Facing one another, the two boys made the seal of confrontration, Sasuke was weirded out by the current look Naruto was pulling off, but he ignored it. It wouldn't make him worse in close-quarters combat after all. Naruto was busy glaring at him, tightly holding onto the wooden kunai, he'd just outspeed the bastard and finish the spar! That would be damn cool! He'd make the egoistic Uchiha eat the dirt, damn it! Iruka sensei finally started their match with the motion of his hand, and Naruto rushed at the Uchiha boy, aiming to stab him on his shoulder, pointing it directly towards the boy. Sasuke side-stepped, and with an overhand punch to the boy's thick skull, he pushed him down onto the ground, quickly crouching on top of the boy and rushed to push the wooden kunai against the boy's neck to finish the spar.
He moaned in pain when he felt the boy's elbow dig harshly against his sides, with a show of strength Naruto managed to stand up on his knees and continued on elbowing Sasuke, preventing him from putting him in a finishing position, then, locking his legs around Sasuke's legs, he twisted around and pushed Sasuke onto the ground, now he was on top of Sasuke in full guard with his knees pressing down on the boy's stomach. Booing could be heard as the other students watched the spar intensely, the only one that was seemingly happy was Hinata.
The Uchiha boy raised his eyebrow, wondering how Naruto thought this would help him as he raised his armed hand and stabbed Naruto's neck with it, the white skin slightly reddened. The boy had taken up a full guard, but a full guard wasn't going to protect his neck from a frontal attack. Hinata frowned. She had expected Naruto to win. What had happened to Naruto today? Everything seemed off with him, he was never the most skilled in sparring, but especially with what he wore today, she felt that something was off, she felt uncomfortable. She didn't like the changes that were happening to him.
"Sasuke Uchiha has won! Please stand up, return to your sides and do the seal of reconciliation. I hope you have all watched this, because this was a perfect example of why you should never try to brawl with your kunai in hand, the enemy won't care if you've put up a guard if you're not going to actively make use of your armed arm! While they do the seal of reconciliation, to the second ring, I call Kattetsu and Shikamaru."
Naruto pouted as he got up. "You're such a jerk... You've dirtied my blouse!" He grumbled, his eyes glaring so intensely at Sasuke that it would have looked like he was staring into the boy's soul. He might have grumbled but his blue eyes were sparkling with determination. That's what he liked about Naruto, he didn't lose his spirit, but he really was annoying, so with a grunt, Sasuke did the seal of reconciliation, eager to return to the crowd of students to avoid getting annoyed further, then he saw Sakura, whose eyes lit up when she saw Sasuke approaching the crowd. Nevermind, it would be better to just sit down by the benches, there wasn't anyone there except Shikamaru laying down on a bench and watching the clouds. He had a notepad laying on his abdomen, and he'd draw some of the clouds as they passed by. Sasuke sat down next to him, their eyes met. Shikamaru sighed as he stood up from the bench, leaving his notepad and pen behind, stretching his arms, he slowly walked towards the ring as both Kattetsu and their sensei waited patiently for him to arrive.
"Oi, stop being so lazy Shikamaru! Kattetsu here will kick your ass, isn't that right, Akamaru?" He spoke loudly with a grin, showing his sharp canine teeth, his voice booming through the crowd of students. Akamaru barked in agreement with his owner, and some of the civilian girls giggled, rephrasing what Kiba had said about Shikamaru, trying to tease him. Teasing Shikamaru wasn't the only reason why Kiba had said that though and Shikamaru could realise it. Kiba was a brash boy but he was still kind at heart, he just wanted to improve the morale of the Uchiha boy in a way after all that happened. Shikamaru rolled his eyes and entered the ring. With the hand motion of their teacher, they both did the seal of confrontation.
Kattetsu evaluated his enemy. Shikamaru Nara. He was one of the only boys in the class that had never bothered too much with the physical classes, his strength was his theoretical knowledge and tactical approach to fighting. He had one advantage over him too, and it was that he was ambidextrous, he could use his left hand as his armed hand to limit the angle Kattetsu could strike him from, although he didn't have the speed to do so and his footwork was not too good. It should be an easy match, the boy thought. "Start!" Iruka shouted, allowing for the spar to begin.
Shikamaru quickly tried to fill the distance in between them, there was a theory in close-quarters combat called the theory of the triangle. The best angle one could have to strike was a 45 degree angle, if one was to assume that the enemy was the alpha point of the triangle. With slick footwork, he made it to the left side of the Uchiha boy, of course Kattetsu wasn't a sitting duck waiting around to be trapped, so taking power from his hip, he kicked the boy on his lower leg with a side kick to at least lower his balance. Shikamaru took a step back to avoid the kick, and Kattetsu quickly rushed in towards the boy, taking a fool's guard with his kunai in a low stance and rotating his body, he aimed to stab the boy on his sides. Shikamaru gritted his teeth as he protected his side with his armed hand, the kunai clashing and pressing against each other. He raised his leg to kick the boy on the head, but was stopped by Kattetsu raising his left arm to take guard, shit!
Kattetsu held onto Shikamaru's leg and tucked it underneath his armpit, tugging it to make the Nara boy fall down, the boy quickly crossed his arming hand against his chest and held the kunai in a reverse grip to make sure Kattetsu would not dare to lean onto him, that was the least he could do, but Kattetsu just flung the kunai against his head with a flick of the wrist, gaining a whine of pain from the boy, and the spar was finished. "Kattetsu Uchiha has won!"
Kattetsu raised a hand to the Nara to help him get up. He didn't care much about the boy, but it would be better to keep things relatively friendly with people. People had to like him. He felt that need, a confirmation that they would care for him, so, why not be helpful to others? It could benefit him too. Shikamaru grasped the hand that had came to his help and got up. "Thank you, Kattetsu. It was a fair match."
"...Yeah, it was. No problem."
After their short interaction, they separated to their own paths, Shikamaru laying down on the bench to do more cloudwatching and Kattetsu returning to the crowd.
Shikamaru was interested in Kattetsu. How had he survived after what had happened to them? What did Sasuke know about him? Beforehand, he was just another classmate but now, him and Sasuke were the prime interests of the academy students. He timidly raised his head, and poked Sasuke on the arm, the raven-haired boy slowly turned his head and met his glance. "Sasuke, it was a good match, wasn't it?" He muttered, trying to sparkle a conversation.
Sasuke didn't say anything for a few seconds, only intently looking at his face. Did he say something wrong? That was what the pony-tailed boy was pondering about, but the silence was finally broken. "It was a bit too short, I'd expect that he'd struggle more." He muttered, returning his gaze towards the sparring rings and watching the spars happen, studying each and every move.
Aha! Now, he could go and question him about Kattetsu, if he knew that he'd struggle, then he surely must have known more about him. "Oh, really? Why say so, what do you know about him anyways?"
A sigh left Sasuke's lips, he really didn't want to be interrogated about this after all, but he'd give in. Shikamaru wasn't the kind of boy to give up easily when it came to things that peaked his interest. "Kattetsu Uchiha. Grandson of Gouta Uchiha, a retiree of the regular forces of Konohagakure. His pension was paid by the clan as by the time he had retired, there hadn't been a pension plan issued by the hokage yet. I would see him in our training grounds, he would usually struggle. I suppose you are weaker than the average Uchiha child." He ended his sentence with a mocking statement, a slight smirk appearing on his face. Sometimes, it felt good to rub things like this in people's faces.
Shikamaru was simply dumbfounded, but at least he had learned what he had to learn, except that he still did not know how did the boy survive, he had his doubts that Sasuke wanted to hear about this, but he still wanted to try. "So, how did he survive the massac-" A punch met with his jawline before he could finish his sentence, he rolled over down onto the floor with the force of the punch, and held onto his jaw which was tingling with pain, his anger became apparent on his face but so was the raven-haired boy angry. He decided to keep calm, getting his ass kicked wasn't something he had planned out for the day... Oh man, his mom was going to be so damn pissed.
"Don't you dare mention it to me." Sasuke muttered, leaving Shikamaru alone on the floor. The students were watching it happen, and they started muttering amongst eachother. Iruka sensei went after Sasuke to talk with him.
"Yeehuuu! Shikamaru just got his ass kicked!" Kiba shouted in excitement, jumping around in a childish manner but was silenced by the hateful gaze Choji gave him when he did so. Choji made it next to him to check his jawline to see if it would bruise or not. After making sure that it wouldn't bruise, Choji helped him get up and sit down on the bench.
"Thank you Choji, I appreciate that, that Sasuke, he's so damn bothersome, isn't he?" He grumbled while massaging his jaw.
"Hm... eh, Shikamaru, I guess you're right." Choji said warily, then an idea came to his mind. He'd invite Shikamaru to the Akimichi restaurant, maybe tag a few classmates a long, that could make Shikamaru feel happier, even if this situation had bummed him out... "Shikamaru, would you like to go to the Akimichi restaurant? My papa caught a few wild fowls yesterday. He'll make yakitori with it. I'd like to offer you a free dinner after academy!"
"Yeah, that'd be good... I haven't had yakitori in a long while." He said, laying his head back on the bench as he continued to cloud watch, sketching out the ones he found to be interesting.
Choji nodded his head with excitement. "Yeah, it'll be good! We make the best yakitori in all of Konohagakure after all, but uhm, I've got to go and wait until my turn for the spars, so see you, Shikamaru!" Then he walked away from the benches and joined the crowd in front of the sparring rings.
The voices of the students boomed through the classroom as they discussed the results of the sparring and how to effectively use the kunai, most of them joked around, but a few took it seriously. Sasuke had found himself a table on the top corner, he was still angry and he couldn't bother to interact with curiousity of idiots, he didn't understand how could they not realise the importance of such an event for him, or for Kattetsu too, even if he didn't know the boy all that well, at least it was a relative that the clan killer hadn't managed to kill. Shikamaru's question had made him think too, if he had to admit that. How did Kattetsu survive? Itachi had killed every clan member and he hadn't spared anyone. Hell, the only reason why he hadn't been killed himself was that he was too weak. Was it the same for Kattetsu? Hmm, maybe it could be good for Sasuke to talk with the boy sometime. He wanted to realise why it had happened the way it had happened. He sighed, pulling out his notepad and pen, Iruka sensei would arrive soon. They were finally getting to actual ninjutsu instead of the theories and chakra control practices. They would have been taught the basic three.
Naruto was chitchatting with Kiba, they decided to share a table, Naruto didn't feel like messing with Sasuke as he seemed too mad, and the rest of the class didn't really care for him much, so his best option was to sit down with the dog-breath. He wasn't all that bad, and sometimes they'd prepare pranks together, so that'd be fun. He remembered the time they threw the dog poop bags from the Inuzuka kennels into the trade center, oh boy! They couldn't even count the amount of civilians running after them that day, Iruka sensei found them quickly though, and they had to thoroughly clean the trade center for a week as punishment... That had sucked, there were a lot of people entering and leaving, and he could hear all of them just muttering hateful words about him whilst making sure not at his general direction overall. His train of thoughts were interrupted by their sensei stepping into the classroom.
"Naruto, we're going to learn ninjutsu, dude!" Kiba sharply whispered into his ear, the excitement was apparent on Kiba's face and so was his. He nodded his head, but he had to fix one thing about Kiba's statement, his name wasn't Naruto any longer dang it, it was Naru now! He hadn't wanted to tell anyone in the classroom yet, but he trusted Kiba in that he wouldn't say anything bad about it.
"Kiba," He whispered, then he looked around to see if Iruka sensei was paying any attention to them, he didn't want to get shouted at so early, when he made sure that Iruka wasn't paying any attention, he leaned his head forwards. "Don't call me Naruto, dog-breath, call me Naru from now on." He hissed quietly into Kiba's ear, Kiba just shrugged his shoulders and nodded. Who was he to refuse such a simple request?
"Sure, sure... Naru." He replied before returning his attention to the class. He didn't want to be missing anything out as Iruka sensei was introducing the lesson they would have, he poked at Naru's arm to make sure that the boy would pay attention to the class too instead of just meaninglessly looking around. Naru nodded his head, and with a puff he pulled his notepad and pen out.
"...and, taking into account the chakra control training we have done, I think that the class is going to be quite capable of performing the basic three. Now, I'll be handing the scrolls for the basic three. Do ask me any questions you've got after reading the scrolls... I'll be giving the class 15 minutes of reading time for the bunshin. Then tomorrow, we'll be practising the henge. Afterwards, it'll be the kawamiri. I recommend that all of you study the scrolls thoroughly and practice at home. The henge might be a bit hard as it requires one to pay attention to even the smallest details if it were to be used in a real situation, the same can be said for the bunshin, and the kawamiri simply depends on how large or small the object you wish to replace yourself with is. I'll be leaving the classroom for now to give all of you some free time to read the scroll. Good luck!"
Then he left the classroom, leaving it in complete silence. Everyone, even the goofiest of the students were silent as they read through the scroll, they could damn clone themselves now! That was going to be damn cool, they already had memorised all of the hand signs and had done almost all of the basic chakra control exercises, Naruto hadn't expected it to be as hard to understand the text though. One first had to do the Ram hand seal and leak a tiny amount of chakra from the tenketsu, the chakra would have to be spread around and shaped as smoke to make sure that there was coverage for the clones to be created in. The smoke would dissipate quickly as it was a chakra smoke so one would have to quickly go through the other seals — Snake and tiger — and release as much chakra was desired and will the hazy chakra to take shape into oneself, it wasn't described perfectly but it was always described as being a tiny amount of chakra that was used, then one had to will the chakra too take the will of the creator, otherwise it would be too easy to realise that they were clones and they would be incapable of fighting correctly. Dang it, he didn't want to fail... he had to make this work.
But now in silence, he could think, dressing like a girl hadn't done much to improve his popularity or make people care for him. It had to be a combination of many variables, so he'd take note of a few quickly before he had to practice the hand signs, he sweated nervously as he saw those around him already practising the hand seals, even dog-breath was done with the reading! He took his notepad out to take his notes, he'd go over them later! Then, he quickly threw the notepad into his bag and rolled the scroll once more, starting to practice the hand signs to make sure that his hand movements would be smooth at least, so he went through them one by one.
Ram → snake → tiger, ram → snake → tiger, ram → snake → tiger, ram → snake → tiger...
He must have practiced it at least a hundred times before their sensei had returned. His grin grew on his face. He sure as hell could do this, it was going to be easy, there was no way that he'd fail, he was Naru Uzumaki after all! Iruka sensei placed his notepad on the table, then he coughed into his hand loudly to get the attention of his students. All eyes dragged towards him.
"I hope that all of you have studied it well, you will be given your first grade on the bunshin no jutsu today. The second grade will be given in the mid term, and the third and last one of the year will be given at the end of this year. Now, I don't know if I should say this too but in the last year, all of the three grades will be combined and another grade will be given with the performance you'll show making usage of the basic three. So you might pass this year, but if you do not practice it enough and fail at performing the bunshin or any other jutsu, you'll be failing. Now, please don't panic because I will be calling all of you one by one on this list, I'll be calling you randomly, now..." He took the notepad into his hand and opened it, flipping the page to the students' list, then he pressed his finger against the paper, and closed his eyes before swirling his finger around the paper for a bit and opening his eyes. Hinata Hyuga. She hadn't changed by the spar at all. It had ended a bit too quickly. "Hinata Hyuga, please step up and perform the bunshin no jutsu. The maximum amount of clones to be created is three. You may start." Raising his pen, he waited for the dark blue haired girl to perform the jutsu.
Hinata Hyuga timidily got off from her chair and walked towards the front of the classroom. A blush burnt up on her cheeks as she prepared to perform the jutsu, it felt as if every eye was on her, watching her every move carefully, she felt as if she was being berated, she felt embarrassed... She took in a deep breath as their sensei raised his eyebrow at her. "You may perform the jutsu, Hinata."
She nodded her head and did the Ram seal, forcing tiny amounts of chakra out of her tenketsu as the smoke rose up slowly, lingering on her skin, then it sped up, and she went through the rest of the hand seals as quick as she could, and out came three clones. This wasn't even close as being hard as the tenketsu training they had done in the clan, as the smoke dispersed, they could see that Hinata had managed to make three clones. Iruka sensei slowly started clapping for the girl. The clones were perfect. The colouring, proportions and the details. They were excellently done, especially considering this was the first ever time she had done it.
"Great job, Hinata! I hadn't expected this at all but you've surprised me. Everyone, this is how the bunshin no jutsu should be performed. Look at the edges of the clone, do you see how sharp the edges of the clones are? They aren't blurry at all. She has managed to concentrate the hazy chakra cloud into a perfectly shaped body. Take notes! Hinata, I'll be giving you an S for this grade. Good job. Everyone, please applaud!"
They were forced to applaud for the Hyuga girl, some were quite excited to be applauding though, like Kiba whom clapped alongside with Akamaru barking. So was Naru happy, clapping as hard as he could, reddening the palms of his hands. "Alright, alright, I'll be calling someone else now, calm down!" Iruka shouted and everyone kept silent, not wanting their grade to be possibly lowered if their sensei was to be mad. Iruka wrote down Hinata's grade and picked someone, it was Sasuke this once. He stood up and made it next to the desk, quickly performing the jutsu and sitting back down on his desk, gaining the cooing of a few girls. Iruka raised his eyebrow. The boy was still mad, huh? With a frown, he wrote down his grade, calling a civilian boy afterwards. The boy had made only one clone and even then, it was pale, blurry and couldn't stand up. He shaked his head before writing down a E as his grade. Then, he called out someone else. "Naruto Uzumaki!"
Author's Note:
Uhh, hello guys! I hope you've enjoyed the chapter.
This is going to be the first author's note in the story and err, sorry for not writing any until now but I really wanted to write this because I am curious about the opinions that all of you have, for example I was wondering if I should try to cut down on the amount of chapters that will be spent on the academy days? They won't be all that interesting because you know, they'll be getting educated and whatnot and that ain't that interesting even for me... So please do answer this question in the reviews section.
But yeah, I wish all of you a great day or night depending on where you live. See ya!