A/N: Hello, people! COVER ART BY Niyuu_Trickster_Kat!

I don't own Naruto.

I have no beta.

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1 Ryo = 10 Yen. 100 Yen = $0.91 as of Nov 7th 2019. All below $
were rounded to the closes 100.

5,000 Ryo = around $460.
25,000 Ryo = around $2,285.
1,235,00 Ryo = around $112,980.
510,000 Ryo = around $46,650.

TAGS for this Chapter: SWEARING.

I'm glad y'all seem to like this. :)

The AO3 version of this chapter has a pic of what Yuuki looks like.

The stipend paid from the orphan's fund was 5,000 Ryo a month for orphans attending the Shinobi Academy. Add that to the 5,000 Ryo she'd be getting a week until graduation from Hantaro's own wallet, and she'd have 25,000 Ryo to use each month. It was exciting since she;d never held more than 100 Ryo at a single time!

Yuuki was cheap though. Being poor taught you some hard lessons about not being greedy and stretching your money as far as it could go. She didn't own a hairbrush because her fingers were the same length as her hair and could do the job just as well. That meant less money toward unnecessary things, and more that could be put toward more important things.

Such as menstruation. Yuuki was of the unfortunate percentage to already get her first cycle. She hadn't even been eight for two months when it had happened. Rin had to give her a talk that consisted of a lot of left out terms she was apparently 'too young' to know. So Yuuki went to the school library once during lunch, sneaked into the adult section, and found out the rest herself. It was a lot to process, but she learned by she had to sacrifice basic things like hair ties and brushes so the orphanage could spend it on her stash of personal care products.

There was a discount on hygiene products for those who were shinobi because of their excessive need of such things. It all worked like an income tax basically. Every shinobi was aware of their own business and accepted that bit as a part of it. Each mission's pay was divided up. The village received 50% of the pay naturally. That 50% was then split up between various issues within the village. A whole 10% went toward the production of hygiene products, so every shinobi in the village contributed and as such, received 50% off the original price of every hygiene product they purchased.

Yuuki was not a shinobi yet, so she had to pay full price and the most important thing above all else was anything to help menstruation because it lowered the chances of making a mess. Getting blood out of clothes was such a pain and not something she wanted to waste time on.

So she would have to budget carefully.

Automatically, she set out to saving up. There was no guarantee that her first year as a Genin would bring in decent money since there was no way they'd send newbies to do really dangerous stuff outside the village. And once she was a Genin, she would have to pay for her apartment on her own and the village would no longer handle the rent and utility expenses.

So 25,000 Ryo a month for the next 51 months would equal 1,235,000 Ryo in total.

The best thing to do would be to put away at least 10,000 Ryo each month for a guaranteed 510,000 Ryo saved up upon graduation.

The remaining 15,000 Ryo would be divided up between needs.

Food: 5,000 Ryo.

Yuuki loved fruits but hated vegetables. But both were necessary according to her old Health class. Produce was a lot cheaper in the summer and autumn. She knew that because that was when the orphanage tended to have more produce on hand. And wasn't it just her luck that her chores at the orphanage had been to help Ito-obaa-san out in the kitchen. Which meant using the wood-burning stove and preparing and cooking food for everyone.

Clothes/Household Items: 5,000 Ryo.

An expense that would hopefully not be a monthly thing. If she planned accordingly, she wouldn't need to shop for clothes often. In fact, she had a great idea of an outfit. In the orphanage she'd only had two shirts and two pairs of shorts. And she had to wash them by hand every week. Multiple copies of the same outfit were acceptable so long as they were clean. Those belonged to the orphanage though and had to be returned for another orphan to use some day once she got her new wardrobe situated.

As for the house itself, she'd need curtains for privacy, bedding, dishes, and cleaning products to keep the place orderly. As it wasn't big inside, the chances of it getting cluttered quickly were extremely high and cleaning so time-consuming that she didn't want to have to do it outside of scheduled cleaning times.

Entertainment: 5,000 Ryo.

Most likely books or card games. A jump rope. Practice weapons for ninja classes. Other school supplies would be necessary too.

Any money left over would be kept for emergencies or a random urge to splurge on sweets. Being able to have the chance to splurge on anything would be nice. But then going out and having to walk somewhere to buy stuff would be a lot of work for something spur of the moment. She wasn't that dedicated to food despite it being one of her favorite things.

Yuuki had been given an apartment in a large building with an orange/red roof and a lot of stairs. It had a bedroom where the paint was chipping, a bathroom with water damage on the ceiling, and a kitchen with squeaky floorboards. Basic and yet totally fine for her needs.

Yesterday she didn't have anything to her name but the clothes on her back that weren't even hers for keeps. Having anything, even something small in a rundown building, was nice.

The biggest piece of clothing that was central to Yuuki's wardrobe, was her sweatshirt.

Shopping had been an experience in and of itself. She'd just wanted to get in and get out as soon as possible. And that was when her eyes landed on the beauty that was her new sweatshirt. No one would blink at someone wearing the same sweatshirt every single day. People did it all the time. A favorite coat was nothing new.

It was an off-white slip-on that was ten sizes too large, but she would continue to grow into it which was totally fine for looking into the future. The neckline was small allowing the fabric to stay in place instead of hanging off the shoulders. The bottom reached her knees and was very wide to allow ease of movement. The sleeves were too long so she had them rolled up several times to reveal her forearms.

Underneath was a bodysuit of skin-tight, mesh armor. Legit it was some type of shinobi metal that was flexible and could withstand decent damage according to the manufacturer. The shop worker hailed it as 'amazing'. The mesh covered from collarbones to wrists and ankles. Underneath were a simple black tank top and short-shorts combo. The sweatshirt had a big pocket in the front that she could store food in on the sly.

For an outfit it was pretty cool. And the growing into it part was the most appealing bit.

If all her planning went well, she'd only have to shop once a month. Less work to do!

The entrance exam had been very easy. The results came back showing she was advanced in Maths, Geography, Reading, and Writing. Science was average at best, but that was because it was boring and sounded painful all the time and who really cared that much to differentiate all the stuff that sounded similar but weren't? On these points alone she tested into the Second Year classes. Class A on her first go even!

Second Year had only begun weapons training this most recent term so she wasn't behind on that bit. And according to the fact that she had already located her chakra and could manipulate it in various ways, she was just a bit ahead of the Second Year curriculum in that aspect of training.

Her physical fitness was good for someone incredibly lazy. She could do the required five laps around the Academy's training ground which meant she was where she was supposed to be for her age group. She could throw a good punch at the very least so she didn't worry about sparring whenever that became a necessity.

Her first day of school was going to be interesting.

"Hello there. I'm Umino Iruka and I'm going to be your sensei from now on."

The man in question had darker skin than anyone else she'd ever seen, and an easy smile. He looked like the kind of person who cared about his students at least. The scar across the bridge of his nose wrinkled as his face muscles moved. She felt calm next to him.

Iruka motioned to the door with [2-A] hanging above it. "You'll be joining this particular class and evening out the number of students to thirty, which is lucky for you. Your exam results were impressive so I have high hopes."

Uh oh. She barely withheld a wince. High expectations meant more work.

He lead her into the room and called for the class to be silent. "Everyone, this is your newest classmate. I expect you all to be mature about this and show kindness i know you're all capable of."

Yuuki jerked her head upward in a quick motion as a sort of nod of 'whassup?' to them all. "Hi. I'm Yuuki." A no-name orphan with no interesting qualities. If he wanted her to make friends, she didn't know how it would happen.

"Can you tell us how you came to join our class?" asked Iruka. "We don't often get transfers from the civilian school, especially in the middle of term. Let alone straight into the A-Class."

She shrugged. "One of the teen bullies decided words weren't enough for once, and got physical, so I got physical in return and laid him out with a single punch. 'Course my fist was covered in chakra and broke his jaw in the process but I don't think it was enough to knock him out. Unless he was just that pathetic."

The whole class was dead quiet, and Iruka's face was a cross between impressed and horrified. "Um… Yuuki-san, we don't allow fighting here."

She beamed innocently at him and fluttered her nonexistent lashes for good measure. "Don't worry sensei, I don't start fights. I finish them before they can even begin."

He didn't look appeased but gestured to an empty seat for her to take anyway.

Yuuki found herself beside a boy with a pineapple for a head. He was barely awake in his seat, slumped over the desk with very poor posture. The boy to his right was chubby and had red swirls on his cheeks. He had a bag of chips open on his lap and was carefully eating one at a time to avoid suspicion. His crunching was almost silent.

The room was pretty big and the windows filtered in enough sun that artificial lighting wasn't necessary. The other students were about as one would expect from shinobi-in-training. Dressed in clothes that wouldn't hinder physical fitness but also made them stand out.

She got a few odd looks but nothing to be concerned about. And she also noticed a familiar face!

A possible name eluded her but the bright blond hair and tanned skin stuck out like a sore thumb as no one else in the village had coloring like that. He'd been a loudmouth, if she recalled correctly. Probably still was he didn't seem like he'd grown out of that habit any time soon.

No one had known where he went, just that he was in the orphanage one day, and the next day, Rin was celebrating him being gone. Some nasty words were said that Yuuki chose to ignore since personal experience proved the opposite of Rin's assertions.

Maths was the first subject of the day. Yuuki had joined on the day of a unit assessment. Iruka had told her that she could wait a few days to study for it, but she decided to give it a go anyway.

She got the highest score.

Yuuki had learned mathematics by using food. It was a great motivation to remember stuff. Made learning more fun. Evenly splitting up portions of rice by going grain by grain was something she'd taken very seriously while cooking for the other orphans. As the assistant cook she was allowed a bit more to make up for the work and she would be damned if she didn't get her work's worth of food in return!

Classes continued on. Lunch was at noon, and an hour before that was Taijutsu and Shurikenjutsu practice for their class, outside in the yard.

Iruka coached her through how to hold shuriken and kunai properly without harming herself. Those the Academy provided for training were all made of plastic. Very sharp plastic though. They wouldn't get actual metal until their Fourth Year where they'd be considered trustworthy enough to wield such weapons.

This was all about improving aim first. The plastic even weighed the same as a standard, iron kunai and shuriken would be. The weight was distributed evenly.

Yuuki was good at plain throwing. Her aim was fine. Kunai and shuriken weren't like rocks or balls though. Their weight was placed so specifically that they had to be thrown a certain way in order to land the right way. Shuriken were not like pointy frisbees of death. That was the first lesson she learned.

It should be noted though, that when she threw a kunai like it was a hatchet, she did finally hit the target she'd been set in front of. Of course it was at the bottom red ring, but the kunai had penetrated all the way up to the handle which was pretty good for something made of plastic.

"That is not the proper way to go about it," noted Iruka, "but if there's ever a moment on a mission where it seems like it's necessary, don't hold back."

Cool. "Are hatchets ever used as ninja weapons?" Yuuki asked. "I can throw hatchets pretty good."

"Pretty well," corrected the Chunin automatically. "And I've never heard of them being used as such, sorry."

Crap. "What about boomerangs?"

The man looked lost. "I'm trained in the standard shinobi weaponry, Yuuki-san. I'm not the best to come to about specializations. You could visit a shinobi blacksmith and ask them in person if you're curious. I can give you the address to Konoha's best blacksmith shop."

"Cool! Thanks, sensei!"

She returned to throwing the kunai the correct way. And while she didn't hit the target at all, being inches off from it was decent considering she'd just started today.

The other kids in the class varied in their level of skill.

Off the bat, she noticed that the clan kids all had better aim and that was obviously because they had the chance to train at home with their shinobi family members. The civilian students weren't as skilled and for some reason most of the girls weren't trying very hard.

A blonde girl and a girl with pale eyes were the best.

The boys were much more harsh on their targets. She didn't know any names yet, but the one in the long coat had the best aim, allowing to hit dead center while the one with the fan on his back could throw multiple kunai at once and have them all land on his target, even if they weren't perfect hits.

And Loudmouth, the other orphan in the class, was just doing bad overall. He loudly boasted about passing the exercise and becoming Hokage - damn, high aspirations in life for one with absolutely nothing on his side going for him - and no one took him seriously. It was kind of sad actually.

By the end of the first day, she'd accumulated many thoughts and concerns, especially after wandering around and listening in on many conversations from different years and classes at lunch.

She presented her observations to Iruka once everyone was gone for the day and she knew they wouldn't be interrupted.

"Sensei?"

Iruka looked up, not expecting any students to still be there. But indeed, there stood Yuuki, the newest Academy student. She was dwarfed by her sweatshirt and looked adorable. Her dark eyes stared up at him with intensity and he placed his paperwork down to give her his full attention.

"Yes, Yuuki-san?"

"I don't get the idea of kunoichi classes."

Unexpected. She hadn't even had such a class yet as those were only on Thursdays and Fridays. "Well… they're supposed to teach valuable skills."

She shook her head. "But sensei, kunoichi only make up ⅕ of Konoha's forces. Only 24% of the entire Second Year are kunoichi-in-training. There aren't enough girls and there surely won't be enough for the missions the handbook state kunoichi lessons would benefit. Learning how to fit into other cultures doesn't need to be segregated by gender. It seems weird that ⅘ of the shinobi forces are just left to flounder across the Elemental Nations. Being boys doesn't mean they shouldn't learn secrecy and stealth."

He was speechless. Iruka hadn't ever really thought about it like that before. He'd never been in those classes nor did he teach those classes, so he'd never had to think about it or care that much about it in general. But she had a point.

"It just sounds like most of our shinobi are being crippled from the inside and that's concerning," the girl finished, looking up at him imploringly.

"I… will bring this to Hokage-sama's attention. Thank you, Yuuki-san."

Yuuki brightened instantly. "Cool!"

He watched as she ran from the room, and wondered just what life would be like with her in his class.

A/N: Another chapter is done!

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