Chapter 12 – Starting school

Disclaimer – I do not own Naruto. I do not own Naruko either. I don't even own Julie.

oOoOo

The following 4 months went by in the blink of an eye for Yuri. At first, she was wondering if she should act friendly with her neighbour, but she guessed that, as an orphan, if she was to be friendly with 'the demon brat' during school, the teachers might sabotage her just to make an example. So, she decided to take into consideration the numerous advices of the concerned citizens and didn't get involved with him.

She could still see him in the village from time to time, running around, orange, shouting and laughing, but he was clearly less exuberant than his counterpart in the manga. She also saw him one or twice eating ramen at Ichiraku, accompanied by Hinata. She didn't know when and how the friendship started, and knew that the day Naruto would disappear, Hinata would feel really betrayed if everything was fake and Naruko couldn't even remember her. Hence, the previous week, she decided to dispel the blood clone one last time, to have his memory about Hinata's meeting and friendship. It was the last point in time where Naruto was still 'her' before being sabotaged and getting wrong training from the academy.

And she was really happy she decided to do that. She learned that Naruto managed to instil a lot of confidence into this Hinata. She was not a stuttering mess anymore, she wouldn't stalk him from afar and was coming to talk to him when she was meeting him instead. Yuri also learned that apparently, Naruto caught the attention of the Hyuga, since he often could feel one of them watching him from afar, when they were supposed to be out of his view. She imagined it was probably due to his relative proximity with Hinata.

Yuri was still close to Anko the most, she often went to see her in the forest. Kurenai came to visit her from time to time, probably to check on her well-being. The woman was friendly and cordial, but way more grounded and serious than Anko. Yuri's relationship with Anko was more like a friendship, while the one with Kurenai felt more like a 'concerned adult and a child', so she was less comfortable with the Chunin. She would have liked to be able to see the Hokage too from time to time, but as Yuri, she had no justification of going to see him, unlike Naruto, but he took the time to come see her once to 'check on how she was adapting in a new place'.

For her training, everything took a turn when she finished her third Fuinjutsu book. She absolutely loved the art and couldn't wait to get to the intermediate level, but obviously, couldn't right now. She had to spend a good amount of time with four clones to get her calligraphy to the required level though, it was way more demanding than what she thought. Despite that, she learned how to seal inanimate objects into a scroll, make small explosives tags, flashbang tags and a protection seals on her door, and how to fine tune all those seals to meet her needs. But there was one seal that she was using that changed everything, it was an intermediate level seal, so she shouldn't have it yet, but the Uzumaki decided the benefits it provided were simply too good to pass up, and that every Uzumaki should learn it as early as possible, so they dedicated a full chapter on it at the end of the third book. It was the resistance seal, and it was really game changing for the physical training.

She had thought for a while to get some weights, but the outfitter told her that it was a bad idea that young, that it would probably stunt her growth. So, the day she read the description of the resistance seal, she was all giddy inside. Contrary to weights, which would only work on a few muscles in a disproportionate manner, the resistance seal was making all of them working the same amount at the same time. Furthermore, it was done in a way that she had to gather chakra constantly into it to have any effect, the more chakra gathered, the more resistance provided, thus she was not only working on her muscles, but on her chakra control too at the same time. She went to Anko, asking what was her opinion on it, and she said it seemed a real advantage, but advised her to test drawing it on a shadow clone several time, to be on a safe side.

When Yuri asked without thinking if Anko wanted one, she coldly answered that she would never get another seal on her body. Yuri felt a bit guilty about asking, but at the same time, she was not supposed to know about the cursed seal. Anko didn't seem to blame her anyway, she even supervised the drawing of the resistance seal on her hip. After that, all the physical exercises she was doing were a lot harder, but each time she stopped gathering chakra, the difference was impressive. She still wasn't able to fight at all, but she was way faster and stronger than before.

One of the things she promised herself, was to never keep the seal up in a real fight against an enemy, or even simply out of the village. She thought that it was a real hubris to keep them on in a dangerous situation. What if you were injured in a surprise attack because you were not fast enough to dodge, just because you 'didn't see the need' to take them off? She couldn't understand Gai reasoning about Lee's weights. Yeah, training was good, but keeping a handicap on you in a life-or-death situation? And what was the point of training your speed, if you keep on you something that slow you down all the time? To have a boost of speed when needed? That was stupid, better to be at your maximum speed all the time. And even if you seem to match your enemy's speed with your weights, it just means that you would simply out speed him without… Why drag the fight for longer than necessary?

She also spent most of her time blindfolded under her Henge at the moment. She was searching for a solution to be able to write and read with her eyes closed, but so far, she couldn't find any, and she would have to stop doing it during the classes.

oOoOo

When Yuri woke up, on April the first, she started to get ready for a morning run, when she remembered that the Academy was starting this day, so she didn't have the time for that. She would have to get up a bit earlier from tomorrow on.

She went into the shower, avoiding wetting her hair, they were so long that it was taking her hours to dry. After her shower, she went to look at herself into the mirror. She really had come a long way from the day Julie arrived in this world. She was still young and undeveloped, but she wasn't underfed and unhealthy anymore, she was really fit, and she could see the presence of muscles, even if they were obviously not bulky, they were still noticeable.

She took a good look at her face, and noticed that her Henge wasn't looking like a young Julie anymore. She didn't know if she did that consciously, but it was an exact mix between Julie and Naruko's features. She cancelled her Henge for a bit to check, and confirmed that Yuri's face was exactly the same as Naruko now, so even Naruko's face changed to mix both of their features. The only differences were the hair colour, the eye colour and the whiskers. She didn't know when that happened. Was that because the line between Naruko and Julie was so thin? She didn't really know, and couldn't seem to care, she had stopped being either of them a long time ago, she was just both, except in her mindscape, and the resulting face was more than worth it. Her eyes were dark green when she was Julie, in her previous life, but now, as Yuri, they were light green, almost glowing. Her hair was also a shade lighter, making them really vibrant, the same colour than Erza Scarlett in her memories of Fairy Tail. As Naruko, her eyes didn't change a lot, they just had a bit of a green outline, barely noticeable, and her hair, while still bright blonds, had soft red highlights.

She put on the dress that she bought, it was really simple, just a fitting black dress with red trim, that was going down to her knees, but it was comfortable.

Once in the kitchen, she was surprised to see her breakfast ready. She was so used to do clones now, that she sometimes was making them for her usual routing without thinking about it.

While she was eating, she heard a knock at the door that startled her a bit, since she wasn't expecting anybody.

She went to open it, and saw Anko waiting for her with a grin on her face.

"Anko-san? Come in please, I'm eating breakfast. There's enough for two if you haven't eaten yet."

"Nah, it's ok girl, I ate already. Nice clothes by the way. So, ready for the big day?"

"A bit nervous, to be honest. But what are you doing here? I wasn't expecting anybody." Yuri asked, a bit curious about the presence of the Kunoichi.

"What? Am I not allowed to come to see you and accompany you to school without any reason?"

Yuri just raised an eyebrow. "You? In the middle of fifty over-excited eight-years-old kids, just for the pleasure of seeing little old me off? Please. I know you like me, but you don't like anybody enough to endure that without any good reason…"

"Girl, you're so annoying sometimes." Anko answered with a sigh. "Listen, it's an open but unspoken secret that most of the teachers in the academy don't care one bit about civilians' child and orphans. If they see you arriving alone, they'll know you are either or both. I don't say they will sabotage you, not like they will probably do with Naruto, but they won't care about you in any way, or give you any time of the day, they won't care about your questions, won't give you any tips, will only do the strict minimum."

"But if I arrived, backed up by the Sadistic Snake Bitch of Konoha…"

"Exactly. They will not consider you as an orphan anymore. I don't even blame the teachers you know. Most of those civilians' kids are only there for the glory. The parents don't know the truth of the job, they picture a romanticized version of the job, ignoring the blood, sweat and tears. Most of those kids don't have what it takes to be a ninja. Without the backing of a clan, they end up without any special skill, with the basic academy taijutsu, the three academy ninjutsu, and end up dying on the field at the first fight. Better to filter the weed before that. Your father was an exception. Since he didn't have any clan skill to back him up, he decided to create everything on his own."

"I see…"

"To be honest, I don't think my presence is necessary, you're talented enough to prove your worth on the long term, but I prefer to give you the best start possible."

"Thanks a lot, Anko-san." Yuri answered, with a genuine smile. She didn't think about that at all, but she was happy to have someone who was caring enough about her. "Still, that you like me enough to be able to endure the shouts of the hyperactive brats, it makes me all fuzzy inside."

"Shut up and get ready, brat! I can still change my mind."

"I'll buy you dangos tonight to thank you."

"Now I can't change my mind… Damn."

oOoOo

When they arrived at the academy, they could see that Yuri's prediction was correct, and it was filled with hyperactive eight-years-old. Anko was visibly starting to double guess herself.

"You are not allowed to throw kunais at them."

"How do you know I was thinking that?" Anko asked, a bit puzzled.

"Because I was also thinking that…" Yuri answered with a grin.

Yuri could feel that all the teachers were outside, looking at who was arriving accompanied by whom. One of them looked at her when she had her back turned, then Anko, and he wrote something on a paper, then scratched something else on another paper.

"I guess they are changing me of class" Yuri noted.

"What?"

"The teacher on the far left saw me with you, he then added something on a paper, then scratched something on another. So, I was probably supposed to be on another list and they switched me due to your presence, I think."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Anko said, then she met the eyes of said teacher and nodded to him.

"But how did he know my name?" Yuri wondered after a bit.

"We took your picture when we did your paperwork, you know…"

"Oh. That was a bit too obvious." Yuri answered, a bit sheepishly

"Okay girl" Anko continued after a silence "I'll leave you now, I'll come at the end of the day to pick you up so you can keep your word on that offer of Dangos."

"Thanks, Anko-san. And no problem, I'll see you in the evening."

Yuri looked at Anko disappearing in a Shunshin, like if she was in a more dangerous place than in the Forest of Death, and to be fair, maybe she was.

She then entered in the school yard, ready to follow the procedure of the first day.

At first, nothing was happening, so she had the time to watch around. Most of those over excited were apparently unknown civilians, but all those who were a lot calmer seemed to be known faces to her. So far, she could spot Choji, who was easy to see thanks to his father; Ino was there too, her hair attracting attention, not that she could really talk. Naruto and Kiba were there but were amongst the over excited ones. She could also see a smiling Sasuke, accompanied by a tall and severe looking man.

'Ha, true, the Massacre didn't happen yet.' She thought. She could feel a tiny bit of pity, looking at the smiling little boy, he really didn't deserve his fate, but a lot of people lose loved ones without turning into vengeful assholes. And she really didn't like the arse he will become. But looking at him like that, smiling with wonder in his eyes, it was really difficult to associate him with what he'll become.

After 10 minutes of chaos, the teachers began to take roll, to direct the students to the class they would occupy for the coming year.

"Nakajima Yuri – Classroom 1-A" she could hear, followed by "Nara Shikamaru – Classroom 1-A"

She nearly burst out laughing when, with her whiskers, she could feel Shikamaru mumbling a "troublesome".

Not really knowing where to go, she just waited and followed the lazy genius to their classroom, and took a seat in one of the middle row.

oOoOo

It took a good amount of time for everybody to get seated. She could now see all the heirs she hadn't spotted earlier. She wondered if Shino's bug would be able to tell that Naruto and her were the same person, but since Naruto had a lot less chakra, and didn't have the Kyubi inside, maybe the chakra would be different enough. Anyway, she figured that, even if he did notice, he would probably not care.

Ino and Sakura were together, and seriously, her hair is really pink. How can you have hair that pink? It was not even the purple-ish hair that Nymphadora Tonks had in the Harry Potter movies. No, it was clearly bubble-gum pink. To be fair, it was nice looking, but it was really weird to think that it was natural. She also noticed that they were not fawning over the Uchiha, yet.

Naruto was sitting next to Hinata and they were both speaking animatedly. Yuri wondered what had gotten them in such a discussion that soon. When she concentrated on their vibrations, she nearly facepalmed. Naruto was trying to convince Hinata that ramen was clearly superior to cinnamon rolls and Hinata was having none of it. 'Well, she clearly doesn't lack confidence this time around.'

Her observation was stopped when the teacher, that was neither Mizuki nor Izuka, started to call everybody to ask a short presentation about themselves, their goals, their tastes.

Most of the civilians were the same, it was mostly about learning tons of jutsus and be awesome. Shino and Choji wanted to be good leaders of their clan. Sakura was blushing when she said that she wanted to be a ninja… Yuri blinked a bit at this one, and she could feel that Shikamaru did the same. 'Her goal for becoming a ninja, is to become a ninja?' she wondered how this girl could be book smart and brain dead at the same time.

When it was Hinata's turn, she stood up and proudly told "My name is Hyuga Hinata, I want to be a strong leader for my clan and reunite it under only one banner." Next to her, Naruto was grinning. Yuri was thinking 'So she already has that goal. That's great, I'll have to up my Fuinjutsu to see if I can find a way to get rid of the Caged Bird Seal.'

Next, it was Kiba's turn. He stood up with a big grin and talked with a really loud voice "My name is Inuzuka Kiba and that is Akamaru. I want to become strong to make my clan and my partner proud."

After Kiba, it was her turn, she just stood up and said without any shred of a doubt "I'm Nakajima Yuri, and I will just prove to everyone that you can be a girl, an orphan and a civilian, and still be the best around." She then just sat down, without faltering. She was the only one so far, who didn't say what she wanted to do, but just stated plainly that she would do it.

Some visibly wanted to laugh, or even challenge her, but she had said that with so much confidence that they nearly believed it too, so the class was just in complete silence for several seconds, when finally the teacher managed to get his bearing back. "Ha, right. I see. Very well. Next, Nara Shikamaru."

"Troublesome…" the lazy pineapple-head stood up and said: "I'm Shikamaru Nara. I just want to become an average ninja, have an average wife, live an average life in an average house." This declaration, just like hers, also brought a bit of silence.

The rest of the presentations went as expected, Sasuke wanted to make his parents and brother proud, Naruto shouted that he would be the greatest Hokage ever, and earned the laugh of the class and the scorn of the teachers, while Ino wanted, like most heirs, to become a good leader.

The rest of the day was dreadfully boring. The teachers spent all the time just speaking about the 'Will of Fire', the will to consider everyone as family and to protect your village. Wasn't protecting your village the same goal in every hidden village? What made it different here?

oOoOo

At the end of the day, Yuri just wanted to get out of there. Fast. She could feel that Anko was waiting on the roof, so she went out of the schoolyard and just looked at her, waiting for her to come down.

Once Anko was next to her, they started to make their way towards the dango store, then Anko couldn't resist to ask "So, girl? How was your first day?"

"I'm pretty sure you perfectly know, but you are just taking a sadistic pleasure to just ask."

Anko burst out laughing at that answer. "Yeah, I know, not what you expected, right?"

"I'm going to have a really boring first year. Seriously, physical training only once a week, no taijutsu, only theory about everything. Can I send a shadow clone instead of me?" Yuri asked, with a bit of hope.

"Nope, as you said, it's too risky, you just have to bump into a corridor, and it disappears, so you're going to have to endure it. But come to the forest the week-ends I'm not on a mission, I'll teach you how to throw kunais, shurikens and senbons, just so you don't die of boredom."

"Thanks, Anko-san, you're really my saviour. I'll get up earlier and up my running and my resistance too. Maybe if I'm tired enough I'll manage to fall asleep in the most boring lectures."

"That's a possibility. As long as you get good grades, they don't really care if you don't pay that much attention. Some clans have a naturally short attention span, like the Inuzukas, so they can't really blame them for something genetic."

oOoOo
Timeskip – End of first year.

The first year had been, as expected and predicted, dreadfully boring. She was by far, the best of the class, but since she was around 49 years old inside, it wasn't really fair. Even in the physical training, she was way ahead. She had continued running around the village, and she was now at seven laps in one hour, with her resistance seal up. She had been continuously increasing the resistance from day one, and that was also helping her chakra control tremendously, she was now able to do her clones without the tiniest bit of smoke.

After the six first months of useless and repetitive lectures, she just had to do something to keep her sanity in check, and went with Anko to find Gai. It was a real Tell-tale that even training with Gai was considered the sane solution. She had, obviously, to explain why she was trying to learn the Uzumaki style, but he easily accepted the explanations and the reasons, and accepted to teach her the Katas. She had to admit, the guy was weird, but he was a master teacher. In less than a week, he had taught her every correct stances, corrected all her errors, advised her on some improvement for her body type, and was patiently explaining, each time, the reason behind every action.

Now, every evening, at home, to relax after a day full of useless theories about what angle to launch a kunai when the target was at X distance and the wind at Y strength, she could spend some time by doing her Katas.

In the class, she was pretty friendly with Shikamaru, Choji, Shino, Naruto and Hinata. Shikamaru, Choji and Shino were all carbon copies of the one in the manga, so it was really easy to get along with them. Hinata was a lot more confident and, despite being visibly interested in Naruto, she was still friendly with everyone else.

Speaking of Naruto, he wasn't as blatantly sabotaged compared to the manga, Hinata's proximity probably helped him a lot about that, that, and the dark looks she was sending to the teachers each time they attempted something. They tried a few times to send him out of the class but after a while, Hinata just demanded some justifications for his kicking out, but since they hadn't any, they just had to grit their teeth and move on. It would never have worked if Yuri, Naruto, or any civilian were trying to complain, but the teachers knew they couldn't really go against the Hyuga heiress. Thus, so far, Naruto was taught correctly enough, with only scowls and extra harshness in the notations of his tests, the nit-picking here was priceless.

For the rest of the class, even before the massacre, apparently, Sasuke was an arrogant ass that really didn't like the fact that she proclaimed that she would be better than him, an Uchiha; and he liked even less the fact that she was. Ino and Sakura were already trying to get his attention, but it was not yet the rivalry it would become. He was interesting them, but it was not at the 'Fan-girl' level.

Kiba was, plainly speaking, a pain in the ass. He apparently had a big crush on Yuri, a 'Naruto towards Sakura' kind of crush, and he really wanted her to know it. She did her best to explain to him, that there was no way that anything would ever happen, but he was persistent. In the end, she just ended up trying to ignore him as best as she could. Even Akamaru seemed fed-up by his master's antics.

It was now the end of February, and they soon will have a month of vacation before April and the beginning of second year, but there was something that she wanted to do before that. She could feel her target in the northern part of the school, and, luckily, he was alone, so she headed in that direction.

oOoOo

Shikamaru Nara was having a really nice day so far. He managed to avoid his mother's nagging that morning, had spent a good part of the day sleeping in class, and now he was having a nice break before needing to go back home. And the clouds were looking particularly good today.

"Hey Shikamaru. How are you doing."

"Really good. I saw some really nice clouds today." Shikamaru would never admit it out loud, but so far, he enjoyed the company of the girl. She wasn't troublesome, was pretty smart and friendly, didn't seem to care about romance, and wasn't asking him to stop sleeping in class. Still, he was not going to stop watching at the clouds in order to look at her when answering.

"Nice. Mind if I ask you a question? I warn you, it's probably a troublesome one."

Shikamaru finally looked at her with a raised eyebrow. He really didn't like troublesome questions, but she got him curious now, so, he just nodded to tell her to go on.

"I was wondering why you were suicidal?" Yuri asked, bluntly, a totally serious look on her face.

"WHAT?" Shikamaru was so surprised by the question that he didn't even think about considering it troublesome. "I'm not!"

"Really? But you remember what you said at the beginning of the year, right? That you wanted to be an average ninja, life an average life, etc."

"Of course, I do remember, that doesn't mean I'm suicidal… Troublesome."

"You know what all average Ninjas have in common? They are dead. In our world, an average ninja is a corpse walking. Statistically, if you're average, that means that fifty per cent of the ninjas out there will be stronger than you, so you have one chance on two to die each time you encounter another ninja. And not only that, but you also put the lives of your team on the line. Imagine you come up with that brilliant strategy to be able to hold off all your opponents so your team is safe until reinforcements can come, but you don't have enough stamina or strength to hold them long enough since you didn't train sufficiently. Wouldn't it be troublesome then, to watch Choji get killed in front of you, just because you wanted to watch the sky instead of making an effort when that mattered?"

"I…" Shikamaru was at a loss of words, she really was a troublesome woman after all.

"Another thing, you know that Choji looks up to you, right? Well, each time you don't train, he doesn't train either. For you, it may not be that much of a problem, you can stay far from the opponents. But he's a front-liner, and every bit of training is important for him. In life, you can be an average baker, you'll just sell less bread. You can be an average shogi player, you'll just lose more often. You can be an average craftsman, your creations will just lack personality. But you can't be an average Ninja. If you want to be average, stop trying to be a ninja, it will save the lives of your teammates in the long term."

Shikamaru was annoyed, because he knew she was right, and he really didn't want to hear those words because now, he couldn't just ignore them. He stopped looking at her, gritted his teeth and muttered another "Troublesome."

"I'll tell you a secret that makes things way easier. It's way more rewarding and satisfying to laze about and watch the sky after a long day of training. Yeah, it's shorter, you're exhausted, but you can feel you really deserved that rest, and you don't have the guilty knot in your guts telling you that, maybe, you could do a bit more. To be honest, you can continue to sleep in class, I won't blame you. The theory is completely useless and you don't really need all that extra studying, that's why I never told anything so far. But next year, we will start the real physical stuff, and having a good start will make a lot of difference in the long-term."

"Yeah…"

"I'm sorry I was blunt and troublesome, but I wouldn't be a friend if I didn't try to wake you up to save your and your teammates lives in the future. And now that I said my piece, I'll leave you to think about it, and I won't bother you with that ever again, even if you decide to ignore everything I said. Have a good rest, Shikamaru." She ended with a small smirk and left him with a lot of thinking to do.

'Troublesome red-heads…' He thought. He laid back down to watch at the sky, and now Yuri mentioned it, he could feel the guilty knot in his guts, that he tried so much to ignore until then. Cursing under his breath, with words that were way worst than 'troublesome', he decided to go back home to ask his father some advices about how to slowly start training.

"Who know, maybe she's right and watching clouds feels better after a bit of troublesome training…"

Several weeks later, he would be amazed to notice that it really did.