live with the demon brat but sarutobi overruled them. He gave them a perverted smile and told them and told them to not do anything he wouldn't. This resulted in naruto turning red and hitting Sarutobi on his face with his fuinjutsu book. Izumi also blushed but her face just turned faint pink. The two newly formed roommates left the hokage office leaving behind sarutobi grumbling about traitorous bodyguards.
Sasuke became more arrogant after the massacre, he held a deep hatred for the village for ordering his clan's demise and made it his goal in life to avenge and revive his clan. He was spoilt by the people of the village who gave him what he wanted and treated him like glass. Needless to say, this only served to fuel his arrogance even more. He even severed all ties with his sister who had killed the clan. His fangirls, however, gave him even more attention because of his new attitude.
As for naruto's training, he finally completed his fire manipulation training and was almost complete with his water training as well. He had more fluidity in his taijutsu style due to his dad's restriction seals which was level two out of ten possible levels. He was now at the end of level seven in fuinjutsu and still going through barrier seals and fuinjutsu by handseals. He also managed to crack the basics of the hiraishin and was moving in at a slow but steady pace. He completely mastered his fire ninjutsus and got the required amount of handseals down to one for the fireball technique and two for the fire dragon technique.
Snapping out of his musings, he saw mizuki giving out test papers. Of course he got a high level exam but he knew enough to pass with an acceptable margin. Afterwards, they went outside for the weapons portion of the exam.
Standing at the back of the line he as they were being called individually, he took note of each of his classmate's scores. Most girls all got four or five shiriken and kunai with the exception of hinata, ino and to his shock sakura who each managed seven and above. Then the boys turn came and the scores were as follows:
Kiba (6s7k)
Choji (5s7k)
Shikamaru (5s5k)
Shino (6s8k)
Sasuke (9s9k)
Naruto (8s9k)
Next came the taijutsu portion where they had to stay for a minimum of three minutes and a maximum of five minutes against mizuki. Most girls except ino and hinata couldn't make it to the three minute mark because of their low stamina due to being fangirls. The boys all went for three and a half minutes each except sasuke, who stayed for four and a half minutes and came out of the ring with a smug look on his face.
Entering the ring, naruto looked at mizuki to see a dark smirk on his face and immediately, naruto was put on guard. He continued dodging all mizuki's strikes until the four and a half minute mark where he lost with iruka nodding and mizuki had a scowl on his face.
Then came the ninjutsu part of the final exam. Each student were required to perform the three basic jutsus and any other for supplemental credit. Naruto was the last student in and he did the henge and kawarimi without the use of handseals which he got extra credit for. He then did the clone jutsu and three clones appeared. Mizuki was shocked and scowled whereas iruka was elated and gave naruto his hitae-ate neither one of the two instructors realizing that the clones were shadow clones.
Walking out of the academy gates, he was stopped by mizuki who told him about an extra exam given to select students and if he passed, he would be named rookie of the year. Naruto, while suspicious, decided to follow mizuki to see what the test was about. He was told to steal the forbidden scroll and bring it to training ground 18, which is near the village gates at midnight tonight.
Timeskip to the forest just before mizuki appears
Waiting on the ground near a tree, naruto opened the scroll and used his sharingan to memorize some of the jutsus on the scroll. Suddenly, iruka burst through into the clearing and said, " what the hell are you doing naruto? Do you know what you've done? Come let's go to the hokage and clear this mess up."
Deciding to play stupid, naruto replied, "what are you talking about iruka sensei? Where is mizuki sensei? Are you going to administer the extra test for giving me the rookie of the year title?" as he said this, they had to duck as shuriken began flying towards them. It came as a shock to naruto that iruka shielded him from the shuriken that was hurled towards him. Seeing this mizuki decided to attempt to sway naruto.
"Say naruto, do you know why the villagers hate you?" Looking to the man, naruto replied "of course I know, the old man told me when I was five that the kyuubi was sealed in me at birth." This stunned iruka and mizuki had a dumbfounded expression on his face. After a monent of silence, mizuki pulled a shuriken from his back and hurled it into naruto's chest. Iruka's eyes widened and shouted out his name while mizuki just laughed like a madman. 'Naruto' smirked and poofed indicating that he was a shadow clone, the ground rumbled and naruto jumped out and connected with a fist to mizuki's jaw throwing him into the air. Five more narutos appeared and gave mizuki a beatdown.
In the Hokage Office
Hiruzen looked at the scene playing out via his crystal ball and couldn't help but feel a sense of pride welling up in his chest. He knew that naruto was hiding his true prowess from everyone but he did not care. As these thoughts left his mind, the door opened and in marched naruto, accompanied by iruka. He put the scroll on the desk and proceeded to narrate his evening from the end of the exam to the clearing in the forest. When asked what jutsu he learnes from the scroll, naruto replied he learnt two the multi shadow clone jutsu and the Bringer of darkness jutsu. He did not mention that he also learnt the summoning: impure world resurrection technique. The hokage nodded and told him not to teach anyone those techniques as they were quite chakra taxing, naruto agreed and they were dismissed for the night.
As he walked home, he knew that he would get scolded by izumi after he told her about this but he did not want to hide anything from her. Sighing, he looked up to the sky and muttered troublesome. Elsewhere, two naras turned in their sleep and muttered troublesome before returning to their slumber.
To be continued