The first year of the Academy was rather lackluster. For the most part I didn't learn anything new, other than geography and history. I learned some new things about chakra, such as if you use it all, you die. That was a chaotic emotional experience; during my training before I went to the academy, I had routinely nearly drained my chakra in my efforts to understand it more. I supposed my parents didn't tell me such a thing because they didn't think I'd even be able to use my chakra to such an extent before even entering the Academy. To learn I had unintentionally almost killed myself multiple times was not fun to learn.

As my body got more physically fit from school, my chakra also increased. If I were to gauge it, I think I had more chakra than almost anyone in the village. For people I'd actually met, the only one who had more chakra than me was Naruto. There had to be others though right? For example the Hokage was the most powerful person in the village, so he had to be one of them, right?

I also learned that the chakra rivers as I'd been calling them were actually called the chakra network. There were different "nodes" along the network that could be turned on and off by a skilled practitioner of the Hyuga clan's Gentle Fist. Apparently there were other methods of shutting off the nodes as well, but I had yet to learn what they were. I wonder if there was a way to defend against similar techniques. It would be a big problem if I were to encounter that in the wild, and I couldn't use any chakra. Maybe I can ask Hinata to spar with me, of course I won't tell her that I'm trying to develop a counter to one of her clan's secret weapons.

Another development was that I had become better friends with Hinata, Choji, and Naruto. The Former of the three were no problem, however as I got closer to Naruto, I noticed the adults around us giving me the cold shoulder just like Naruto. It happened mainly when I was around him, but lately it had started to happen when he wasn't around as well. I noticed a change in Iruka as well. Not anything major, but slight things, like he would glare less often, or would no longer sneer at Naruto when he otherwise would have. For that, I immediately gained slightly more respect for Iruka; he was overcoming his prejudice for Naruto slowly but surely. I couldn't say the same for the rest of the villagers. Even my parents, while they didn't show any hate or distaste towards him, they were still somewhat wary.

I had been to Naruto's apartment a few times and it was a goddamn mess. It was understandable why it happened, after all he was alone and basically raised himself, but it was still gross. I tried to subtly clean here and there but the mess would always be back by the time I was over next time. More than once I also had to fend off angry villagers from throwing rocks into his window. I had no idea how this kid did it; all these people treated him like crap but all he would do was smile and wave like nothing happened. One of the things that also intrigued me was as I spent more time around Naruto, I noticed that there was something different about his chakra.

Naruto seemed to have two sources of chakra inside him, and as far as i could tell that should have been impossible. One was the normal kind of chakra that everyone had, and the second was a more powerful, slightly sinister chakra. It seemed to be caged behind something, but by what I had no clue. I was sure that if I didn't have experience with mana, and communicating with extra dimensional beings back in Azeroth, I wouldn't have been able to notice. Could this be the reason everyone seemed to hate him? They were jealous of his second source of chakra? If he were able to learn to harness it, he'd be one extremely powerful ninja. Maybe instead of jealousy, they saw him as a threat?

Only time would tell, but for now I decided not to mention his second source of chakra. After all, he was already having issues controlling his already large chakra reserves. If I told him about it, he would be hell bent on trying to access it, and I wasn't sure that was a good thing yet. While only slightly evil, evil was still evil and it would pretty quickly corrupt the kid. I still didn't care about the looks I got, I had dealt with much more evil things than that chakra of his, so as far as I was concerned, Naruto was just a little boy with no friends who didn't want to be alone anymore.

These villagers should be glad Naruto has such a kind heart; once he grew up he could likely destroy this village. He wouldn't do it though, for some reason he still liked this village and wanted to become its leader.

As for my friendship with Hinata and Choji, things went way more smoothly. Although learning how Hinata was treated in her clan was starting to make me really pissed off. Her father was a jackass, treating a child like a perpetual failure. She didn't go into details though, and I didn't press it. When Hinata wanted to talk, she would open up. I would just be her friend, similar to how I was just being friends with Naruto.

During the winter, Hinata started getting harassed by bullies for her strange eyes. Naruto and I were on our way back to his house, when we saw Hinta on the ground with three bullies surrounding her. This totally enraged Naruto and he rushed forward to confront them. Curious, I stayed back and watched what would happen. During this time I was still having trouble controlling my strength when I fought, so I didn't want to kill the bullying little shits.

"Hey! What do you guys think you're doing?!" he roared.

"Hey look, it's the shrimp," one of them said.

"I'm not a shrimp! I'm the future Hokage!" he angrily replied.

As he was trying to show off a jutsu he hadn't yet mastered, he totally embarrassed himself. He got sucker punched in the face and the bullies ruined his red scarf. I was also pissed, but because of my aforementioned problem, I couldn't do much if I didn't want to permanently hurt them. Of course, I could go without using chakra reinforcement, but we hadn't learned to fight properly yet, and they were still a lot bigger than us.

By the time Naruto had come to his senses, the bullies had left. He sat up groggily as i came over.

"Are you okay?" Hinata said with concern.

"Yeah, I'm used to it so I'm fine." he tried to reassure her.

"He's a blockhead, it will take more than that to keep him down," I told Hinata, also trying to make her feel better.

"Those bullies ruined your scarf" she said, trying to hand it to him. But all he did was wave it off.

"I'm really sorry" she apologised

"Nah, forget it" he said and got up.

As we were about to leave she stopped us.

"Umm, I just wanted to say, thank you very much" she said with a bow.

We both grinned and waved goodbye and ran off. Yeah I didn't do anything, but if they weren't going to mention it, neither was I. It was getting late and I was strangely tired. I needed sleep.

As for Choji, Shikamaru and I mainly just hung around doing nothing. It was a companionable silence though so it wasn't awkward. However he often found himself being the victim of bullying as well, but unlike Hinata, who had no good friends, Choji had Shikamaru and I to stick up for him. The kids often like to play a game called Ninja, which seemed to be a cross between tag and hide and seek. Classic games no matter what universe you were in apparently. It bored me to tears, these were just kids to me after all, but Shikamaru seemed to have fun.

The other kids knew he was friends with the Nara Twins, so they made fun of him behind our backs. We found out that he was often bullied for his weight, telling Choji on days that he tried to play without us that any team he played on was bound to lose. One day when we all tried to play, the other kids tried to prevent Choji from playing. Shikamaru stood up for him saying that if they wouldn't let him play, then the teams were unbalanced. I helped by just glaring at the kids. Apparently I was kind of scary, or so Choji told me one day. They still didn't want to let him play, but we told them that unless they let choji play, we wouldn't play.

Of course, the stubborn kids still wouldn't let him play, so since then we had never played with them again. I had found out later from Choji's dad that he and his son were really happy he had found a couple of friends like us. Choza had always told his son that one day he would find friends who could appreciate him for who he was, and respect him and his kind heart. It turned out to be true when he met Shikamaru and I.

And just like that, Our second year of ninja school rolled around.

I was quite excited for this year, it would mean that we finally got to learn some chakra control exercises. Up until now we had just been learning chakra theory, but now we would finally put it into practice. Before I had learned that exhausting all of one's chakra could kill you, I had considered trying to replicate some of my spells from Azeroth, or trying to figure out how jutsu worked. After learning that fact, I had decided to wait and learn from professionals; so I had limited myself to just the chakra reinforcement I had made. I had no clue if anyone else could use such a technique, but I wasn't willing to ask. I didn't want to potentially give up one of my trump cards if it turned out no one else could do it. So this would be my first time learning new applications of chakra.

Soon I would also be able to replicate spells as well. The first spell a warlock learns is Shadow Bolt. So once I learned how to affect the outside world with chakra, I would start trying to replicate the easiest spell a warlock would use. I eventually hoped to be able to use my full arsenal of spells, and summon my demons again. I honestly kind of missed not seeing Aztog every day.

Walking up to the gate of the academy with our parents again, Shikamaru and I took a look around for people we knew from last year. There were a lot of kids, but I still managed to pick out a few. Naruto was also predictably on his swing by the edge of the courtyard. By this time our parents had gotten used to him now, and no longer acted wary. They even waved at him as I walked up to him.

"Hey, how's it going?" I asked

"Not terrible I suppose" he said while looking glum

"Don't worry, one day all those people will know they were wrong to treat you like crap." I tried to reassure him. I knew why he was really upset; he wanted parents to be able to drop him off at school like these kids had.

"Come on, let's head to class." I told him as I pulled him off his swing.

I waved goodbye to my parents as we walked up the path to the front door. Shikamaru caught up to us as we entered the front door, and the same lady was at the front desk.

"Hello again, where is our classroom this year?" I asked her. Her polite smile was forced this time since I was with Naruto.

"Third floor on the right" she said flatly.

"Thank you!" we said as we left.

'That kid has even more chakra than last year. I wonder if she's a Jinchuuriki too.' the old lady thought to herself with a shiver.

In a dark room somewhere in the village, sat a man with bandages on one half of his face.

"How is their progress?" the man asked

"Good, they have grown much more powerful in recent years" a kneeling shinobi wearing an animal mask said.

"Good, good, in several more years they should be ready for what we have planned." the man said to his subordinate.

Entering the classroom was much the same as last year. As kids were trickling in, Shikamaru and I decided to sit at the back of the class again this year. Naruto ended up sitting somewhere in the middle. He had for some reason developed a crush on the pink haired girl Sakura, so he was trying to find a spot next to her. I could tell at first glance she was shallow as hell and only had eyes for Sasuke, but I wasn't going to try and ruin Naruto's dreams. He would have to learn the hard way that some people aren't worth the trouble.

As the room filled up, the same sensei from last year entered the room.

"Welcome back class, I'm sure you remember my name, but in case you have forgotten over the summer break, I am Iruka Umino, and I will once again be your sensei this year." he announced.

"Hello Iruka sensei" the class said in unison.

"I'm sure you all know what's in store for this year, but I shall go over it briefly again. First is History. This year will be focused more on that. Second, will be strategy and tactics. Followed by some martial skills; learning to throw weapons, you'll learn hand to hand combat, and you'll learn to properly fall, and get hit. Lastly we'll cover some chakra control exercises." he explained.

The history, tactics, and strategy classes seemed to utterly bore the class. They wanted to learn the cool shit like weapons and fighting. I was bored of them too, but mainly because I wouldn't learn anything new from them. As a veteran raider fighting gods, strategy tactics were of paramount importance if we wanted even a chance to win. As for history I had ended up looking that stuff up on my own in the Konoha Library. It seemed this year would be another boring one.

I ended up sleeping through the first three classes with Shikamaru and Choji. Last year I had insisted on my brother and friends learning all they could before sleeping. We were not going to be at the bottom of the class; after all, if we wanted the veteran ninjas to teach us when we graduated, we needed good grades. Shikamaru was easy to tutor, he picked everything up like a sponge due to his high intelligence. Choji and Naruto were harder to encourage to learn, they wanted to do everything else but be in class. In the end though we were in the Top 5 of the class along with Hinata; Ino and Sakura behind us.

Because of my insistence on being top of the class, Iruka Sensei wasn't too perturbed about us sleeping in his class, so long as we kept our grades up. It wasn't until the martial classes that we perked up. After all, this was the whole reason I came to Ninja School; while I could learn all this stuff on my own, I didn't want to develop any bad habits. I knew this mage once who was self taught, wasting years of his life teaching himself, only to learn he had done it in such a way that his magic was killing him from improper use. I had nearly done the same thing with my chakra experiments.

Speaking of which, I was finally able to reinforce half my body with chakra. Usually I did both arms, or both my legs, if I needed to I would reinforce my chest but since we haven't done much sparring yet, that wasn't necessary. I still haven't told anyone of this ability, since again I didn't want to go through the trouble of explaining where I learned it. It was also a good trump card. During our physical training I made sure that I never used it, otherwise it would trivialize the exercise and I would gain nothing.

Going out to the training ground, Iruka Sensei addressed us.

"Alright class, before we can get you to control your chakra, you first need to learn to feel it." he started.

As he finished talking, I looked inward and started observing my chakra. I could tell that it had gotten more potent, I also had a lot more of it compared to when I first started practicing. I watched how it moved along my chakra network, gathered around my heart, and then left again to continue the cycle. Since I obviously knew how to see my chakra and control it to an extent, I wanted to kill some time so it didn't look like I had mastered it in seconds. I knew how it felt to be treated as a genius, and it fucking sucked. I had no desire to experience it again.

Unfortunately I had been so absorbed with my thoughts I had tuned out his explanation on how to feel for chakra, so when I looked up all I saw was a bunch of kids with their eyes closed already.

"Finished already Miss Kari?" I heard from behind me. Turning, I saw it was the sensei.

"Yes Iruka sensei. I don't know why but I found it not too hard to find my chakra." i told him.

"Well, finding your chakra in a couple hours isn't too bad at all. Well done. Here, take this leaf and join the other students who have finished the exercise." he said, handing me a normal leaf.

After another hour, about half the students had found out how to feel their chakra. Iruka then began the second part of today's practice.

"The next part of our exercise is to practice control, and concentration. Place the leaf on your forehead and direct all your chakra to that point. Except for you two, Naruto and Kari. If you two put all your chakra into the leaf, it would explode." he said while pointing at us.

"Well what are we supposed to do then Sensei?" Naruto asked, while I already knew the answer.

"Isn't that obvious? You will have to learn how much chakra you can put into the leaf without damaging it." he explained, with less of a glare than he would normally give Naruto.

I heard Naruto grumble something under his breath about Iruka but I couldn't quite hear it. Ignoring him, I got to work finally learning something new about chakra. I started by grabbing a tiny amount of my chakra and putting it into my forehead. I put the leaf on my forehead where the chakra was, but it didn't stick there like I would have hoped. Up until now I had only moved my chakra around inside my body; I had yet to try and manipulate it outside of my body. Next I tried imagining a thin film of chakra on the outside of my body like a second skin, and willing my chakra to move outward. I once again tried to put the leaf on my forehead, but this time instead of sticking to my forehead, it disintegrated.

Hmmm… I'm either doing it wrong or using way too much chakra. This time I tried doing the same thing but imagining the layer of chakra to be thinner. The leaf disintegrated again but slower. Okay, next was to try and reduce the amount of chakra I used. If before I used a cup full, this time I used roughly a thimble sized amount. That amount seemed to do the trick. The leaf stuck to my forehead without getting destroyed, but not for very long. I tried again, and again. I decided to ask a question.

"Iruka Sensei, I can get the leaf to stick to my forehead, but it won't stay there. What am I doing wrong?" I asked him.

"Hmmm, let me see. Do it again." he told me

I did so, repeating the steps I had done before in order not to destroy the leaf.

"I can feel you using chakra, and it quickly diminishes. To me it looks like you aren't maininting your chakra there. You need to continuously feed the leaf chakra to make it stay." he explained.

"I see, thank you Iruka Sensei" I responded absentmindedly.

Turning back to the leaf I realized something about how I'd been doing my body reinforcement. I always wondered why I was having trouble maintaining it. I was kind of just throwing chakra to the part of my body I wanted to reinforce. Eventually that chakra would run out and I would need to refresh the duration. That was how I was used to casting spells back on Azeroth. It was why a Damage Over Time spell for example only lasted for a certain amount of time. It would last until it had consumed the mana I had given the spell to function. I was used to just throwing mana at it, and then when the spell wore off I threw more mana at it.

If the magic users of Azeroth knew this, they would be feared a shit ton more than they already were. Their magic spells could last for as long as they had mana. I needed to not think about that for now. I was losing concentration and the leaf wasn't sticking. This time I threw about half a thimble amount of chakra at my forehead and tried feeding it more chakra. I stuck the leaf on my forehead and after about five seconds it disintegrated again. Okay I was feeding it too much chakra.

After another hour or so I finally got the hang of keeping it on my forehead. I could keep it going for about 10 minutes before I got too mentally exhausted and had to take a break. This was a lot harder than just setting it and forgetting about it. I took a look around the training field to see that all the kids were now doing the leaf exercise with various amounts of success.

Shikamaru had nailed it pretty quickly, Hinata was used to this sort of thing already with her clans fighting style so she got it almost instantly, Choji was having some trouble though. And Naruto? Well I was now understanding what people meant when they said having a crap ton of chakra was hard to control. He had a pile of exploded leaves around him and was in the middle of exploding another. I decided to help Choji first, since Naruto knew how to do it already, he just needed control.

"Hey Choji, need some help?" I asked him as I was walking up.

"Yeah I can't seem to get the leaf to stick. Have you figured it out?" he responded.

"Yep. I can make it stick for about ten minutes before I need to take a mental break" I told him.

"Wow, that's amazing! Even shikamaru can only do it for five. How did you manage it?" He sounded impressed.

"Oh it's not that big of a deal. I imagined it to be a film of mana on my forehead at first, and willing it to come outward." I said with a bit of a blush, unused to the praise.

"Mana?" choji asked?

"Sorry, I meant chakra. Don't worry about it." I told him, trying to cover my slip up.

He did as I told him and he seemed to have better results, but it still wouldn't stick.

"Man, that's pretty hard. I'm making more progress though, so thanks. I'll keep at it" he said, sounding more excited now that he was making progress.

Next I decided to help Naruto, if I could. My method of controlling chakra may not help him much.

"Need a hand?" I asked going up to him.

"Ughhh, this is so damn frustrating! Why does it keep exploding?!" he exclaimed in frustration.

"You're using too much chakra, although it seems for you they explode." i told him

"Huh? You mean they don't explode for you?" he said curiously

"Nah, until I learned the proper amount of chakra to use they would always disintegrate." I explained.

"Cool, how did you learn how much to use?" He sounded desperate now.

"Trial and error honestly. You know what a thimble is?" I asked.

"You mean those things the Kunoichi use for sewing?"

"Yep. I imagined filling one of those with my chakra, and using that amount to stick the leaf to my forehead." I said.

Like with Choji, he seemed to have more results. The leaf still got destroyed, but less violently.

"I think I still used too much, I wasn't able to use so little" he said.

"That's okay, keep trying. Chakra control will always be something people like you and I will have to work on." I told him.

"What do you mean, 'people like you and I'" he asked, confused.

"People with massive amounts of chakra" I explained.

"Really? I have that much chakra?" he sounded amazed.

"Yeah, you and I probably have more chakra than anyone else in the village save the Hokage and a few others." I said.

His eyes got really wide at that.

"Anyway, keep practicing. Now that you know you have to use as little chakra as possible, it shouldn't be too hard to get the leaf to stick" I encouraged him.

The rest of the day flew by, and just like that our first day of our second year in ninja school was done.