Tomoe was racing to class, as she only had a few minutes left before she was late. Unlike Naruto, who was late or skipped class entirely for pranks, she had a legitimate reason for being late. Her cousin Neji had introduced her to his sensei, and Gai had been all to happy to give her a list of exercises to do to improve her conditioning.
While the Elemental Nations wasn't technically part of the "official agreement" regarding Pro Heroes and quirk licenses, it was somewhat ahead technology wise due to the fact that inventors could legally operate from one of the shinobi villages and not have to deal with certain licensing issues. It even came with insurance in the form of the village happily giving the inventors a discount to hiring shinobi for anyone attempting to strong arm them into handing over patents or licensing agreements to certain tech.
This generally meant anyone with a lick of common sense didn't harass said inventors, because those that could afford to hold their license in the Elemental Nations without having to actually live there were generally well off enough to pay for said services in the first place.
Tomoe had zero issue with the fact she had gotten Naruto just as obsessed with her favorite hero as she was. The two would pour over All Might videos as soon as they were posted and argue over his moves and his actions.
Shikamaru would join in occasionally, but he wasn't as obsessed as his cousin. However it revealed that Tomoe had a highly tactical mind, and it hadn't taken long for her to become Shikamaru's match at shogi and go. Shikaku had taken it upon himself to oversee that part of her training, and while some might find her mumbling habit annoying, if one actually paid attention to the ramblings they would discover a surprising depth of intelligent observations.
Today was Exam day. She didn't want to be late, but she had been so excited that she slept in too late and had only just gotten in the bare minimum of her usual sets in.
She managed to skid into the academy grounds at the last second, before running up the wall to the second floor where she flipped inside.
Her uncle had shown her and Shikamaru how to walk up trees, and she had shown Naruto because the leaf spinning exercise was too weak for his surprisingly large chakra pool.
It had taken a lot of coaxing and convincing for her to get a cousin to teach her the shadow clone technique, and even then Naruto had to run errands for three full months before she was permitted to teach it to him. All without pulling a single prank.
She was relatively competent at the shadow techniques of her clan, but she would openly admit the shadow clone was very exhausting. Because she had started so 'late', her chakra coils were weaker than her cousin or Naruto.
Though compared to the rest of the girls in the class (barring Hinata), she was still leagues above them.
"You're almost late," said Iruka.
"Almost doesn't mean I was," she countered cheekily.
Iruka snorted and had her sit down. She shared a high-five with Naruto.
Tomoe had changed from the young, slightly timid girl to a confident, vibrant young woman who wouldn't hesitate to kick someone's ass and enjoy it.
To be fair, just moving away from Bakugo's toxic behavior had done wonders for her confidence.
"Today is graduation day. For some of you, this is your last official chance to become a genin."
Naruto silently gulped, as Iruka looked at him specifically when he said that.
Tomoe filled out the written exam, as it was ridiculously easy for her. Her uncle Shikaku had let her read anything she wanted from his personal library and had showed her which cabinet held all the "Confidential" files that she was not to go near. Since he had plenty of reading material, she didn't bother going near it anyway.
She was one of three people who finished within five minutes. The others being Sakura Haruno and her cousin Shikamaru. Hinata finished soon after, with Naruto being among the middle of the pack.
Thanks to Tomoe's tutoring, he was relatively confident that he had gotten enough of the answers right to have a passing grade.
Next came the taijutsu and weapons exam, with the ninjutsu coming last.
Tomoe went into the exam room, performed a simple bushin, and got her headband immediately. The look of sheer relief on the face of Naruto when he walked out as well with the same headband simply couldn't be described. He might have panicked, being made to do a simple bushin, but fortunately it was hard for most people to tell the difference between a regular illusionary bushin to the much harder kage bushin.
It was only later she found out about Mizuki-sensei being a traitor. To be fair, she never liked him much anyway.
"Wait, so let me get this straight... the reason everyone has treated you like crap for so many years is because of this fox demon sealed inside you like a kunai inside a sealing scroll?" said Tomoe in disbelief.
Naruto nodded miserably.
"That's complete bullshit."
Naruto gaped at her, before sheer relief appeared on his face. He really shouldn't have doubted his best friend.
Which was why he immediately changed the topic.
"So what was Jii-chan talking to you about last week?"
"Oh, I enlightened them to the reason 'Idols' are so popular among the civilians back in my old home, and they got the idea to use my quirk to try and get girls interested in being proper kunoichi."
Tomoe had put quirks and their importance out of mind after becoming fully immersed in the world of shinobi. She had better things to do than to ponder the 'what if' scenarios of how things could have gone if she had been born with a quirk.
And then, while she was fully immersed in a song from the mainland, her hair began to glow and her cousin had dropped one of the plates he was helping her to wash in shock, shattering it.
The cut he had on his hand was promptly healed as he accidentally brushed past her now waist length hair.
Needless to say, there was extensive tests done for a full week before they narrowed down what her newly awakened quirk was.
Tomoe was actually happy to learn that she had awakened some sort of healing quirk. One that was apparently music based. When she sang, her quirk would caused the excess energy to flow into her hair and cause it to light up. Wrapping it around small wounds caused them to heal instantly without a trace of scarring. Listening to music and getting into it would cause the quirk to go into overdrive, but as a side effect it drained her chakra pretty fast so she couldn't hold it more than a single song if that.
Shikaku was beyond pleased that his niece had awakened something so useful once her chakra coils were open, and had sent her immediately to train under the Iryo-nin at the hospital. She was classed as a level one medic, which meant she could do basic triage and handle simple wounds like splinting a broken arm.
As a side effect she spent a little less time tutoring Naruto because she was putting in so many hours into her new medical training.
Now, Tomoe was fairly popular among the civilian girls, since she understood their mindset a bit better than the shinobi raised ones. The Hokage had noticed how the younger girls followed her around like ducklings and had come up with an idea after watching an "Idol Search" program from the outer continents.
Which was how he came up with the plan (with Inko and Shikaku's permission) to turn Tomoe into the first "Shinobi Idol" as a way to lure more girls into the academy. Or at least coax them into more specialized roles like Iryo nin and Genjutsu.
Once she had a bit more real world experience under her belt, they would put the plan into action.
Iruka limped into the classroom, and prepared to list the team assignments.
Naruto almost bounced up from his seat in anticipation.
"Team seven, Uzumaki Naruto, Nara Tomoe and Sasuke Uchiha!"
Naruto didn't bother to hide his cheer, or his expression of relief.
"Sweet, I get to work with Tomoe-chan!"
Unnoticed by Naruto, Tomoe sent a secretive wink to Hinata, who hid her blush.
Then again, the clueless blond had no idea that the distant cousins had worked out an arrangement regarding him once puberty started to kick in.
As the teams slowly filtered out with their prospective teachers, Naruto's eagerness slowly turned to annoyance.
Their teacher was three hours late. This demanded retribution!
Tomoe didn't even remotely try to stop him. If their teacher was who she thought it was, then he definitely had it coming.
Seeing the glitter fall down on the head of Hatake Kakashi, Tomoe's head drooped in dismay.
"Ugh... we just had to get this pervert as our jounin instructor," she complained.
Kakashi gave her a side long look, before saying "Rooftop, five minutes."
Tomoe and Naruto opened up the nearest window and promptly began to walk up the side of the wall, having discovered that useful application of the tree walking exercise some of the chunin in the Nara clan had taught Tomoe. Sasuke, to his ire, had to take the stairs.
"Impressive, I didn't know you already knew that trick already," said Kakashi. He didn't really mean it though, and they didn't bother to fall for his false praise.
"Out of all the possible instructors, why did the Hokage lump us with you?" complained Tomoe.
Sasuke wasn't out of breath, but he was irritated to be the last one there.
"So my cute little genin know of me," said Kakashi, eye-smiling. Tomoe rolled her eyes. "Now that we're all here, why don't we start off our introductions."
"Introductions?" demanded Sasuke.
"Name, likes, dislikes and dreams. You first broody," said Kakashi.
"Isn't it proper manners to introduce yourself first, sensei?" said Tomoe annoyed.
It wasn't that she hated Kakashi, but she had enough common sense to know that the council and the Hokage would likely lump him with Sasuke (and thus her and Naruto) because of the Sharingan implanted in his eye. As the only known user of the doujutsu left in Konoha besides Sasuke, who hadn't even awakened his yet, it was only common sense.
As such Tomoe had gone around asking his former 'victims' (read: potential genin students) ever since he was stuck on the Jounin sensei rotation.
Shikaku had been more amused than anything when he gave her a list to work with and let her do her own investigating. He got a decent laugh out of her report and sheer annoyance.
"Hatake Kakashi. You're too young to understand my likes and dislikes, and my dreams are none of your business," he replied. "You're up broody."
Sasuke's introduction made Tomoe roll her eyes again, mostly because it was clear he firmly had his head up his ass and would likely lose sight of any objective they had should his older brother show up at any time.
Naruto's dream was straightforward and he made it clear he thought the world of his best friend Tomoe.
Then it was her turn.
"Nara Tomoe. I like music, analyzing others, the pro hero All Might, and cooking with my mom. I dislike idiots who judge others on something they can't control and those who let their quirks go to their head because it's flashy. My dream is to be a highly ranked medic nin with a pro hero license," said Tomoe. "Oh, and one of my cousins and I have a special agreement regarding a boy we both like since it was pointless to argue over who would get him."
Naruto might have been oblivious to the quick side glance Tomoe had given him, but Kakashi caught it immediately. He also silently called Naruto a 'lucky bastard' in his head since it sounded like Tomoe had a standing agreement to share the blond with another party, likely with no input from him on the matter.
Kakashi gave them a training ground number, told them not to eat the next morning, and left.
Sasuke immediately turned to Tomoe.
"You sounded as if you knew we'd get Kakashi."
Tomoe sighed.
"I'll tell you what I found out, but only if you agree to work together tomorrow. From what I was told, Kakashi has a thing about tricking us into fighting solo and then failing the entire team in one move as a result."
Naruto paled and listened intently, while Sasuke considered the offer. Compared to the other girls in class, Tomoe had a decent head on her shoulders and was tactically minded. He could live with following her directions for a while.
"Deal," he said finally.
"Hatake Kakashi, last head of the Hatake clan. His father was falsely accused of starting the third war because he prioritized his men over the mission. As a result, he was ostracized and eventually killed himself within a year. Kakashi was made jounin before he turned fifteen and was part of the lone genin team lead by the Fourth Hokage, but is the lone survivor of it. One of his teammates was an Uchiha, and his dying wish was to have his Sharingan implanted into Kakashi's missing left eye as it was too badly damaged during the same mission that earned the Fourth the moniker 'Yellow Flash'," said Tomoe.
Sasuke's approval of Tomoe rose considerably, because that was a lot more information than he was expecting. Then he caught that last bit and stared.
"He has a Sharingan?" he said sharply.
"Your clan made a brief argument over it, from what I could find, but eventually allowed it because it was a last request," said Tomoe. "His bingo page claims he's copied over a thousand jutsu with it, but I find that hard to believe."
Sasuke made a note to look into his clan records to find if there was any truth to the claim.
"What about his genin teams?" said Sasuke.
"He's an ex-ANBU captain and he's failed every single team he's been assigned since they put him into the rotation," said Tomoe grimly. "So if we want to survive and make full genin, we're going to have to work together to even remotely try and take him down, or at least land a hit on him."
"How did you find any of this out?" said Naruto.
"I spent far too much time around the older, retired shinobi and used my quirk to ply the information out of them in exchange for healing their minor aches and pains to their favorite tune," deadpanned Tomoe. "You guys owe me for that, by the way."
Just because she was a level one medic nin did not mean she had enjoyed listening to the older shinobi ramble on and on about the good old days. While she had gotten a great deal of information, being made to give sponge baths to the older male shinobi had not been fun or pleasant.
The things she did for her shinobi career...